Chapter 7 - THE FORGED SIGNATURE
My knees weakened.
My father caught my elbow.
“Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re eight months pregnant.”
His voice softened.
“Sit.”
I did.
Dominic moved forward.
“I can explain that too.”
My father turned toward him.
“Do you hear yourself?”
Dominic stopped.
Arthur held up the insurance policy.
“Did my daughter sign this?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Almost gratefully.
I stared at him.
“You admit it?”
“I didn’t forge your signature.”
“Then who did?”
“Eleanor handled the paperwork.”
The room went silent.
I thought I had reached the bottom of the betrayal.
Apparently there was still farther to fall.
“You gave your mother permission to take out life insurance on me?”
“No.”
Dominic rubbed both hands over his face.
“She said it was standard estate planning because of the pregnancy.”
“Ten million dollars?”
“I didn’t choose the amount.”
My father laughed quietly.
I had rarely heard that sound from him.
It was not amusement.
It was disbelief.
“Your family was drowning in debt.”
Arthur set the document down.
“You prepared a competency challenge against my daughter.”
He pointed toward the forged policy.
“And six months ago someone obtained life insurance on her without her knowledge.”
Dominic’s face twisted.
“It sounds terrible.”
“It sounds criminal.”
Arthur pulled out his phone again.
Dominic immediately said,
“Wait.”
My father looked at him.
“Do you have a reason I should?”
“If the police get involved tonight, everything becomes public.”
I stared at him.
“You mean everything becomes public for you.”
“Our child will someday read this.”
I stood.
“Our child will someday know that her father watched people humiliate her mother because he was afraid of losing money.”
“Vivienne.”
“No.”
I picked up the policy.
“I’m done protecting you from the consequences of your own choices.”
A sharp pain moved across my lower abdomen.
I inhaled suddenly.
My father immediately noticed.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
Another tightness came.
Not exactly pain.
Pressure.
Dominic rushed forward.
“Are you having contractions?”
“I said I’m fine.”
“You’re thirty-four weeks.”
“Thirty-five.”
The fact he got it wrong should not have hurt.
But it did.
My father looked at his driver.
“Call Dr. Bennett.”
I grabbed his sleeve.
“Dad.”
“I’m not taking chances.”
Within minutes, my obstetrician was on speakerphone.
She instructed me to sit.
Hydrate.
Monitor the timing.
The contractions eased.
Stress, she said.
But she wanted me checked.
Dominic grabbed his coat.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
He stared.
“I’m the father.”
“And tonight you’re the reason I’m under this stress.”
He looked destroyed.
Maybe part of me wanted him to look destroyed.
I hated that part.
But I could not erase it.
As we left the house, my father’s security director arrived.
He carried a sealed evidence bag.
Inside was an old phone.
Dominic stopped when he saw it.
Arthur noticed.
“Recognize it?”
Dominic said nothing.
The security director looked at my father.
“We found it hidden behind a false panel in the study cabinet.”
He turned the bag.
A sticker was attached to the back.
E.H.
Eleanor Hale.
My father’s expression changed.
“What’s on it?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Then he added,
“But someone tried to remotely wipe it twenty-three minutes ago.”
Everyone looked at Dominic.
He shook his head.
“That wasn’t me.”
I believed him.
Because his face showed something worse than guilt.
Recognition.
May you like
He knew who had tried.
And he was terrified of her.
