“Yes. And that is why Celeste is terrified,” Adrian said. He hesitated, then delivered the line that would rewrite everything I thought I knew. “Because Lucia is also the granddaughter of the man who was supposed to marry Rose.”
I stared at him. None of it made sense yet. “Who?”
Adrian looked at Celeste with something close to hatred. “Celeste’s father.”
Celeste Winthrop wasn’t a stranger at all. She was tangled into the very center of this — and she’d known exactly what Lucia represented before she ever booked us a table.
Then, smiling like a woman with one last card to play, she said the words that stopped my heart cold.
“You think you’ve won? You still don’t know who Lucia’s father is.”
“Are You My Dad?”
I did know. Or I thought I did. Suddenly I wasn’t sure of anything.
Lucia walked toward me, frightened by the sudden silence. “Mama?” I pulled her into my arms. “Don’t listen. None of this changes anything.” Because it didn’t — not the bloodline, not the family, not any secret buried before she was born. She was still the girl who held my hand when I cried, who saved half her birthday cake because she thought I deserved something sweet after a hard day.
Celeste wasn’t finished. “Oh, how touching. The poor mother protecting the innocent child.” She pointed at me. “Her daughter’s father wasn’t some random man.” A pause, and then: “He was Adrian Vale.”
The room exploded into whispers. My whole body went still. I looked at Adrian.
He didn’t deny it.
Somehow, that was worse.
“Adrian…” My voice barely came out.
“I was going to tell you,” he said.
“You knew?”
“I suspected. The first time I saw her photograph, something felt familiar.” He glanced at Celeste. “She hired someone to investigate you. She knew before anyone else — and she knew exactly what would happen to Adrian’s control of the Vale Foundation if the truth ever came out.”
Eleanor looked at Celeste with open disgust. “You destroyed a child’s dignity for money?”
“No,” Celeste said, looking at Lucia like she was something to be neutralized. “I destroyed a threat.”
Not a child. Not a person. A threat. Something inside me snapped.
“You humiliated a little girl because you were afraid of her?”
“You have no idea what power means,” Celeste said.
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