“You wanted the world to believe June was yours,” I said. “You planned to use her birth certificate to claim the seventy-million-dollar trust next week.”

“She is legally my daughter,” Carter snarled, a sudden desperation breaking through his panic. “My name is on the certificate. I signed it.”

“You signed a fraudulent document,” I said. “And then you realized I was going to leave you, taking June with me.”

I walked closer, until I could smell the expensive scotch on his breath.

“If I left, the truth about June’s paternity would come out in the divorce,” I said. “The trust would be lost. The Hartwell estate would go bankrupt.”

Vivian gripped the edge of a mahogany table to steady herself.

“So you decided to declare me unfit,” I said. “You tried to lock me away in a private facility, take sole custody of June, and present her to the trust executors as your biological child before I could ever speak to a judge.”

The guests were no longer whispering; they were staring openly at Vivian and Carter.