Chapter 3 - The Secret in the Medical FileMonth eight arrived with a blistering heatwave that contrasted sharply with the icy tension brewing in Manhattan.
While Celeste grew rounder and more radiant, back in the city, the sharks were circling. Julian Vance, senior partner at Blackwood Horizon and a man who viewed human beings as line items on a spreadsheet, had grown suspicious. Vance didn't like variables. And Celeste Hart was the biggest variable Rhett Blackwood had ever introduced into his billion-dollar ecosystem.
Vance hired a private investigator to dig into the background of the small-town bakery worker.
On a suffocating Tuesday afternoon, Vance walked uninvited into Rhett’s top-floor office, slamming a thick manila folder onto the polished glass desk.
“We have a catastrophic breach of contract, Rhett,” Vance announced, his face twisted into a smug grin.
Rhett didn't look up from his tablet. “Choose your next words very carefully, Julian, or you won't have a desk to come back to tomorrow.”
“Oh, you’ll want to hear this,” Vance laughed, sliding the folder forward. “Your precious surrogate—the golden-haired virgin saint you handpicked from Pennsylvania—lied on her intake forms. Or rather, she omitted a very crucial, market-shifting piece of information.”
Rhett’s gaze snapped up, his eyes turning to shards of dark ice. “Explain.”
“She’s a virgin, Rhett. Never touched by a man. Artificially inseminated, yes, but medically, biologically, historically untouched,” Vance sneered. “And according to an archaic clause in our secondary trust agreements regarding hereditary purity and undisclosed medical profiles, an untainted lineage stipulation can be weaponized. If the public finds out the mother of your heir is a naive nobody who’s never even dated, the tabloids will rip Blackwood Horizon apart. They’ll call it exploitation. Human trafficking of a naive small-town girl.”
Rhett stood up so fast his mahogany chair slammed back against the glass wall. The air in the room dropped ten degrees.
“Get out,” Rhett whispered, his voice dangerously low.
“Think about the stock, Rhett! We need to restructure the payout, rewrite the nondisclosure, and draft an emergency press release before she pops that baby out and ruins us all—”
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Before Vance could finish, Rhett rounded the desk, grabbed him by the lapels of his custom Italian suit, and slammed him against the wall.
“If you ever speak of Celeste like that again,” Rhett snarled, his knuckles whitening, “I won't just fire you. I will dismantle everything you’ve ever built. Now get out of my sight.”
