Chapter 6
Her jaw tightened. “Your grandfather left a private family trust. I thought it dissolved years ago. But if Clara had a child, and that child had a child…”
“My baby?”
“The trust line continues.”
I laughed under my breath, but there was no humor in it.
“Of course.”
Bennett had not married me for love. I had learned that slowly.
First in the way he corrected my accent at dinner. Then in the way he replaced my friends with his associates’ wives. Then in the way he touched me only when cameras or donors might see. Then in the way he became attentive again the moment I got pregnant.
But this was worse.
This meant he had known something about me that I had not known about myself.
“How much?” I asked.
Vivienne did not answer quickly enough.
“How much, Aunt Vivienne?”
Her eyes softened at the title, but only for a heartbeat.
“Enough to make Bennett Finch feel poor.”
The words settled into the room.
Enough to make Bennett Finch feel poor.
Outside the door, footsteps approached. Not rushed. Controlled.
I knew those footsteps.
Bennett never walked into a room. He arrived inside it.
The door opened before anyone gave permission.
A man in a gray suit entered first. Daniel Crewe. Bennett’s lawyer. Thin, smooth, forgettable in the way dangerous men liked to be forgettable.
Behind him came Bennett.
Margot hovered in the hallway, her mascara smudged, white coat stained now at the cuff. She looked smaller without the hallway as her stage.
Vivienne stepped in front of my bed.
“You were told she is not receiving visitors.”
Bennett’s gaze flicked to the fetal monitor.
For one moment, his mask faltered.
Then it returned.
“I’m here to see my wife.”
“I am not your wife in any way that matters,” I said.
His eyes cut to me.
“Tessa, this is exactly what I warned you about. You’re emotional. You’re being influenced by a woman who conveniently appears claiming to be family.”
Vivienne laughed softly.
Bennett ignored her.
“Think carefully,” he said. “Everything you do now affects our daughter’s future.”
Our daughter.
He had not said that in weeks.
He had called her the baby. The pregnancy. The situation.
Now she was our daughter because something had changed.
Because he had heard the word trust.
I looked at Daniel Crewe.
“What papers did you bring?”
Bennett went still.
Daniel smiled politely. “Mrs. Finch, this is not the appropriate—”
“What papers?”
Vivienne turned slowly toward him.
Daniel’s smile thinned.
Bennett exhaled. “A temporary custody and medical authorization agreement. Standard, considering your fragile condition.”
My hand tightened on the blanket.
“Fragile.”
“You were assaulted,” he said smoothly. “You fell. You’re under stress. If there are complications, decisions must be made quickly.”
“And you wanted authority to make them.”
“I am the father.”
“You brought your mistress to intimidate me into signing something before my appointment.”
His face hardened.
Daniel stepped forward. “No one intended intimidation.”
Vivienne’s voice was quiet. “Then why did your client enter a hospital with counsel and a woman using a false surname?”
The lawyer blinked once.
May you like
Bennett did not.
That told me everything.
