Chapter 7 - What Margaret Paid For
Daniel arrived in Boston two days later.
I almost canceled the meeting three times.
Instead, I chose a crowded coffee shop in Cambridge and asked Lauren to sit at a table across the room.
Not because I thought Daniel would hurt me.
Because I didn’t trust anyone anymore.
He walked in at 10:07.
I knew immediately who he was.
He looked like Ethan if someone had taken the same basic features and hardened them with twenty years of different choices.
Dark hair.
Green eyes.
Same jaw.
Same crooked line in the left eyebrow.
He stopped when he saw my stomach.
His expression changed.
Not ownership.
Not excitement.
Something closer to shock.
Then he looked at me.
“Emily?”
I stood.
“Daniel.”
He did not hug me.
Thank God.
He sat across from me.
“I’m sorry we’re meeting like this.”
“Apparently nobody in your family meets normally.”
A small smile.
“Fair.”
I didn’t waste time.
“Why did Margaret pay you to leave?”
His smile disappeared.
“When I was seventeen, my mother died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She’d been sick for a while. Dad—Richard—helped with bills.”
“You called him Dad?”
“Not then.”
He looked down.
“After Mom died, Richard wanted me to stay with the family until I finished school.”
“With Margaret?”
“Yes.”
“She agreed?”
“Publicly.”
That word mattered.
“Privately?”
“She hated looking at me.”
I believed that instantly.
“She said I was a walking reminder of Richard’s betrayal. She tolerated me because he threatened to leave if she didn’t.”
Daniel rubbed his thumb along the coffee cup.
“Ethan was different.”
“You were close.”
“He treated me like a brother before anybody else did.”
For the first time, something about Ethan’s decision made emotional sense.
Not ethical sense.
But emotional.
“What happened at eighteen?”
Daniel’s eyes hardened.
“Margaret accused me of stealing.”
“What?”
“A diamond bracelet.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“She found it in my backpack.”
“You’re saying she put it there?”
“I know she did.”
“How?”
“Because six years later Lauren found the receipt for the replacement bracelet.”
I frowned.
“I don’t understand.”
“The original bracelet was never missing.”
My stomach turned.
“She had two?”
“She bought a cheap copy, put it in my bag, then claimed the original was stolen.”
“Why?”
“To get rid of me.”
Daniel nodded.
“Richard believed me. Ethan believed me. But Margaret threatened to call the police and make sure the story followed me to college.”
“What did she pay you?”
“Fifty thousand dollars.”
My mouth opened.
“She gave you fifty thousand dollars to leave?”
“And sign a letter promising no contact with the family.”
“Did Richard know?”
“No.”
“Ethan?”
“Not at first.”
“When did he find out?”
Daniel looked at me.
“Four years ago.”
My chest tightened.
That was before our fertility diagnosis.
Before any donor discussion.
Ethan had known all of this.
“So when Ethan asked you to donate…”
“I thought he was trying to repair something.”
“Repair what?”
“The family.”
I stared at him.
Daniel reached into his bag.
He pulled out a folder.
“I told Ethan I would only consider donating if you knew who I was.”
“And he told you I did.”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
Daniel opened the folder.
There were printed emails.
Ethan’s name at the top.
I started reading.
At first, it was exactly what I expected.
Medical history.
Clinic dates.
Travel.
Then I reached one email that made my hands shake.
Ethan had written:
If this works, part of you finally comes back into the family. Dad will have a grandchild carrying both sides of what Mom tried to erase.
I read it twice.
Then Daniel pointed to another line.
And one day, when the timing is right, she’ll know where she comes from.
I looked up.
“He planned to tell the baby?”
Daniel nodded.
“But not me?”
“I assumed you knew.”
My vision blurred.
This was bigger than a fertility decision.
Ethan had used my pregnancy to fix his family.
To heal his guilt.
To bring Daniel back through our child.
Without asking me.
Daniel closed the folder.
“There’s one more email.”
I didn’t want to read it.
I did anyway.
It was dated three weeks before my embryo transfer.
Ethan had written:
Emily thinks we’re using donor 4472. Keep it that way until after the pregnancy is secure.
I stopped breathing.
Daniel looked sick.
“That was when I realized he had lied to me too.”
I looked at the date again.
Then another detail caught my eye.
The clinic identification number beside Daniel’s name.
It wasn’t 4472.
It was 3186.
I frowned.
“Who is donor 4472?”
Daniel looked confused.
“I don’t know.”
But I did know one thing.
May you like
That number had been printed on every piece of paperwork I had signed.
Which meant somebody at the fertility clinic had helped Ethan switch donors.
