Chapter 5 - The Illusion Shattered
The luxury high-rise condominium in Arlington was silent except for the frantic clicking of high heels on white oak floors.
Brielle was packing.
Two large Louis Vuitton suitcases lay open on the king-sized bed, overflowing with designer dresses, silk blouses, and expensive handbags that Preston had purchased for her over the preceding eight months.
When the front door slammed open, Brielle jumped, dropping a jewelry case.
Preston stood in the foyer, his coat drenched in freezing rain, his eyes wild and bloodshot. He looked like a man who had crawled out of a train wreck.
"Going somewhere?" he asked, his voice shaking with a terrifying mixture of grief and rage.
Brielle recovered her composure quickly. She smoothed her cashmere cardigan over her stomach—a stomach that showed only the slightest, barely perceptible curve.
"Preston, you frightened me," she said, adopting the soft, fragile tone she had used to wrap him around her finger for a year. "I’m just... I’m going to stay with my sister in Charlottesville for a few days. The stress from your father... it’s not good for the baby. You know the doctor said I need absolute bed rest."
Preston walked into the bedroom, his wet shoes leaving dirty, dark smudges across the pristine cream carpet. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the manila folder his father had given him.
He tossed it onto the bed between her suitcases.
"Tell me about Julian," he said.
Brielle froze. Her eyes dropped to the photographs spilling out of the envelope—photographs of her sitting on Julian Vance’s lap at a waterfront bar in Annapolis, photographs of them entering a boutique hotel in Georgetown.
All the sweet, helpless innocence vanished from her face in an instant. Her shoulders dropped, and her lips curled into a cold, defiant sneer.
"How long have you had those?" she asked, her voice flat, devoid of warmth.
"Julian Vance was my friend!" Preston screamed, lunging forward, though he stopped himself before touching her. "I brought him into the firm! I gave him a vice-presidency! And you... you swore to me in that clinic parking lot that you were carrying my son! You let my father buy an engraved cradle! You let me throw away my daughters!"
"You threw your daughters away because you wanted to, Preston!" Brielle spat back, her eyes flashing with malice. "Don't you dare put that on me! Did I hold a gun to your head in that mediator's office? Did I force you to tell Lena to take them? You couldn't wait to get rid of them! You wanted an heir because your miserable, tyrannical father treated you like a failure for having girls, and you were too weak to stand up to him!"
"Is it his?" Preston wept, the humiliation crushing him into the floor. "Tell me the truth, Brielle! Just tell me the truth! Is the child mine?"
Brielle zipped up the first suitcase with a sharp, violent pull.
"The doctor called an hour ago with the early cell-free DNA results," she said, looking at him with utter contempt. "The test you insisted on expediting."
Preston held his breath, a tiny, desperate ember of hope flaring up in his chest. "And?"
"It’s Julian's," she said mercilessly. "And by the way, Preston? It’s not an heir. It’s a girl."
The silence that followed was suffocating. Preston felt the room spin wildly, the air turning into thick, choking ash.
*A girl.*
Julian’s daughter.
He had stood in front of Lena Hartwell—a woman of unimpeachable honor, a woman who had given him nine years of devotion, two brilliant daughters, and the very foundation of his company’s success—and told her she was worthless because she had "only given him girls."
He had abandoned Sophie, who had spent days drawing him pictures of love. He had abandoned Madeline, who had looked at him with eyes full of quiet heartbreak. He had given them away for a lie, for a phantom son that never existed.
Brielle hauled her luggage off the bed. "Julian’s waiting downstairs in the lobby. He already signed an employment contract with our competitor in Baltimore. He’s taking the military freight accounts with him, Preston. The accounts your ex-wife built."
She brushed past him, her perfume—the expensive French scent he had bought her for Valentine's Day—lingering in the air like a sickening poison.
"Have a nice life, Preston," she said at the door. "Give your father my regards."
The front door clicked shut.
May you like
Preston fell to his knees on the ruined carpet. For the first time in his life, Preston Hale buried his face in his hands and screamed until his throat tore, completely and utterly alone.
***
