Chapter 12 - BROOKE'S CONFESSION
Brooke arrived with a plain black backpack and no makeup.
Her eyes moved constantly toward the glass doors of the meeting room.
Rebecca had arranged for Brooke's independent attorney to attend.
I was grateful because I had no desire to become her protector or her prosecutor.
I wanted the truth.
Brooke sat opposite me and twisted the handle of her bag.
“Trent told me you knew,” she began.
“Knew what?”
“That your marriage was business.”
She explained that Gloria recruited her as a young administrative assistant and later gave her a small interest in GLW.
Gloria described Harper as a wealthy woman who had agreed to support a family investment plan in exchange for a discreet marriage.
“Trent said you didn't want children,” Brooke whispered.
“He said the fertility treatments were a story you used to keep him from leaving.”
I couldn't speak.
The specific cruelty of the lie took my breath away.
Brooke began crying.
“I believed him because Gloria showed me paperwork.”
“What paperwork?” Rebecca asked.
Brooke produced a copy of a forged private agreement purporting to authorize the family's use of my company assets.
It bore my counterfeit signature.
Its date was just before our wedding.
I placed my hands flat on the table.
“Did you know he was married when you began seeing him?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And you stayed?”
“Yes.”
The admission was not the apology I wanted, but it was the first completely unvarnished answer she'd given.
“Why help us now?” I asked.
She looked down at her belly.
“Because Gloria has a plan for my baby, too.”
Her lawyer opened a folder containing a proposed trust agreement.
A clause would give a designated trustee unusually broad authority over distributions and decisions about a child's financial support.
It did not automatically strip Brooke of parental rights, but the arrangement alarmed her once she understood it.
“Gloria told me I couldn't raise a Lawson without her permission,” Brooke said.
Then she pulled a small flash drive from the backpack.
“Everything I copied is on here.”
Rebecca refused to connect it to our office systems and arranged for forensic imaging.
Brooke told us it contained messages, voice recordings, accounting schedules, and photographs of contracts.
Before she left, she stopped beside my chair.
“I don't deserve you to forgive me,” she said.
“No,” I answered.
“You don't.”
She nodded and walked out.
Daniel examined the first verified files the next morning.
One recording captured Gloria discussing how to pressure me into signing the settlement.
Then he found a folder labeled MERCER.
Inside was a photograph of Evelyn with a child.
On the next page, Gloria's handwriting said that Trent's biological mother remained the only person capable of destroying the adoption story.
And on the last page was a payment request for an upcoming visit to Evelyn's care facility.
May you like
It was scheduled for that afternoon.
