Chapter 2 - The Name Grant Recognized
Grant read the page again.
Then a third time.
Evelyn leaned over him.
“Give me that.”
Grant pulled the document away.
His lips moved silently.
Rachel had already reached the foyer when he called:
“Wait.”
She stopped.
Not because he deserved it.
Because Maddie had started crying again.
Rachel adjusted the toddler against her shoulder.
Grant stood slowly.
“What is this?”
Rachel turned.
“You can read.”
“This doesn’t make sense.”
Evelyn snapped:
“What doesn’t make sense?”
Grant ignored her.
The test listed Maddie’s biological relationship to a man named:
MICHAEL BENNETT.
Grant’s older brother.
Dead for almost three years.
Evelyn grabbed the paper.
Her face changed instantly.
“No.”
Rachel watched her.
That reaction confirmed something.
“You knew his name might be there.”
Evelyn looked up sharply.
“I knew nothing.”
Grant stared at Rachel.
“You slept with my brother?”
Rachel almost laughed.
“Michael was dead before Maddie was conceived.”
“Then how—”
“Stop.”
Her voice cut through him.
“You don’t get to accuse me of cheating after punching me in front of our daughter.”
Grant went quiet.
Rachel continued.
“Maddie was conceived through a fertility clinic.”
Evelyn’s mouth tightened.
Grant looked confused.
“We never used Michael.”
Rachel stared at him.
“That’s what I thought too.”
The sentence landed heavily.
Grant remembered the fertility treatments.
Years of failed attempts.
Then one final embryo transfer.
The clinic told them the embryo had been created using Grant’s genetic material and Rachel’s egg.
Maddie was born nine months later.
Grant believed she was biologically his.
Until Evelyn secretly ordered an ancestry-style DNA test.
The result suggested Grant was not Maddie’s biological father.
Evelyn had used that result as a weapon ever since.
She whispered about Rachel cheating.
She questioned Maddie’s place in the family.
She convinced Grant to doubt his wife.
But Rachel had refused to accept it.
So she ordered a legal test.
Then another.
The conclusion was consistent.
Maddie was genetically related to the Bennett family.
Just not through Grant.
Grant looked back at the page.
“Michael’s been dead for years.”
“I know.”
“Then somebody used his genetic material.”
Rachel’s eyes hardened.
“Yes.”
Evelyn went very still.
Rachel noticed.
Grant noticed too.
“Mom?”
Evelyn’s expression became defensive.
“What?”
Grant looked at her.
“Why do you look like you already knew?”
Evelyn’s face hardened.
“I said I didn’t.”
Then Rachel spoke quietly.
“The fertility clinic called me yesterday.”
Grant turned toward her.
“And?”
“They found an old internal file.”
“What kind of file?”
Rachel looked directly at Evelyn.
May you like
“A donor authorization.”
Evelyn’s hand tightened around the DNA report.
