Uncle Richard bent down quickly, picking up the paper from the marble floor. His eyes widened as he scanned the lines, his hands beginning to shake violently.
Uncle Richard: This... this is a legal marriage certificate... dated six months ago in Boston...
Beatrice: What?! Boston?!
Uncle Richard: "Ethan Alexander Vance and Clara Marie Rose..." It’s fully registered with the state department...
Grandmother: Give me that paper! Give it to me!
Evelyn snatched the document from Richard's hands, her eyes scanning the official stamps and signatures. Her face turned a sickening shade of pale, her lips quivering in pure shock.
Grandmother: No... no! This is fake! You married a maid in secret?!
Ethan: She wasn't a maid when I married her, Evelyn. She was the woman I loved. The woman who stayed by my side when I was recovering from the car accident three years ago while you were all vacationing in the South of France!
Grandmother: She is a nobody! A low-class orphan with no bloodline!
Ethan: You keep talking about bloodlines, Evelyn. Do you want to know who Clara’s biological father actually was?
The room fell into a dead, suffocating silence. Clara looked up from the sofa, her eyes wide with confusion, holding her baby girl tightly as she listened to her husband.
Clara: Ethan... what are you talking about? My father died before I was born...
Ethan: That’s what your mother told you to protect you, Clara. But when I hired private investigators to clear your background for our marriage, we found the truth in the state records.
Grandmother: What truth?! Stop playing mind games, Ethan!
Ethan: Clara is the late Arthur Sterling’s only legal daughter.
A loud, collective gasp exploded through the room. Aunt Beatrice nearly lost her balance, holding onto a wooden side table for support. Arthur Sterling had been the founder of Sterling Enterprises and the original owner of the massive mansion estate before his sudden passing twenty years ago.
Uncle Richard: Arthur Sterling?! The real estate tycoon who owned fifty percent of our corporate holdings?!
Ethan: Exactly. Arthur left a secret deed granting his entire property portfolio to his daughter upon her twenty-fifth birthday. Clara turned twenty-five two weeks ago.
Grandmother: Impossible! Arthur’s daughter died in a house fire when she was a baby!
Ethan: Her mother escaped the fire with her and changed their last names to survive! Clara doesn't just own fifty percent of our company, Evelyn... she owns this mansion! She owns the marble floor you’re standing on right now!