Chapter 2 - THE HUSBAND WHO ALREADY KNEW
Avery carried the burgundy case upstairs.
Liam followed.
Victoria did not.
That frightened Avery more.
The Sterling matriarch had spent every family confrontation insisting on the last word.
Now she remained downstairs.
Because whatever was inside that case mattered more than controlling the conversation.
Avery entered the nursery suite and closed the door.
Leo remained asleep in the bedside bassinet.
“Tell me before I open it.”
Liam loosened his bow tie.
“I can’t.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s complicated.”
“You watched your mother tell me our son doesn’t deserve the family fortune.”
“She was angry.”
“She was deliberate.”
Liam looked away.
Avery felt something inside her sharpen.
They had been married eleven months.
Together three years.
Liam had told her about Sterling money carefully.
The family real-estate holdings.
A private investment company.
A charitable foundation.
Several old trusts established by his grandfather.
He always insisted he was wealthy because he had inherited responsibility, not simply money.
Avery had admired that restraint.
Now she wondered what else she had mistaken for integrity.
She opened the case.
The photograph showed Victoria standing beside Richard Sterling, Liam’s late father.
But Richard was not the man touching Victoria’s waist.
That man had been cropped almost entirely from the picture.
Only one hand remained visible.
A signet ring.
Avery recognized it.
She had seen the same crest on a portrait in the Sterling library.
“Your grandfather?”
Liam closed his eyes.
“No.”
“Then who?”
“My uncle Julian.”
Avery stared.
Richard Sterling’s younger brother had died before Avery joined the family.
She knew little about him.
Never married.
No children.
At least according to every Sterling biography.
Avery looked at Liam.
“What was your mother doing with Julian when she was pregnant with you?”
Liam sat down.
“I don’t know the whole story.”
“That means you know part of it.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“My father once told me there was a reason I should never challenge the family trusts.”
Avery looked toward the documents.
“What reason?”
May you like
Liam’s answer came quietly.
“Because if anyone ever questioned who my father was, everything connected to my inheritance could be challenged too.”
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