My Family Faked Mom's Death to Stop My Wedding—My Adopted Sister Had My Fiancé's Baby novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Too Grateful

Claire came to my grandmother's dining room table at nine that night, with the baby on her shoulder and a second envelope.

She had come in a taxi.

She paid for it with a twenty-dollar bill Bruce had given her at the gala.

Mom was already there.

She sat at the far end of the table in the gray coat, and she did not look up when Claire came in.

Rocco sat beside Lorenzo, and Bruce stood in the kitchen doorway with his arms folded.

Nobody had told Claire who would be in the room.

She stopped at the door.

"I can leave," she said.

"Sit," I said. "You came to say something."

She sat.

She put Rosa in the carrier on the chair beside her and laid the envelope on the table.

"Your father keeps two sets of papers," she said. "The ones for the lawyers, and the ones he trusts nobody to see. I took the second set while he slept."

"Again."

"Again." She almost smiled. "He thinks I'm too grateful to look."

She slid out a single sheet.

It was one page, typed, with my father's signature at the bottom.

"This is what he promised me," she said. "A four percent share of Benedetti Foods, when Livia's trust was settled and Ethan and I could 'come out.' It's dated the week Ethan proposed to you."

I read it.

My name wasn't on it once.

"You were paid," I said.

"I was promised." Her voice was level. "I never saw a share. I saw a house in Bermuda that Ethan rented, and a baby I wasn't supposed to be allowed to keep."

She reached for the page and tore it down the middle.

Then she tore it again, and again, and laid the pieces in front of my mother.

"I don't want it," she said.

Mom stared at the paper.

"Claire..."

"You told me I was family," Claire said. "You said it at twelve years old, in the hospital, when my mother died. 'You're ours now.'"

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