Chapter 8 - The Fertility File
The court order arrived the next morning.
My file at the clinic was twelve pages long.
Most of it was fake.
The bloodwork belonged to someone else.
The diagnosis did not match my actual medical records.
The conclusion was blunt:
SEVERE DIMINISHED OVARIAN RESERVE. NATURAL CONCEPTION UNLIKELY.
I had believed that sentence for four months.
I had cried alone in a parking garage after reading it.
Adrian had held me that night and told me we would survive it together.
Now Dr. Patel from an independent clinic reviewed my original lab samples.
"There is no evidence supporting this diagnosis."
I stared at her.
"Could I have children?"
"I can't promise pregnancy, but the results you were shown were not yours."
My vision blurred.
Vanessa's cruelty at dinner had been based on a lie Adrian already knew.
A lie he helped create.
Claire uncovered email traffic between Adrian and the clinic's financial administrator.
No direct instruction to alter results.
But there were payments.
And one message:
Need certainty before succession planning.
Succession.
An heir.
Adrian wanted a child.
But apparently not with me.
Why marry me, then?
Priya answered with numbers.
Before our marriage, Vale Meridian carried dangerous debt.
After the wedding, credit terms improved dramatically.
Adrian believed my quiet introductions caused it.
He never knew they came from Dad.
Once his balance sheet strengthened, I became less useful.
Then Vanessa became pregnant.
The sequence made me feel less like a wife than a bridge.
Dad looked furious.
I looked at him.
"Don't."
"I haven't moved."
"You're thinking loudly."
That almost made him smile.
Then Claire received a call from the district attorney.
Vanessa wanted immunity.
In exchange, she would testify that Adrian ordered the fertility records falsified and knew I had been sedated before the assault.
Dad said:
"She'll say whatever saves her."
"Yes," Claire replied. "Which doesn't mean everything she says is false."
I asked one question.
"What does she want immunity from?"
Claire's answer changed the room.
"Not just the drugging."
"Then what?"
"She says Adrian used her companies to move money out of Vale Meridian."
"We know that."
"No." Claire shook her head. "She says some of the money wasn't Adrian's."
I went still.
"Whose was it?"
May you like
Claire looked at Dad.
"Victor's."
