Chapter 14 - My Son Chose Her
Chloe arrived wearing white.
Not a wedding dress.
Just a white cashmere coat that looked calculated enough to be one.
Julian met her in the living room.
I stayed upstairs.
She could not know I had returned.
Through the hidden camera, I watched her kiss my son.
He did not pull away.
For one irrational second, I hated him for being convincing.
Then I remembered what was at stake.
Chloe placed the amendment on the table.
“You’re sure?”
Julian nodded.
“I’m tired of fighting.”
“What about your mother?”
“I told her she’s not invited to the wedding.”
Chloe smiled.
It was the happiest I had ever seen her.
That smile told me everything.
Julian signed.
My heart stopped even though I knew the document had been replaced.
Martin had prepared an identical version with legally meaningless provisions.
Chloe did not know.
She touched the signature with her fingertips.
“Now we can finally be a family.”
Julian smiled.
“Exactly.”
Then she called Richard.
“Done.”
His voice came through the speaker.
“Good.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“Yes.”
“Bring the original.”
Julian glanced toward the camera.
The signal we had agreed upon.
Tomorrow night.
Richard was coming.
Chloe left twenty minutes later.
Julian came upstairs.
The moment he saw me, his shoulders collapsed.
“I feel sick.”
I hugged him.
“You did what you had to do.”
“No.”
“I kissed her.”
“She told me she loved me.”
“And I smiled.”
His voice broke.
“I loved her, Mom.”
“I know.”
That was the part nobody talks about when a liar is exposed.
The truth does not erase love immediately.
Sometimes it makes love hurt more.
I held my son while he grieved someone who had never truly existed.
Then Daniel knocked.
“Mrs. Vance.”
“We have a problem.”
He handed me a still image from the exterior camera.
Chloe had not driven away alone.
A man had been waiting across the street.
Richard.
But he was not the person who frightened me.
Another man stood beside him.
Andrew Mercer.
The same former fiancé who had warned me about Chloe.
Julian stared at the photograph.
“Why is Andrew with them?”
I had no answer.
May you like
And suddenly the man who had helped us might have been part of the trap from the beginning.
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