Chapter 9 - The Lie About Hope’s Father
I ended the call.
Not because I believed Regina.
Because for one terrible second, I wondered whether she had found another way to destabilize me.
Rachel stood beside the monitor.
“Do not let her inside your head.”
“She said Hope is Mercer’s child.”
“She also prepared documents claiming Hope belonged to Kayla.”
“I have never been with Mercer.”
“I know.”
“Then why say it?”
“To make you doubt everything.”
But Regina did not invent lies randomly. She chose lies that covered something else.
We ordered an immediate independent DNA test.
Not because I questioned who I had slept with.
Because medical records had already been altered, embryos had been stolen, and a forged surrogacy agreement carried my name.
I needed to know whether the pregnancy itself had been manipulated.
Seven months earlier, Regina had convinced me to visit a private fertility clinic after Derrick and I struggled to conceive following the miscarriage.
The clinic performed hormone tests and one minor procedure. I was sedated.
Three weeks later, I became pregnant.
I had assumed the pregnancy happened naturally.
Now that assumption felt dangerous.
The clinic belonged to a medical corporation partially funded by the Hale Mothers Foundation.
Its director disappeared the morning after the wedding raid.
Rachel obtained my clinic file.
The records showed no embryo transfer.
But an anesthesia log indicated I remained sedated for forty-three minutes longer than medically necessary.
A nurse who worked that day remembered Regina waiting outside the procedure room with Daniel Mercer.
The DNA results required time.
Waiting became torture.
Meanwhile, the case continued collapsing around the Hales.
Preston filed to annul his marriage.
Donors sued Regina’s foundation.
The state froze dozens of accounts.
News outlets discovered that three families who had received ceremonial charity checks never received the actual money.
Kayla released a statement through her attorney claiming she had been manipulated by her mother and brother.
Then she blamed me.
Laura Bennett Hale infiltrated our family under false pretenses and used her government position to orchestrate a personal takeover of Highland Ridge.
The statement portrayed me as a jealous employee who deliberately went into labor during the wedding to create public sympathy.
Even Rachel looked stunned.
“She claims you deliberately went into labor?”
“Kayla has never allowed biology to interfere with her narrative.”
The public response was brutal.
Women posted thousands of messages describing pregnancies, emergency births, and family members who dismissed their pain.
The video of Derrick walking away from the bathroom continued spreading.
Kayla’s attempt to blame me only made people angrier.
But behind the public spectacle, Mercer remained missing.
Dr. Patel identified him as one of the men involved in her kidnapping. Marissa Vale identified his voice as the person who gave her instructions through the burner phone.
She insisted Regina paid for the infant-removal plan but said Mercer added the syringe requirement privately.
That meant Regina may have wanted Hope alive.
Mercer wanted her dead.
The question was why.
The answer arrived with the DNA report.
Rachel entered my room carrying a sealed envelope.
Sam stood near the incubator.
I could not open it.
“You do it,” I said.
Rachel broke the seal.
Her eyes moved across the page.
Then she exhaled.
“Hope is biologically your daughter.”
I closed my eyes.
“And Derrick?”
Rachel looked at me.
“Derrick is not her biological father.”
The room seemed to move.
“That’s impossible.”
“The test was repeated.”
“I never slept with anyone else.”
“No one is accusing you of that.”
“Then whose child is she?”
Rachel turned the second page.
“The paternal genetic profile is consistent with Preston Cole.”
Kayla’s husband.
I stared at her.
“No.”
Preston and I had barely spoken before the wedding. We met only at family dinners.
Rachel continued.
“The fertility clinic records were falsified. Investigators recovered a deleted inventory file. An embryo created using your egg and sperm labeled as Derrick’s was implanted during your procedure.”
“Labeled as Derrick’s?”
“The sample actually belonged to Preston.”
I could not process the words.
“Why would the clinic have Preston’s sample?”
Preston and Kayla had undergone fertility testing the previous year. Kayla told everyone they had postponed having children because she did not want pregnancy to interfere with the wedding.
The truth was different.
Kayla could not safely carry a pregnancy because of a serious heart condition she kept secret from the press.
Regina wanted a direct Hale heir.
Kayla wanted a child biologically connected to Preston.
Derrick wanted access to the trust provisions activated by a child born within his marriage.
They used me to satisfy all three interests.
The embryo had been created from my egg and Preston’s sperm.
I was both the biological mother and gestational mother.
Preston was the biological father.
Neither of us consented.
Sam turned away, his hands clenched.
“This is medical assault.”
Rachel nodded.
“And conspiracy, identity theft, unlawful reproductive procedure, fraud, and several other charges.”
I looked at Hope.
Nothing about her changed.
She was still my daughter.
But every fact surrounding her conception had been violated.
“Did Preston know?” I asked.
“No evidence suggests he did.”
“Does he know now?”
“He is waiting downstairs.”
I agreed to see him.
Preston entered the room looking as pale as I felt.
Rachel remained beside us.
He did not approach Hope.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You didn’t do it.”
“My sample was stored at the clinic because Kayla and I were considering treatment. She told me it had been destroyed.”
“Did you know about her heart condition?”
“Not until investigators found the records.”
He looked through the glass at Hope.
“She’s mine?”
“Biologically,” Rachel said. “But legal parentage will require court review.”
Preston sat down.
“I don’t want to take her from you.”
The fact that he understood my fear made it harder to breathe.
“She needs stability,” he continued. “You are her mother. I will not challenge that.”
“What do you want?”
“To help protect her. Whatever that looks like.”
Before I could respond, an alarm sounded from Rachel’s phone.
She opened the alert.
A motion sensor had activated at the lake house.
The house where our father’s remaining files were stored.
Security footage appeared on the screen.
A black SUV had entered the driveway.
Daniel Mercer stepped out.
He was carrying a gasoline container.
Sam grabbed his coat.
Rachel called the tactical team.
Then Mercer looked directly into the camera.
He lifted his phone and displayed a live video.
Derrick was tied to a chair inside the lake house.
Mercer spoke through the security intercom.
“Laura, you have thirty minutes to bring me the original vineyard ledgers.”
May you like
He poured gasoline across the porch.
“Or your husband burns with your father’s secrets.”
