Chapter 4 - Unraveling the PastWith the truth out in the open, an immediate investigation was launched to find out how Clara had ended up in the state care system. Victoria used the full weight of the Ashford fortune and legal power to subpoena old adoption and foster care records from twenty years ago.
The truth they uncovered was both heartbreaking and infuriating. The woman who had raised Clara until she passed away—the woman Clara knew as her adoptive mother—had bought Clara from a black-market adoption ring under the impression that she was saving an abandoned child from an unwanted pregnancy. The kidnapper had panicked after the high-profile police search in 2004 and had sold the baby to an illegal broker just to get rid of the evidence. Clara's adoptive mother had lived in fear of the truth being discovered, which was why she kept Clara moving from town to town, never staying in one place long enough for anyone to ask too many questions.
Sitting in the sunroom of the Ashford estate, Clara held a photo album Victoria had kept hidden in a safe for over two decades. It was filled with baby pictures of a little girl with the exact same wide, curious eyes as Clara.
"I spent so much time hating the world because it took you away from me," Victoria said softly, sitting close to Clara, handing her a warm cup of tea. "I became bitter, cold, and suspicious of everyone. I thought everyone wanted to hurt us or take from us. That's why I hated the idea of Julian marrying someone from an unknown background. I was trying to control a world that had once hurt me so deeply."
Clara placed her hand over Victoria’s. "You don't have to be afraid anymore. The world didn't win. I came back. And I didn't come back as a stranger—I came back loving the son you raised."
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Victoria smiled through her tears, looking over at Julian, who was entering the room with a fresh bouquet of white roses. "You love him, and he loves you. And I almost destroyed that. How do we fix this, Clara? How do we fix the wedding?"
Clara looked up at Julian, a beautiful, radiant smile spreading across her face. "We don't fix the old wedding. We start a completely new one."
