The Rejected Jinx Is A Billionaire Heiress novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Library

Cora's POV

My father stood in the middle of the Hartwell library with his hat in both hands.

He looked smaller than I had ever seen him.

Margaret sat on the leather sofa across from him with her spine straight.

I stood by the cold fireplace with my arms crossed, because I didn't trust my legs to sit.

Levi stayed at the door.

"I'll say it once," Dad said. "Then you can do what you want with me."

"Go ahead," said Margaret.

"Danny was born on the afternoon of March third at St. Brigid's. Lorna was thirty-two, and she worked there nights, so she had him on her own ward." He swallowed. "He lived about nine hours."

I stopped breathing.

"They sent me home at ten. Lorna stayed. When I came back in the morning she was in the hall with a baby girl wrapped in a blanket and the boy was gone."

"Gone where?" I asked.

"She said the hospital had taken care of him. She said a girl had been left behind with no family, and the hospital was going to let her take her home to heal. She was glowing." He shook his head. "I was grieving, and I wanted to believe it. I was a coward from the first day, Cora."

"And then?"

"Three weeks later I read the Hartwell name in the paper. The baby that had died on March third. The same night as ours."

Margaret's hand came up and covered her mouth.

"I tracked the dates," Dad said. "I asked Lorna about it that night. She slapped me. She had never touched me before. Then she said, if I ever opened my mouth, she'd tell the police I helped."

"Did you?" Margaret said.

"No. I knew nothing. But I knew what it would look like." He turned his hat once in his hands. "And I knew that if it came out, they'd take the girl."

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