Chapter 4 - Why He Married Me
The report said:
Candidate psychologically independent. Low debt. No criminal history. Strong maternal health markers. Father resistant.
Then:
Marriage recommended to satisfy trust spouse requirement.
My goal was to understand who wrote that recommendation.
Not the investigator.
Attached legal memo:
Charles Benton, Hayes Trust Counsel.
Charles advised Luke that an embryo created without my consent would not satisfy the trust if I were not his spouse.
So Luke needed marriage.
Then embryo transfer.
Then male birth.
A legal manufacturing line.
I felt sick.
Then one handwritten note:
Do not disclose original tissue source to Caroline.
Signed:
Dr. Adrian Cole.
Direct conspiracy.
Then Luke’s sister Rebecca Hayes contacted police voluntarily.
She had heard about the arrest.
She came to the hospital.
I expected arrogance.
Instead, she looked horrified.
“I knew Luke was desperate about the trust. I did not know about this.”
She produced emails where she repeatedly told Luke to stop obsessing over the male-heir clause.
She had no desire to fight him.
The trust itself had turned siblings against each other.
Then she showed me something Luke never mentioned.
Their father, Henry Hayes, tried to amend the trust two years earlier to remove the gender condition.
Luke blocked the amendment.
Why?
Because Luke believed the male-heir clause would guarantee him control.
Rebecca supported removal.
Luke fought to keep the very rule now destroying him.
That mattered.
He was not only victim of old family expectations.
He chose to preserve them.
Then Henry Hayes arrived.
Seventy.
Powerful.
Cold.
He asked to speak to me.
I refused until my lawyer came.
Good choice.
My lawyer, Maya Sloan, arrived.
Henry admitted he created the male-heir clause twenty years earlier.
Why?
Family tradition.
Bad reason.
Then he said he regretted it after seeing what Luke became.
He tried to change it.
Luke used a veto provision.
Then Henry revealed something else.
The trust did not transfer automatically at birth.
It required independent confirmation that the child was conceived lawfully.
The illegal embryo would have disqualified Luke anyway.
He had committed crimes for a benefit he could not legally receive.
Then we checked the hidden embryo consent.
Forged signature:
Caroline Hayes.
But dated before we met.
Impossible on its face.
Sloppy.
Why risk such obvious fraud?
Because Charles Benton planned to backdate a marriage document too.
Then investigators found a draft confidential marriage certificate showing Luke and me “married” one year before our actual wedding.
Fake.
Never filed.
A contingency.
If the embryo had implanted, they planned to create paperwork making it appear we were already married.
Then I understood how far the scheme went.
Luke did not only plan my pregnancy.
He planned to rewrite the timeline around it.
Then Maya found one more draft.
Emergency guardianship if Caroline rejects child.
Guardian:
Beatrice Hayes.
Luke’s mother.
I had barely seen Beatrice in two years.
She had moved to Florida.
Why was she named?
Then Henry’s face changed.
“My wife wrote that.”
Beatrice had known.
I thought Luke and Dr. Cole built the plan alone—but the guardianship draft showed Luke’s mother had been involved from the beginning.
May you like
**Beatrice Hayes had prepared to take custody of any child produced from the secret embryo if I rejected or exposed the scheme.**
*The messages between Beatrice and Luke showed why his mother considered me disposable before I ever became her daughter-in-law.*
