Page 65 of Unfaithful

"I told them I was from Chaplain—one of your clients." He shrugged. "I knew the name from Elsa. She mentioned it once."

My jaw locked so hard I could feel the strain in my temples.

"Then your friend Bobby came out to meet me, asked why I was here. I knew who Bobby was, that she was your partner. So I told her the truth. That I wasn't from Chaplain. I lied to get in." He looked away, avoiding my gaze for a moment before returning to me. "But I had something important to tell you. Something about Elsa and her baby."

My legs felt unsteady, and their strength was draining. I pulled my chair back and sank into it slowly, trying to keep myself together.

I made damn sure the DNA test was legit. With Elsa still pregnant, I chose an accredited private clinic and arranged a non-invasive prenatal paternity test there. I wasn't stupid. I knew exactly what kind of person Elsa was, and I wasn't about to take her word for anything. When the results came in, we opened the email together. There it was, the undeniable proof. Elena was mine.

I could never forget that moment. It was the moment I knew my life would fall apart, that nothing would ever be the same.

"I got the email from the clinic," I said slowly, my voice tight. "It confirmed that I'm the father."

"Are you sure the email really came from the clinic?" he asked.

I nodded. "Yes. I called them and asked them to reconfirm."

"Do you know any man named Phil Jones?"

A chill crept over me.

FUCK!

"Yeah. He worked at the clinic." He was the one who confirmed the results when I called. I remembered his name because I had desperately hoped he would tell me they'd made a mistake.

"At first, I thought Elsa was cheating on me with him because I followed her a few times and saw them together more than once. She even went to his apartment and spent the night," Leo said, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. "This was before she showed me the test result. Imagine my surprise when I saw your name on the printout. I never thought you'd give in to her." He paused, letting the words sink in. "And then I found out Phil works at the clinic where you got the test."

I tensed. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Leo's expression remained unreadable, giving nothing away. "What if I told you that if you went to the clinic right now, there's a chance you'd get a different result? That the email you received wasn't the one the clinic originally sent?"

My pulse pounded. "Who the fuck are you? How do you know all this?"

"I'm a private investigator," he said smoothly. "And trust me, I can find anything you want me to."

I felt like I couldn't breathe. My whole body went rigid as memories crashed over me—the day Elsa and I took the test, the anxiety twisting in my gut. The single message that had shattered my world, dictating every single choice I'd made since then. I had replayed that moment in my head a thousand times,convincing myself it was real, that it was proof, that I wasn't being played.

But what if I had been?

A sick, sinking feeling twisted in my gut. My vision blurred for a second as the enormity of his words crashed down on me.

"Mr. Sterling," Leo leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "I believe Phil Jones played a major role in this. It's suspicious how he met Elsa multiple times outside of work. My theory? It's highly probable that someone intercepted and altered your email before it reached you. And if that's the case, the real result still exists in the clinic's system."

When I didn't respond, too shocked to say anything, Leo pressed on. "I can dig up information on my own, Mr. Sterling. I could probably access the clinic's system, but that would be illegal and anything I found wouldn't hold up in court. I want to take Elsa down the right way. That's why I need you to go there yourself and find out if the results you received were real."

My mind felt like it had short-circuited. The words were there—I heard them—but processing them was another thing entirely.

Had someone really faked the results? Had I been living a lie the whole time?

I tried to think tried to piece everything together, but nothing made sense. My thoughts kept looping back to that email, to the way I had clung to it like a lifeline. I had built my entire world around that one result. And now, Leo was telling me it might have been a lie?

No. That wasn't possible.

But the doubt was already creeping in, poisoning everything. My hands clenched into fists, my nails digging intomy palms, but I barely felt it. I needed to breathe. I needed to think. But my mind was spiraling, slipping through my fingers like sand.

What the hell was I supposed to do now?

Leo rose from his seat and pulled out his wallet from his back pocket, retrieving a business card. He placed it on the desk in front of me.

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