Chapter 38 The Truth I Didn't Know
Lara's pov
I couldn't breathe.
The private investigator I had given the work to help me find about the hotel night and about Damien called me. Robert Chen.
I was so terrified to pick the call. I didn't know what his feedback would look like. Has Damien been tailing me? But I finally picked it because I needed to know.
“Ms Otto? Are you still there?
“Oh, yes of course”. My voice came out shaky. “I'm with you”.
I have the evidence you asked for. About Damien and the night at the hotel. The credit card records, the cameras, the hotel security, the footage and every other thing.
God.
So it was true.
“When can we meet?” I forced myself to speak out. I didn't know what would happen because I'm scared of the truth. “Can I come to your office so that we can discuss later?”.
Yes, please.
“Where is your office please?” I should be there in the next thirty minutes. I was about to find out if my whole life was a lie.
“The same place we met the other time, the third floor. Do you remember?”
Yeah, I do… I will be there.
“Ms Otto, before you come… He paused. What I found out might be difficult to bear. You might want to prepare yourself ahead.
The word hit me differently “What I found out might be difficult to bear” So Damien had been lying to me all along.
I knew it deep down that there was something right about Lucas's letter. But I just didn't want to believe it
I stepped down from the veranda where I was sitting and walked straight into my car. Just sat there for some minutes to calculate all that I’d just heard and couldn't fathom it.
My hands were shaking so badly that my phone almost fell from my hand.
Damien was at the hotel.
The night of the gala. The night I was drugged. The night I woke up in a strange room with no memory of how I got there.
What he was hiding that he didn't tell me. He never really told me what he was there to do before we later met that night.
We had been living together for seven years, building our life together and raising Ethan.
But what if he didn't tell me everything? What did my investigator find out that might be difficult for me to bear?
What if there was more to the story?
More he was hiding?
Lucas's letter kept saying something I didn't understand that he orchestrated everything.
But honestly, I thought he was lying and trying to manipulate me.
But that was what I didn't understand any longer.
I needed to call Damien and tell him I’d be coming home late so as to go to Robert.
But what was I supposed to say?
“Hi baby, I'm just going to meet with a probate investigator to see proof that our entire relationship had been orchestrated by your lie?
No now, this can't be. I just had to come up with something.
God.
I hated this. I picked out my phone from my purse and texted him.
Me: Something came up at work, I'm going to be late. You can go ahead with your lunch without me.
He texted me back immediately.
Is everything okay?
Is it not obvious that everything was not okay. Nothing was okay at all.
Me: Yeah, I'm kinda busy, I will see you tonight.
Damien: Do you want me to pick up Ethan from school?
Me: Please do so, Thanks.
Damien: I love you
Love me? Did he actually love me? Or was I just a promise he made to my dying father?
I stared at the message. I didn't want to respond to the message. I couldn't type these words back when I didn't know if they were real.
I put my phone in my purse and started the car.
Time to find out the hidden truth.
The drive to Robert’s office felt like forever.
The traffic was slow, guess a lot of people were going to pick up their children from school, people were going to different places. It seems as if I should fly off the car.
My mind was just spinning.
I kept thinking about everything Damien had told me over the years, the truth or maybe the lie, that I was getting to know soon.
About how he met my father as an intern. How my father mentored him and helped him build his company.
About the night of the hotel. How both of us were drunk and how everything just happened. About the night he found me lying down on the curb.
How he bought the property. How it was fate.
Just fate.
That's what I had believed that destiny brought us together.
But what if it wasn't fate?
What if every single thing was all planned?
Lucas's words kept echoing in my head. Those letters he sent from prison .
“Your father hired him”.
“Damien was paid money to watch you”.
“ He has been feeding you with lies from the beginning.
I had even thrown the letters away, called him a manipulator and a liar.
But if the person I trusted the most had been lying to me all along?
A car hunked behind me. The light has changed to green. I drove forward,my hands kept shaking on the wheel.
I was almost at Robert’s office, it was just downtown. It was one old building like that, no elevator, the third floor. I had to climb the stairs.
I parked and sat in my car for a minute.
This was it.
Once I walked and stepped into the office and saw every evidence Robert said he had gotten. Everything would change.
My family. My life and my marriage.
Again.
Just when I thought everything was good, that I was safe, that I had something real after Lucas sent me out.
It was about to fall apart. I grabbed my purse and got out.
Robert’s office smelled like all this old coffee and The building was really old, the paints had already been peeling off the walls.
I got to the third floor and turned right to the door. Robert private investigator room.
I knocked.
"Come in."
The office was small, everywhere was messy. The desk was already rusting. The two metal chairs and a coffee maker that looked older than me.
Robert stood up when I entered. He was around maybe fifty-something. He has a gray hair and he really looked tired.
"Ms. Otto. Thank you for coming."
“Let me see what you found, before he can even tell me to have my sit.
He gestured to the chair opposite his desk and asked me to take a seat. "Please sit". He said.
I managed to have my sit. My heart was pounding so heavily that I could even hear it in my ears.
Robert brought a thick brown folder and dropped it on the desk between us.
"Before I will be able to let you see this, I need you to understand something that I did the investigation very well. I verified everything twice or more than that. I'm damn sure of everything I had been able to gather. This is a solid evidence ".
"Just show me."
He opened the folder and pulled out a term paper. It was a bank statement .
"This is a wire transfer from Richard Montgomery to Damien Otto. The date was six months before your father died."
I checked through the paper, my vision was really blurry but I could see numbers thousands of dollars.
$700,000.
Almost a million dollars. I didn't understand the concept because of my blurry eyes , the only thing I was able to see is the amount.
"What was this for?" My voice already broke.
"That's what I wanted to know as well." Robert pulled out another document. That was what actually made me dig deeper and guess what I found".
This.
It was a contracted legal document that was stamped by your father and notarized.
I didn't understand, but I had to read now so I started reading.
Agreement between Richard Montgomery and Damien Otto.
Terms: Protection and care of Lara Montgomery.
Compensation: $700,000 upon fulfillment of conditions.
Conditions: Marriage to Lara Montgomery within one year of Richard Montgomery's death.
My eyes became wider, I could see clearly now.The words swam on the page.
Marriage.
So muy father paid Damien to marry me.
"No." I pushed the paper back to him. "This can't be real. You are giving me wrong information.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Otto. But this is nothing but the truth".
"I trust my father, he wouldn't do that, he wouldn't me a husband. For what?"
" From what I can tell seeing this, I guess he was trying to protect you. He knew he might not survive the sickness, he knew Lucas was a very dangerous person that could do possibly anything. He just wanted to make sure you would be taken care of".
"Please safe me that, you mean he was trying to protect me by paying someone to marry me?!"
Robert didn't answer, he just pulled out another document.
"This is a letter. From your father to Damien. Written three weeks before Richard died."
He handed it to me.My hands were shaking as I read my father's handwriting. It was truly my dad that wrote the letter. I knew is handwriting.
Damien,
By the time you read this, I'll likely be gone. Lucas has been poisoning me for months. I know this. I have proof. But I'm too weak to fight him now.
Please, protect my daughter. She doesn't know what Lucas is. What his family is. She thinks she's in love.
When I die, Lucas will try and take everything she has and that I had built for years and destroy her.
I'm asking you and begging you to please take care of my daughte and watch over her. To save her when the time comes.
I know this is a lot to ask. That's why I'm offering you this money to marry her, protect her and give her the life she deserves.
She's all I have. Please don't let Lucas kill my only daughter.
Richard
Tears streamed down my face. So my father knew everything from the onset. He knew Lucas and Claire was killing him and he didn't say anything. He didn't tell me.
Instead he hired Damien to save me.
"That's not all, "Ms Otto.
"So what else, what more heartbeat do you want me to here?"
He pulled out property records. "Damien bought the estate where he found you.
Bought it two weeks before you were kicked out."
"How did he know I'd be there?"
"He hired private investigators. Tracked your movements. Knew when Lucas would make his move."
God.
So it wasn't even fate that made us meet. Damien knew everything and he was just pretending.
"And this." Robert pulled out a DNA test result. "Damien had a paternity test done on Ethan. Two years ago."
My blood went cold.
"What?"
He knows Ethan isn't his biological son and not Lucas's biological son as well. He has known for more than two years now. I guess he didn't tell you.
I couldn't breathe.
Ethan. My baby. Damien knew?
"How... how is that even possible? If Damien's not the father, and Lucas is not..then who—"
"That I don't know. But I'm sure Damien does. And he didn't tell you.
I stood up. My eyes started turning me.
"I need... I need to go."
"Ms. Otto, are you okay?"
Nevermind. I grabbed the folder and all the evidence Robert had shown me before I could even ask for the permission to take them.
"Can I take this?"
"Yes. That's your copy."
I walked to the door and stopped.
"Thank you for the great work you've done. For finding all of this".
"I'm sorry it wasn't better news."
I left without giving a response .
I made it to my car before I broke down completely. I sat in the driver's seat. Crying so hard I couldn't see.
So my father paid someone to marry me. So Damien didn't love me.He was just fulfilling a contract.
He was fulfilling his promise to a dying man.
So I was even a job. A duty and obligation. He was paid seven hundred million dollars to marry me.
And Ethan.
God, Ethan.
Damien knew for two years that Ethan wasn't his son and neither Lucas's son.
And he never said anything. He has just been pretending for me, kept playing me.
He lied about everything.
I didn't know how long I sat there. Could have been ten minutes. Could have been an hour.
Finally I pulled myself together enough to drive.
But I couldn't go home yet. I couldn't face Damien. Couldn't pretend everything was normal.
I pulled out my phone and texted my work place and called in to sick, I told them I had a family emergency.
Did I lie? "Absolutely not".
My family was falling apart again.
I drove around for hours. I didn't know where to go, I didn't have a specific direction. I just kept driving and thinking about everything
My father. Lucas. Claire. The poisoning.
Damien. The contract. The money. The lies.
Ethan. The paternity test. The secret.
Everything I thought I knew was wrong.
I got home around 7pm, I saw Damien's car in the driveway. I sat down in my car for some minutes. Just staring at the house.
My house. The home we built together.
Was any of it real?
I grabbed the folder from Robert and went inside.
Ethan ran to me as soon as I opened the door.
"Mommy! You're home!"
I hugged him tight. Too tight probably.
My baby. My son.
Who wasn't even Damien's.
"Hey sweetheart. Did you have a good day?"
"Yeah! Me and Daddy made pizza!"
"That's great, baby."
Damien appeared in the kitchen doorway."Hey. I was getting worried. You're really late."
I couldn't look at his face.
" Oh sorry. Work stuff."
" Are you okay? You look..."
"I'm fine. Just tired."
"Did you eat? I have some pizza left. I have kept some for you so you could eat when you are back.There's pizza left."
"I'm not hungry."
He was looking at me carefully and suspiously.
"Lara, what's wrong?"
"Nothing. I just need to take a shower."
I went upstairs before he could ask more questions.
I waited until Ethan was asleep. I took the longest shower of my life. Trying to prepare myself.
How do you confront someone about this?
How do you ask if your entire marriage was bought and paid for?
When I came downstairs, Damien was on the couch waiting for me. He definitely knew something was wrong.
"Ethan's asleep?" I asked.
"Yeah. Lara, talk to me. What's going on?"
I sat down across from him. Not next to him like I usually would.
Put the folder on the coffee table between us.
"I met with a private investigator today."
His face went pale.
"What?"
"I needed to know the truth. About us and about everything."
"What truth? Lara, I don't understand—"
"Did my father pay you to marry me?"
Silence.
That silence already explained everything.
"Oh my God." I felt like I couldn't breathe. "It's true. It's actually true."
"Lara, let me explain—"
"Explain what? That you were hired? That our entire relationship was a contract?"
"It wasn't like that—"
"Then what was it like?!" I was yelling now.
"Tell me! Did my father pay you five hundred thousand dollars to marry me or not?!"
He looked down at his hands.
"Yes.”