Chapter 4 - The Golden Cage
"It’s not true," Charles stammered, his voice cracking like that of a terrified teenager. "Medical science changes, Mother! Miracles happen! Men can recover from zero counts. It happens all the time!"
"Don't play the fool with me!" Cordelia snapped, slamming her palm against the table. "You allowed Hannah to take the blame for twelve years! You sat at my dining table while I humiliated that woman, and you said nothing because you were too cowardly to admit your own flaw! And now you bring this... this social climber into our home, and she miraculously bears twins?"
"Phoebe loves me!" Charles shouted, standing up, his chest heaving. "She didn't care about the family name! She took care of me when Hannah became distant and cold!"
"Hannah became cold because you buried her alive under your secrets!" Cordelia retorted, the venom in her voice startling even herself. In that moment, Cordelia’s hatred wasn't directed at Hannah anymore; it was directed at the terrifying possibility that the Stanhope fortune was about to be handed to a bastard child fathered by a stranger.
"We are doing an amniocentesis," Cordelia demanded. "A prenatal paternity test. Today."
"No!" Charles roared. "It’s risky! It could endanger the babies!"
"Modern non-invasive prenatal paternity testing only requires a blood draw from the mother and a cheek swab from you," Cordelia said with chilling precision. "No needles in the belly. Zero risk to the babies. If they are yours, Charles, you have nothing to fear. But if you refuse... I will freeze the family trust before the sun sets."
Meanwhile, back at the penthouse, Phoebe was curled up on a cream velvet chaise lounge, admiring a five-carat diamond bracelet that Charles had bought her the previous afternoon. Her phone buzzed against the marble side table.
The caller ID displayed no name—just a burner number from an encrypted app.
She picked it up immediately, her voice dropping to a tense hush. "I told you never to call this phone."
"We have a problem," the voice on the other end murmured. It was deep, cultured, and laced with quiet arrogance. "Cordelia was spotted boarding a private flight back from California. She spent forty minutes in Montecito."
Phoebe sat bolt upright, clutching her swollen belly. "Hannah? Why would she see Hannah?"
"Hannah kept Charles's secrets for a decade, darling. But she doesn't owe him anything anymore. If Cordelia knows about Charles's condition, they’re coming for a blood test. And if they test those twins, we’re finished."
Phoebe’s breathing turned ragged. "What do we do? Richard, tell me what to do!"
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"Stay calm," Richard Stanhope, Charles’s first cousin and head of corporate acquisitions, replied calmly. "You play the wounded victim. You refuse the test on religious and moral grounds. Create a scene. Make Charles defend you. If he doubts you, remind him of what the public humiliation will do to his stock price. Buy me forty-eight hours."
***
