“You left me.”
Claire appeared behind him.
She looked as though she hadn’t spent a single second grieving.
“I want an explanation,” I said.
“The real one.”
Not the rumors.
Not the whispers from the hospital.
The truth.
Claire glanced at Evan.
I knew that look.
I’d seen it a thousand times growing up.
It was the look Claire used whenever she was about to lie.
“Marianne, it’s complicated,” she began.
“Then uncomplicate it.”
I held the baby closer.
“Tell me why you abandoned your daughter.”
Evan sighed.
“Because everything changed.”
“We needed a boy, Marianne.”
His voice was flat.
“Because Evan’s grandfather’s trust only passes to a male heir.”
Something inside me went cold.
I stared at them.
“Are you telling me that all those tears…”
My voice shook.
“The two years you spent begging me to become your surrogate…”
I looked at Claire.
“All of it was about money?”
Evan poured himself a drink as though we were discussing a business transaction.
“My grandfather established a trust decades ago.”
He paused.
“Twelve million dollars.”
My stomach dropped.
“Payable only to a male heir born of my direct bloodline.”
Claire lifted her chin.
“We paid the clinic a fortune to get a boy.”
She looked toward the baby.
“That child doesn’t return the investment we made to get her.”
I looked at my sister.
And I didn’t recognize her.
The woman I had trusted with my entire heart seemed to have disappeared.
I looked down at the baby.
She had opened her dark, searching eyes.
She was staring directly at me.
And in that moment, I knew.
“Fine.”
I looked back at Claire.
“I’ll keep her.”
Claire laughed.
It was a short, ugly sound.
“You can’t be serious.”
“You have grown children. You’re thirty-eight. You’re going to start over?”
She shook her head.
“For what? She isn’t even yours.”
I held the baby tighter.
“She was mine for nine months.”
I looked into her eyes.
“She’s mine now.”
My voice steadied.
“And she’ll be mine for the rest of my life.”
“Marianne.”
Claire stepped closer.
“Think about what you’re doing to us.”
She pointed toward herself.
“To me.”
“I’m still your sister.”
Then she said the words that made everything even clearer.
“Just give her away. I don’t want to see her every time I visit you.”
I stared at her.
“You stopped being my sister the day you chose to have a child for money.”
Evan’s jaw tightened.
“If you keep her, don’t expect a cent from us.”
He spoke as though he were issuing terms in a contract.
“Not for a diaper. Not for a doctor’s bill. Nothing.”
I shook my head.
“I never wanted your money.”
I looked at Claire.
“I wanted my sister.”
