The Truth About the Baby
Chapter 10 - The Truth About the Baby
Victor’s arrest did not end the attack.
The next morning, major news sites published confidential medical records claiming Maya’s pregnancy began after Adrian’s disappearance. The forged report spread faster than the correction. Commentators debated her marriage, her character, and the unborn child as if all three were public property.
Maya refused to hide.
She held a press conference at the hospital where her obstetrician, Dr. Lena Brooks, explained that the leaked records had been altered. She presented timestamped ultrasound files showing the pregnancy began weeks before the yacht explosion.
A reporter asked whether Maya would take a paternity test.
Maya looked directly into the cameras. “My child is not evidence for strangers. The legal records are sufficient. Her dignity is not negotiable.”
Adrian stood behind the press line, respecting her decision not to make him the center of her defense.
Afterward, Dr. Brooks pulled Maya aside. The stress had raised her blood pressure again. She needed immediate rest.
Back at Eleanor’s townhouse, Adrian slept in a guest room. He and Maya spoke late into the night, sometimes gently and sometimes with anger that had waited six months for language.
He told her about the clinic, the panic attacks, and the moment he nearly called during his own memorial. He had watched the service through an encrypted stream and seen Maya place a rose on the empty coffin.
“I hated you that day,” she admitted.
“You had every right.”
“I also loved you. That was worse.”
Adrian nodded. “I will not ask you to decide anything while you are carrying all of this.”
Bianca arrived with a final discovery. The altered medical files had been uploaded after Victor’s arrest from Evelyn’s legal office.
Evelyn denied it, but security footage showed her assistant, Mark Shaw—Evelyn’s son—entering the server room. Victor had threatened Mark with prison because Mark had helped create the shell companies years earlier.
Samuel located Mark at the airport. He surrendered and agreed to testify, giving federal agents the passwords to Victor’s offshore accounts.
The scandal began to collapse under its own evidence.
That evening, Maya found Adrian assembling a crib in the spare room. He had attached one side backward and misplaced half the screws.
“You run a shipping company,” she said.
“Ships arrive with manuals written by engineers.”
She laughed before she could stop herself.
The sound surprised them both.
Adrian smiled, then returned to the crib without treating the moment as forgiveness.
Maya watched him work.
May you like
Healing, she realized, did not arrive like a dramatic confession.
Sometimes it looked like a tired man on the floor, reading instructions twice because he was terrified of building one more thing incorrectly.
