CHAPTER 2: THE INVITATION
The clinic had rejected the destruction request because the signature did not match earlier authorization forms.
Whoever submitted it had been notified.
They knew the records still existed.
That meant Alyssa knew Brinley’s conception history could still be proven.
“What exactly are they planning?” I asked Parker.
He closed his laptop.
“Possibly a custody strategy. Possibly financial leverage. Maybe both.”
Connor’s company had recently begun negotiating a major acquisition. If the transaction succeeded, his public image would matter almost as much as his financial records.
A divorced executive abandoning his newborn daughter looked bad.
A devoted father leaving an unhappy marriage to build a new family around a long-awaited son looked much better.
Brinley was not merely inconvenient to Connor.
She threatened the story he wanted investors to believe.
Over the next week, I watched Connor transform his betrayal into a public-relations campaign.
Alyssa posted photographs from elaborate prenatal appointments.
Betsy arranged a blue-themed engagement dinner.
Connor gave an interview to a local business magazine and spoke about “legacy,” “fatherhood,” and “building something for the next generation.”
He never mentioned Brinley.
Then a courier arrived at my mother’s guesthouse.
Inside the cream-colored envelope was an invitation to Connor and Alyssa’s wedding.
The ceremony would take place at the Grand Bellamy Hotel.
Four hundred guests.
Executives, investors, reporters, judges, politicians, and nearly every person Connor had spent six years trying to impress.
A handwritten note had been placed beneath the invitation.
Bring the little girl.
She should see what a real family looks like.
The handwriting belonged to Betsy.
Parker wanted me to stay away.
“It could be a trap.”
“It is a trap,” I said. “They want me to arrive angry. They want witnesses who will say I disrupted the wedding because I was jealous.”
“Then don’t give them what they want.”
“I won’t.”
I placed the invitation inside a drawer.
But that night, another envelope appeared beneath the guesthouse door.
This one contained no return address.
Inside was a photograph of Connor, Alyssa, and a third person standing inside the company’s underground parking garage.
The third person was Evan Reed.
Connor’s chief financial officer.
His closest friend.
And the man kissing Alyssa when Connor’s back was turned.
May you like
Written across the bottom of the photograph were six words.
THE BABY IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.
