The Contract Bride of Mr. Reid

For a brief moment, Theodore’s face flickered with a flash of rage. His jaw tightened, and his eyes darkened, but he quickly regained his composure, his lips curling into a slight, controlled grin. Claudia’s anger was exactly what he had been anticipating, and it pleased him more than she could know.

"Go ahead," he challenged her coldly. "Give the footage to the cops. I have nothing to fear. I didn’t kill O’Neil."

This was the truth. Theodore had only tortured O’Neil but hadn’t killed him. He had only ordered Hugo to bury him alive. Besides, the video Claudia had shown him only captured the torturing part, but it did not show that he had killed him.

Theodore initially feared that the video would be sufficient to put him jail. But his most trusted men, Skyler and Hugo, had covered up things so well that no one could ever find out that Theodore had been involved in killing O’Neil. They had even arranged things in such a way that the suspicion would go to Franklin squarely.

’Tit for tat,’ he mumbled inwardly, confidence brimming in his demeanor.

"Really?" Claudia snorted, disgust rolling in her guts. "You tortured him to death and now you’re trying to act all innocent? Don’t think for a second that I’ll back down. Once I hand the footage over to the cops, you’ll be behind bars."

"Who is stopping you? Go ahead and hand it over. But before you do, maybe you should take a look at something first." He set the file down on the coffee table with a deliberate motion, his gaze unwavering as he nodded toward it.

Claudia’s instincts flared with suspicion. She eyed the file, trying to decipher what kind of trick Theodore was playing this time. Her mind raced, but her curiosity got the best of her. Slowly, she walked over and snatched the file from the table, her fingers trembling slightly as she opened it.

The moment her eyes landed on the contents; the blood drained from her face. Gina’s paternity test result was glaring up at her, bold and undeniable.

Claudia staggered, her hands holding the file shaking. "How?" she mumbled in a daze. "How did this happen?"

She had been extremely careful about keeping this a secret, not even telling Gina the truth. She had endured the pain of keeping herself away from her own daughter, stifling the urge to hear that one word – mother – from Gina’s lips. Yet, through every pang of regret, she had remained resolute, unyielding in her decision. No one knew, not even Gina.

But the truth was still revealed despite all her efforts to keep it secret. Unfortunately, it was Theodore who had found it out – the very person she had never wanted to know about it.