The Wife He Left for a Baby That Wasn't His novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: The Dinner
Harlan had set the dining room for twelve, with the board and their wives down both sides of the long table.
The silver was out, and so were the good glasses, and a toast was clearly planned.
He sat at the head with his cane against his knee.
Kyle sat at his right in a clean suit, pale and silent.
Preston sat across from Kyle with his easy smile and a glass of red wine, and when Bree came in on my arm he stood up and pulled out the chair beside his.
"Bree," he said. "There you are."
She sat down beside me instead.
I put the sealed envelope next to my plate and didn't touch it.
Sam took the chair at my other side, and the whole table watched.
"Before anyone drinks," Harlan said, "Mrs. Rutledge has something for me."
"It's Ms. Garrick," I said. "But yes."
I stood and passed the envelope down the table to Harlan's lawyer, who sat at his left hand.
"It's sealed," I said. "It was released to me only, an hour ago, and I haven't opened it. I'd like it read out loud by someone I don't pay."
The lawyer slit the flap with a butter knife.
The table was so quiet I heard the paper unfold.
"This is a prenatal paternity report," she said. "The sample is a blood draw from Bree Lambert and a swab taken from a steel travel mug."
"Whose mug?" Harlan said.
"Ms. Lambert states it belongs to Preston Gage."
"It's a coffee mug," Preston said, pleasantly. "Anybody could have licked it."
"The probability that the donor of that swab is the biological father," the lawyer read, "is ninety-nine point nine nine percent."
Nobody spoke.
A woman halfway down the table put her fork down.
"A mug," Preston said, laughing lightly. "Harlan, you can't build a case on a mug. That's not a legal test, it's a stunt."
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