Chapter 3 - OLIVIA'S CONFESSION
Ethan sat beside the hospital bed.
Lucy stayed on the other side, holding her mother's hand.
Olivia struggled to breathe.
A machine measured every uneven heartbeat.
Ethan wanted to ask a hundred questions.
Instead, he waited.
Olivia looked at Lucy.
“Sweetheart, could you get me some ice?”
Lucy immediately stood.
“I can ask the nurse.”
“Thank you.”
Lucy hesitated.
Then she left.
The moment the door closed, Olivia turned toward Ethan.
“She knows enough to be afraid.”
“Afraid of who?”
Olivia swallowed.
“Your father.”
Ethan stared at her.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
The answer made no sense.
Robert Pierce had spent years encouraging Ethan to marry Victoria.
He had been sitting in the front row less than an hour earlier.
He had recognized Lucy's birthmark.
Ethan leaned closer.
“Start at the beginning.”
Olivia closed her eyes.
“Twelve years ago, when I found out I was pregnant, I was terrified but happy.”
Ethan remembered.
For three days, she had seemed different.
Nervous.
Almost glowing.
Then everything changed.
“I was going to tell you.”
“You told me the baby wasn't mine.”
“I lied.”
The words hurt even though he already expected them.
“Why?”
“Because Victoria came to see me.”
Ethan's jaw tightened.
“You knew her then?”
“Barely.”
Olivia took a shallow breath.
“She knew everything about you.”
“What did she say?”
“That your future depended on the Pierce-Hale merger.”
Ethan remembered the negotiations between his father's manufacturing company and Hale Holdings.
The merger had eventually collapsed.
“At the time, you were supposed to become acting president after your father's surgery.”
Olivia continued.
“Victoria said a public pregnancy scandal would ruin the negotiations.”
“It wouldn't have.”
“I know that now.”
“What did she threaten?”
Olivia looked ashamed.
“My mother.”
Ethan remembered Olivia's mother had been undergoing expensive kidney treatment.
“Victoria knew about her medical debt.”
Olivia nodded.
“She had purchased the debt through one of the Hale subsidiaries.”
Ethan felt sick.
“She said if I stayed with you, my mother's treatment would end.”
“That would have been illegal.”
“She showed me paperwork.”
Olivia began coughing.
Ethan poured water into a cup and helped her take a sip.
When she continued, her voice was weaker.
“She offered money if I disappeared.”
“And you accepted.”
“I accepted the first payment.”
Ethan looked away.
Olivia tightened her fingers around his wrist.
“I was twenty-four.”
“I know.”
“I was pregnant.”
“I know.”
“I was terrified.”
“I know.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I thought I could disappear for six months and come back when the merger was finished.”
“Why didn't you?”
“Because the threats changed.”
Ethan looked at her again.
“Victoria found out I had given birth.”
Olivia nodded.
“She came to the hospital.”
Ethan stopped breathing.
“She saw Lucy?”
“Yes.”
“Did she touch her?”
“No.”
Olivia's expression darkened.
“But she took photographs.”
“For what?”
“Proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That Lucy looked like you.”
The hospital room suddenly felt too small.
“Then she brought another person.”
Ethan already knew the answer.
“My father?”
Olivia nodded.
“He told me that if I contacted you, he would have Lucy taken from me.”
Ethan stood so quickly the chair scraped across the floor.
“No.”
“Ethan.”
“No.”
“He said you weren't ready to be a father.”
“That isn't true.”
“He said you were finally rebuilding your life.”
“He had no right.”
“I know.”
Ethan paced toward the window.
His father had comforted him after Olivia disappeared.
Robert had watched his son sink into grief.
He had sat beside Ethan late at night and said Olivia had made her choice.
All while knowing she was carrying Ethan's child.
“Why would my father help Victoria?”
Olivia hesitated.
“That was the part I never understood.”
“Tell me.”
“I think Victoria had something on him.”
“What?”
“I don't know.”
Ethan turned back.
“You said you wrote letters.”
“Twenty-three.”
“I received none.”
“I sent them to your office, your apartment, your parents' house.”
“Then somebody intercepted them.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have copies?”
Olivia looked toward the bedside cabinet.
“Bottom drawer.”
Ethan opened it.
Inside was a thick blue folder.
Twenty-three letters.
Dates spanning more than a decade.
The first began when Lucy was three months old.
The last was written six weeks earlier.
Ethan touched them carefully.
“Why the checks?”
“At first, Victoria called them support.”
“For Lucy?”
“For silence.”
Olivia looked toward the door.
“I stopped cashing them when Lucy turned seven.”
“But the envelope had newer checks.”
“I kept them.”
“Why?”
“Evidence.”
Olivia's breathing became rough.
“I knew one day I would have to prove everything.”
The door opened.
Lucy returned with a cup of ice.
Behind her stood Robert Pierce.
Ethan slowly rose.
His father stopped in the doorway.
Olivia's face turned white.
Robert looked at Ethan.
Then at Olivia.
Then at the folder in Ethan's hands.
“I can explain.”
May you like
Ethan stepped between him and the hospital bed.
“You have eleven years to explain.”
