Chapter 7 - The Press Leak
The war moved from the boardroom to the front pages of every financial and gossip tabloid in the country.
THE WHITMORE CURSE BROKEN: EX-WIFE PREGNANT WITH TRIPLETS, CLAIMS MULTI-BILLION EMPIRE!
Photographs of me walking the grounds of Vance Manor—captured by telephoto lenses—flashed across morning news broadcasts. The media went wild. For a decade, society columns had whispered about the "Barren Whitmore Wife." Now, headlines screamed about the ultimate revenge: the discarded wife carrying three heirs to the Whitmore fortune, legally protected by corporate titan Arthur Vance under an obscure 1952 clause.
Raymond tried to sue for defamation. He filed emergency injunctions claiming the pregnancy was a fraud designed to extort his family.
The judge dismissed every motion within ten minutes.
Arthur’s legal team submitted Dr. Evelyn Vance’s official medical records, ultrasound scans, and DNA cross-references directly to the family court. The Whitmore bloodline was verified beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Seated in a packed courtroom in downtown Manhattan, Raymond looked ten years older. His hair was disheveled, his eyes bloodshot. Beside him, Chloe Vance was nowhere to be found—she had packed her bags and blocked his number the moment the stock tumbled and the lawsuits began.
Margaret sat behind him, trembling with rage, her pearls clutched so tightly I thought the string would snap.
When I walked into the courtroom escorted by two private security guards and Arthur Vance himself, the entire gallery went dead silent. I wore a tailored cream coat, my hair swept back into a sleek chignon, my belly unmistakably rounded beneath the fabric.
Raymond stared at me as if looking at a ghost.
"Clara," he rasped, standing up as I passed his table. "Clara, please... we can talk. We were married for eleven years. Drop the lawsuit. Let's raise our children together."
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I didn't even slow down. I looked him dead in the eye, my expression completely empty of the sorrow he had broken me with just months ago.
"My name isn't Clara Whitmore anymore, Raymond," I said clearly, loud enough for the reporters in the back row to hear. "I filed for the restoration of my maiden name yesterday. I am Clara Vance-Sinclair. And you don't know my children."
