Chapter 1 - The Second Document
I clicked the remote a second time.
A new document appeared on the massive screens above the ballroom.
It was a Non-Invasive Prenatal Paternity test.
Requested by Piper Vale.
Billed to my premium family insurance plan.
The first line showed the presumed father: Grant Ashford.
Probability of paternity: 0.00%.
The ballroom went deathly quiet.
Grant stared at the massive numbers on the screen.
He stopped breathing.
Then he turned to Piper, his face twisting from confusion to horror.
“What is this?” he whispered.
Piper’s confident smile vanished.
She backed away from him.
Her hands dropped from her satin-covered belly.
“Grant, wait, it’s a mistake,” she stammered.
“It’s not a mistake,” I said into the microphone. “But that’s not the part of the document that requires attention.”
I clicked the remote a third time.
The screen zoomed in on the bottom half of the page.
The secondary tested party.
The DNA sample submitted for comparison when Grant’s was a mismatch.
Name: Charles Ashford.
Probability of paternity: 99.99%.
A collective gasp echoed through the Metropolitan Club.
The phones that Piper’s friends were using to record my humiliation were suddenly broadcasting the destruction of the entire Ashford legacy.
Grant slowly turned his head.
May you like
He looked past Piper.
He looked directly at his seventy-two-year-old father.
