Chapter 3: What Cannot Be Unsaid
Nobody sat down.
Bianca stood with the torn envelope still in her hand.
Bastian hadn't moved from the center of the room.
The other family members pressed back against the walls without seeming to realize they were doing it.
Alaric pulled out the chair at the head of the table and sat down.
He folded his hands on the surface in front of him and looked at his son.
"Bastian.
Sit."
"I don't need to sit.
I need you to explain what that document—"
"Sit down."
The second time, it wasn't a request.
Bastian pulled out a chair and dropped into it.
Faye moved to stand beside him, her hand on his shoulder.
Alaric looked at Bianca next.
She didn't move.
He didn't repeat himself.
He simply waited until the silence became heavier than her pride, and she lowered herself into a chair along the side of the table.
Serena sat in the ornate chair where Alaric had guided her.
Her hands were folded over her belly.
She didn't look at Bastian.
She looked at the table.
Alaric opened his jacket again and removed a second document.
This one was not folded.
It was sealed in a clear plastic sleeve.
He placed it flat on the table and slid it toward Bastian.
"Pick it up."
Bastian reached for it slowly, like a man reaching toward something he already knew would burn him.
He turned it over.
His eyes moved across the top line.
"This is a paternity result."
"Yes."
"It says—" Bastian stopped.
He read it again.
Faye leaned down to look.
"What does it say?"
Bastian set the document on the table without answering her.
Bianca was on her feet before anyone could stop her.
She snatched the sleeve from the table and read it herself.
The color left her face in stages — first her cheeks, then her lips, then something behind her eyes.
"This is fabricated." Her voice came out thin.
"You paid someone to produce this."
"The lab is certified and independent," Alaric said.
"The sample was collected without Bastian's knowledge.
I used a glass from his office.
Three months ago."
Bastian looked up.
"You tested me without my consent."
"I tested the child you were claiming as mine."
The room absorbed that sentence slowly, like water into stone.
Faye straightened.
Her hand came off Bastian's shoulder.
"What does that mean?
What does the test say?"
Bastian didn't answer.
Bianca set the document down on the table, face-up.
She pressed her fingertips against the edge of it as if she could push it out of existence.
Faye picked it up herself.
She read it.
She read it again.
Then she set it down very carefully, the way people set things down when their hands have stopped working properly.
"Bastian." Her voice had changed.
"This says you're not the father."
"Faye—"
"Of my baby." She stepped back from him.
"It says you're not the father of my baby."
"That test is about Serena's child, not yours—"
"I can read." Her voice cracked on the second word.
"I can read, Bastian.
It has my name on it too.
There's a second result on the back page."
The room went so quiet that the sound of the envelope hitting the floor was loud.
Alaric looked at Bianca.
"Your grandson," he said, "belongs to neither of our sons."
Bianca's mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Bastian pushed his chair back and stood.
"I can explain—"
"Sit down," Alaric said, "or I will have you removed from this house and the gates locked behind you."
Bastian sat down.
Faye had not moved.
She stood where she had stepped back to, one hand over her belly, staring at the man she had married as if she were seeing a stranger wearing his face.
"How long," she said quietly, "have you known?"
Bastian looked at the table.
"How long, Bastian?"
He said nothing.
May you like
Alaric answered for him.
"Since before the wedding."
