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Tiny author update ?
I just published a new teen romance called The Scholarship Girl and the Two Kings of Westbridge, and the first four chapters are already up!! ????
I'm already so attached to this story, so it would make me ridiculously happy if you checked it out and told me what you think. And please tell me which character has your attention so far because I need to know ???
The sealed report lay on Andrew Hale's desk like something too small to have carried so much ruin.
Dorothy stood across from it without reaching for the envelope, her hands folded so tightly in front of her that her knuckles had lost color.
Victor remained beside the window, one hand on the head of his cane, his face controlled in that dangerous Perry way that made silence feel more violent than shouting.
Sebastian stood near the door, closer than he had been in the last few days but still not close enough to touch her without being asked, and that careful distance became another presence in the room, quiet and painful, as real as the sealed paper between them.
The DNA result should not have mattered to Dorothy.
That was what she told herself while Hale set the envelope on the desk and broke the seal with a letter opener.
Vanessa's claim was Trevor's matter. Trevor's denial was Trevor's matter.
The possible child, if there was one, belonged to a future Dorothy had already removed herself from.
She had said it in front of an entire ballroom with her voice steady and her hands cold: Trevor's mess was no longer her life.
Yet the human heart, disloyal to dignity, still tightened as Hale unfolded the report.
Not because she wanted Trevor innocent.
Not because she wanted Vanessa destroyed.
Because the lie, if it was a lie, had been built on top of Dorothy's grave.
Hale read in silence first. His expression gave nothing away, which meant he had spent too many years training his face not to become evidence. Victor, less patient, turned from the window.
"Well?"
Hale's eyes lifted.
"The paternity test excludes Trevor Raymond."
The room did not erupt.
It should have, perhaps. There should have been relief, anger, vindication, some human noise large enough to match the weeks of humiliation Vanessa had dragged through their lives. Instead, the words settled quietly over the room, almost too cleanly.
Trevor Raymond was not the father.
Vanessa was not pregnant with Trevor's child.
Dorothy closed her eyes for one breath.
The relief came, but it was not pure. Nothing about this could be pure.
It carried disgust with it, and exhaustion, and a strange hollow ache for the fact that a child, real or claimed, had been turned into a weapon before anyone had known the truth.
If Vanessa was truly pregnant, then there was still a life inside this ugliness, innocent of every adult hand trying to claim or use it.
If she was not, then the cruelty became even more grotesque. Either way, Dorothy felt no triumph.
Only the quiet knowledge that one more lie had failed to become her cage.
Victor exhaled through his nose, a sound so controlled it was almost a growl. "Good."
Hale looked down at the report again. "It is more complicated than good."
Sebastian's gaze sharpened. "How?"
"The testing confirms pregnancy and excludes Mr. Raymond as the biological father based on the submitted samples."
Hale placed the page flat on the desk. "Vanessa's counsel has already been notified. Raymond's counsel received the same report ten minutes ago. However, Miss Werner has issued an objection before the official public statement could be finalized."
Dorothy opened her eyes. "Of course she has."
Hale's expression tightened. "She claims the result was forged."
Victor laughed once, without humor. "By whom? God?"
Hale did not smile. "By you, Miss Perry."
Dorothy stared at him.
For a second, the accusation was so absurd that it did not reach pain.
Then it found the correct wound. Of course.
Vanessa had lost the claim that Trevor was the father, so she had turned to the only story left that might keep Dorothy inside the scandal.
Dorothy Perry, the powerful heiress with legal teams, private investigators, hospitals under pressure, and enough money to bend institutions, had supposedly forged a DNA report to protect herself from another woman's pregnancy.
The trap had changed costumes.
It was still a trap.
Sebastian moved before she realized her breath had caught. Not to touch her. Only closer, enough that his presence entered the edge of her vision.
Dorothy looked at him.
He did not ask if she was all right.
His eyes did.
She gave the smallest shake of her head, not because she was not all right, but because answering had become exhausting.
Victor turned toward Hale, voice low. "I want the accusation killed before it leaves her lawyer's mouth a second time."
"It already has," Hale said. "Not through mainstream outlets yet, but she recorded a statement from her residence. It is circulating."
He turned the tablet on the desk.
The video began without sound at first, Vanessa's face filling the screen in pale, deliberate fragility.
She sat near a window with soft daylight behind her, one hand resting over her abdomen, the other holding a tissue she did not seem to need.
She looked smaller than she had at the banquet, almost breakable, but Dorothy could see the structure beneath the softness now.
The angle. The lighting. The careful absence of jewelry except one thin bracelet that made her wrist look delicate.
Hale increased the volume.
Vanessa's voice filled the study.
"I never imagined I would have to defend my child before the world," she said, tears glistening but not falling.
"But when a woman with Dorothy Perry's power decides she wants to erase someone, what chance does an ordinary mother have? The test is impossible. Trevor knows the truth. I know the truth. And Dorothy Perry has every reason to make sure that truth never sees daylight."
Victor struck his cane against the floor.
The sound cracked through the room.
Hale paused the video.
Dorothy looked at Vanessa's frozen face on the screen and felt something colder than anger move through her.
Vanessa no longer needed the lie to be believable.
She needed it to be repeatable. That had always been the secret of public cruelty.
A rumor did not have to defeat truth immediately.
It only had to force truth to keep defending itself until exhaustion made both sides look equally stained.
"She is going to say I bought the lab," Dorothy said.
"Yes," Hale replied.
"And if we deny it, she will say that is exactly what a guilty person with money would do."
"Yes."
"And if Trevor denies it, she will say I turned him against his child again."
"Likely."
Dorothy breathed in slowly.
Sebastian's voice came from beside her, quiet and hard. "Then Trevor needs to do more than deny."
Hale's gaze shifted toward him. "He appears to agree."
At that exact moment, Hale's phone rang.
The caller ID showed Elise Marlow.
Raymond counsel.
Hale answered on speaker after a brief glance at Dorothy.
"Elise."
Elise's voice came crisp and controlled through the line. "Andrew, Mr. Raymond intends to make a public evidentiary submission within the hour."
Victor's eyes narrowed. "What kind of evidence?"
There was a pause, then Elise replied, "Hospital surveillance."
Dorothy went still.
Sebastian looked at her at once, then toward the phone. "Clarify."
Elise continued, "Not from St. Maren's. From Levington Women's Clinic, where Miss Werner attended appointments connected to this pregnancy. The footage was obtained through subpoena and direct cooperation from clinic security after Miss Werner's accusation of forgery escalated the matter.
It shows Miss Werner attending two appointments with a man who signed in as her emergency contact and remained with her during intake."
Hale's eyes sharpened. "Does the footage establish paternity?"
"No. But it establishes that Miss Werner concealed another male companion connected to her pregnancy while publicly naming Mr. Raymond. It also shows the companion using a false visitor name on one occasion, which creates a separate problem for him."
Victor's voice lowered. "Who is he?"
Elise hesitated.
Dorothy felt the hesitation like the air changing before lightning.
"Mr. Raymond wants to tell Miss Perry before it becomes public," Elise said. "He believes she deserves warning because the man's identity affects both Raymond Group and the public narrative around her."
Dorothy looked at the phone.
The exhaustion in her body went very quiet.
"Tell me," she said.
Elise did not argue.
"The man appears to be a Raymond Group board member."
Sebastian's expression hardened instantly.
Victor took one step toward the desk. "Name."
"I would prefer Mr. Raymond speak directly, but given the speed of release, that may no longer be practical."
"Elise," Hale said, voice flat.
Another pause.
Then Elise said, "Adrian Vale."
The name entered the room with an ugly familiarity.
Dorothy knew it, though not intimately. Adrian Vale had been at Raymond dinners, Raymond shareholder meetings, Raymond charity events.
Late forties, polished, married for twenty years to a woman who collected museum seats and pretended not to notice his habits.
He had once complimented Dorothy on her "quiet adaptability" at a Raymond family dinner, as if she were a piece of furniture that had learned not to obstruct traffic.
Trevor had trusted him in board matters.
Eleanor had approved of him. Vanessa had laughed too warmly at something he said during the second year of Dorothy's marriage, and Dorothy, trained by then not to see what would only be called jealousy, had looked down at her plate and said nothing.
Adrian Vale.
A Raymond board member.
The possible father of Vanessa's child.
The scandal shifted under Dorothy's feet and revealed another pit beneath it.