“We’re only about twenty minutes out,” Sawyer says, and Sydney’s brows knit together. “We aren’t meeting at Shaw Software.” He answers her unspoken question. “We thought it best to meet somewhere private. A friend has a house close by, and he’s letting us use it for the meeting.”
“Okay. This is most unusual.” Sydney leans back into me, and I hold her tight.
“I know we’re being vague, but it’ll all make sense when we get there.”
“What about Vittoria?” Sydney asks. “Can you tell us what you discovered about her?”
Sawyer and Xavier exchange another look, and a sense of dread tiptoes up my spine.
“It might be better to wait until after to discuss that,” Sawyer says, eyeballing me.
“I want to know now.”
“This won’t be easy to hear, dude,” Xavier says, and I hate the look of pity on his face. His poker face definitely needs work.
Sydney turns in her seat, wrapping her arm around my front, clearly sharing the same instincts as me.
“Whether you tell me now or later won’t change that fact.”
“True.” Sawyer runs a hand through his hair. “There is no easy way to say this.”
“So, we’ll be blunt,” Xavier says. “Vittoria has been scamming you from the start. That baby isn’t yours.”
ChapterThirty-Six
Sydney
You could cut the tension with a knife after Xavier drops the bomb. Jared is in complete shock, staring at Xavier and Sawyer in a daze. I hug him tighter and press a kiss to his neck. I’m in shock too. Though it doesn’t really surprise me. Vittoria has shown herself to be completely conniving. There’s a lot to process in that revelation, and now isn’t the time to delve into it. We can’t go into the meeting with my father at a disadvantage. I understand now why Sawyer wanted to wait until later to tell us this.
My heart hurts for Jared. I know how invested he was in the baby.
My hatred for that bitch elevates to new levels.
How fucking dare she do this to him.
She is going to pay dearly for fucking with us.
Jared is still staring into space, and no doubt, his mind is all over the place. I rub a hand back and forth across his chest as he clings to me, burying his face in my hair. He’s shaking, and right now, I’m close to asking my friends if they can organize a hit on that manipulative bitch.
I clear my throat, my worried gaze bouncing from my boyfriend to the guys and back. “I’m not going to ask if you’re sure because I know you wouldn’t have said it if you weren’t. But I want to know how you know this is true.”
“She has a childhood sweetheart from Florence,” Xavier begins explaining as the car takes a sharp turn up ahead. I’m assuming the driver is a trusted employee if we’re discussing all this in front of him. I don’t question the guys because I trust them.
“They came to the US together,” Sawyer continues. “While Vittoria was riding your coattails, Antonio was bartending at a popular club in the city. He fell in with a certain crew, and one of the guys works at a DNA laboratory.”
Jared’s head whips up, and the trembling stops as realization dawns. “He got him to doctor the paternity test.”
Sawyer nods. “We had a little chat with the guy, and he divulged everything while he was pissing his pants.”
“We got the original results,” Xavier confirms. “Antonio is the father. They must have concocted this plan together. To extort money is our guess, but you’ll have to confront her to know for sure.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “Her career was going well, and she stood to make a lot of money in her own right. Why would she do this? She has sabotaged herself, and it doesn’t make sense.”
“Our little lab rat alluded to the fact her boyfriend is miserable here and he wants to go back to Florence. Vittoria’s career is in the US. Seems like she had to make a choice,” Sawyer says.
“So, she was going to marry me, probably try to do that without a prenup, then divorce me after the baby was born, bleed me dry, and go back to Florence after having broken my heart with the news the child wasn’t mine,” Jared says, wrapping both his arms around me and holding me tight.
“And when that plan fell apart, they worked out a Plan B,” I say, grinding my teeth in anger as I consider what it could be. I peer deep into Jared’s eyes as a light bulb goes off in my head. “They wanted money more than they wanted their child.”
