Chapter 6 - The Whitcomb Family Deception
Victoria and I exchanged sharp looks.
"What secret, Arthur?" Victoria demanded through the microphone.
Arthur Sterling took a deep breath, pulling a black-and-white medical record from a folder on his desk.
"Nathaniel isn't who he thinks he is," Arthur stated flatly. "And neither was his late father, Richard Whitcomb."
"Explain," I commanded.
"Twenty-six years ago, before Richard Whitcomb passed away, he discovered that he was genetically infertile due to a childhood illness," Arthur explained. "Eleanor, desperate to secure her position in the Whitcomb family trust—which required a direct blood heir to maintain controlling interest—secretly used an anonymous donor at a clinic in London to conceive Nathaniel."
I gasped, covering my mouth.
"Nathaniel is not a biological Whitcomb," Victoria realized, her sharp eyes widening in shock. "He has no blood relation to the original Whitcomb estate!"
"None whatsoever," Arthur confirmed. "Eleanor has been running the family trust for twenty-five years on a complete lie. If the board of trustees or the original estate executors find out that Nathaniel is not a blood heir, Eleanor loses every single share of her multi-million dollar portfolio, and controlling interest reverts automatically to the secondary family trust."
"Which secondary trust?" I asked, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Arthur looked directly into the camera, his expression gravely serious.
"The secondary trust established by your grandmother, Ruth Harper," Arthur revealed. "Ruth’s family was the original founding partner of the Whitcomb-Harper Manufacturing Group sixty years ago. When Ruth passed away, she placed her twenty-five percent controlling shares into a blind trust designated for your bloodline, Emily."
I sat down heavily on the kitchen stool.
All those years I had spent feeling inferior in the Whitcomb mansion... all those years Eleanor had looked down her nose at me, calling my family 'working-class nobodies'...
My grandmother had been the co-founder of the very wealth Eleanor was using to bully me.
"So," Victoria said, a triumphant smile spreading across her face. "If Eleanor tries to take Emily’s daughters to court, we don't just present the parental waiver. We present the DNA records proving Nathaniel is not a Whitcomb, which instantly triggers an automatic audit of the entire Whitcomb Investment Group."
"It would destroy Eleanor completely," Arthur admitted quietly. "She would lose her house, her stock, her social standing, and her freedom for twenty-five years of corporate fraud."
"Does Nathaniel know?" I asked softly.
"Nathaniel has no idea," Arthur replied. "He genuinely believes he is a high-born Whitcomb heir. His mother has kept him in the dark his entire life to control him."
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I closed my eyes, taking a long, deep breath.
"Schedule a meeting," I told Arthur. "In Charlotte. Tomorrow afternoon. Tell Eleanor and Nathaniel that if they want to discuss my daughters, they have to come to my house."
