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She wondered what her grandfather and great-uncle would have thought of this kind of technological advancement if they’d lived long enough to see it. Her mom and dad had been killed in a plane crash five years earlier. While her parents hadn’t shared a loving relationship for most of their marriage, she’d never expected to lose them so suddenly and wished they could have been here to meet their grandson.
Esme continued to read, but what the report revealed about her son didn’t make any sense.
“What’s wrong?” Bea asked. “Don’t tell me there’s truly someone infamous in Seth’s family.”
Esme shook her head. Her throat had gone dry as she tried to process what the DNA report meant regarding her son’s background.
“There’s not one Fortune or anyone from Seth’s family listed. Several of them have the last name Hayes. I—I don’t understand...”
“Maybe that was his mother’s maiden name?” her sister murmured.
“No, her name was Williams. Lana Williams. She died when Seth was in high school, but he still used her name as a password for most of his online accounts. That’s the reason I’m sure Hayes isn’t right. None of this is right.”
“Do you think 411 Me inadvertently gave you the wrong report for Chase?” Bea asked. “I mean, otherwise, how can any of this make sense when your results seem valid?”
“I can’t explain it, but I had a weird feeling that doing the DNA test was a mistake.”
“It has to be a mix-up.” Esme’s sister grabbed the papers from her. “They’re based out of California, and it says customer service is still open. Let’s call them and get to the bottom of it.”
Bea had to be correct. It must be a technical error. She’d call, and they’d redo the tests, or maybe, as her sister had suggested, there had been a mix-up, and they would just send her the correct information.
“They better offer a refund for putting me through this headache,” she said with a laugh that didn’t feel humorous.
“You want me to call?” Bea asked. “I’d be happy to give those people a piece of my mind!”
Esme picked up the phone and punched in the number listed on the report. “Thanks, but I need to be the one to talk to them. I want to hear for myself that it’s a mistake because the other option—”
“There is no other option.” Bea hugged her, and Esme tried to channel her sister’s confidence as she waited for someone to answer.
A few minutes later, she explained the situation to the cold and clinical-sounding woman on the other end of the line.
After double checking the results from their database, the woman curtly asked Esme if there was a possibility her child could have been fathered by someone other than the man she believed to be Chase’s biological dad.
The question was almost as shocking as initially reading the report. While Esme hadn’t been entirely inexperienced when she’d begun seeing Seth, her accidental pregnancy had still made her feel like a naive fool.
But she’d ended things with her only other serious boyfriend a year before meeting her late husband. Serious enough for that sort of intimacy anyway. The 411 Me representative didn’t sound surprised or convinced by Esme’s vehement denial.
Clearly, this wasn’t the first call the company had received along this vein. After going back and forth several times, Esme finally persuaded the woman she was telling the truth, and the company representative’s voice gentled considerably. Only the suggestion she gave Esme landed with all the subtlety of a lead balloon.
Her heart reeled and blood roared between her ears as she thanked the woman and finally ended the call.
“What did she say?” Bea grabbed her hand, but Esme barely registered the touch. “Was it a mistake? Why do you look like you’re going to puke? Tell me it’s too much wine.”
“She said I need to contact the hospital where I gave birth.”
Her sister’s eyes widened. “Why? Did they mess up something?”
Esme thought back to the chaos of the night Chase was born—rain lashing against the window, lights flickering and the kind nurses who seemed so discombobulated.
Still, the idea of what the 411 Me representative had proposed as an explanation was outside the realm of possibility.
At least, that was what Esme wanted to believe.
“She thinks it’s possible that Chase isn’t mine.” Esme choked out a sob. “There could have been a mistake and...”
She met Bea’s concerned gaze and tried to focus past the tears blurring her vision. It was obvious when her sister understood what she was trying to say because Bea grabbed her shoulders and shook them gently.
“No. Chase is your son. We’ll go to the hospital right now.”
