Chapter 147
Chapter 147:
She remembered Jeraldine Holloway’s words from five years ago. You are an incubator, Cailin. Nothing more. She remembered Hilliard’s cold indifference, his immediate assumption that she had been after his money. She could not let him have Elia. Not now. Not ever.
“No,” Cailin said. She pressed every ounce of remaining steel she possessed into that single word. “She is not yours p>
“Don’t lie to me, Cailin,” Hilliard warned, closing the distance between them. His body heat was a palpable force against the cold air surrounding them.
“You saw the DNA test — you ran it yourself!” Cailin’s voice shook but didn’t break. “Zero percent match. Do you trust your own science or not p>
Hilliard faltered. The lab report had been conclusive. Horizon Medical was his facility. The chain of custody had been entirely within his control. The certainty in his eyes wavered for just a fraction of a second.
“Tests can be faked,” he said, his mind reaching for the loophole — some way to make his gut and the hard data align.
“By who?” Cailin threw her hands up. “You control everything. You hired the lab. You set the timeline. You supervised every step. Who in the world has the power to trick Hilliard Holloway inside his own kingdom p>
He fell silent.
Logic told him she was right. And that was the thing that frightened him most.
𝖱еа𝖽 𝘧𝗋𝘦𝗲 ո𝘰𝘃𝗲𝘭s 𝗈𝘯
“Why do you even care?” Cailin pressed her advantage, deflecting the heat. “You have Charla. You have your perfect fiancée waiting for you at home p>
“This isn’t about Charla,” Hilliard snapped, raking a hand through his wet hair.
“It is entirely about Charla!” Cailin thrust a trembling finger toward the wreckage of Gretchen’s boat drifting in the distance. “Her name was on the rental agreement. Her employee tried to murder a child. And you — you have stood by that woman for years p>
“Charla didn’t know,” Hilliard said. The words landed flat — the reflexive defense of a man reciting a line he no longer believed himself.
“It was a rogue employee,” he added.
Cailin laughed — a bitter, hollow sound that collapsed almost immediately into a hacking cough. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “You are blind,” she said. “You always were p>
“Someone could have stolen her identity to frame her,” Hilliard insisted. Even as he said it, the words felt like tissue paper held against a fire — a flimsy barrier against the chasm of betrayal cracking open beneath his feet.
Cailin looked at him, and the disappointment settling in her chest was heavier than the ocean water she had swallowed. Even now. Even here, with a child barely breathing on the deck behind them, he was constructing excuses for that woman.
“You deserve her, Hilliard,” Cailin whispered, turning away. “You really do p>
“Cailin, wait.” He reached for her, something that looked almost like guilt crossing his face.
A loud horn cut through the air.