At the farmhouse...
It was almost ten at night when Keith finally arrived at the farmhouse. As he stepped inside, he found Claudia waiting for him in the dimly lit hall, a half-empty glass of wine clutched tightly in her hand. She looked tense, her posture rigid, her gaze cold and piercing as it landed on him.
"Claudia!" He stopped short, squinting at her in frustration. "Why did you drag me here at this hour? I told you to be patient, to wait a few days."
Claudia glared at him, his words intensifying her simmering fury. With a sharp movement, she slammed the glass down on the table, spilling a splash of wine. "Wait?" she hissed. "You think I can afford to wait? Do you have any idea how serious things have gotten?" Her voice was low and urgent. "Theodore is all set to expose me. He knows everything about me – my lies, the secrets we kept hidden for so long. And he is threatening me now to hand me the footage. Or else, he will show Gina the paternity test result."
"What are you talking about?" Keith growled, stunned by the revelation. "How did he find out?"
The two of them had spent years weaving a careful web of lies, ensuring that no one in the Reid family would ever know the truth. And yet, somehow, Theodore had uncovered it all, destroying everything they had worked to conceal.
Keith’s anger boiled over as he took a step toward her, his expression hardening. "This is all because of you," he spat. "I warned you to be careful, Claudia. But you never listen. Certainly, you did something that made him suspicious and investigated you furtively."
"Stop blaming me," she shot back, her face contorting even further. "I did nothing wrong. Theodore never liked me. Remember when he tried to run a paternity test on Franklin? We thought we were lucky to find out and destroy the report before he saw it. But we didn’t know someone from the hospital had called him and informed him about the result before he met the accident."
Keith’s expression froze, leaving him speechless. Shocked, he couldn’t react as if he had lost his voice.
"He had been watching me all this time, waiting to bring me down," Claudia added. "Now he knows everything. He blocked my cards and locked me out of the properties I bought... All those years, all our work, wasted."
Her voice cracked as she continued, "My son is in jail. And now...now I’m terrified that Gina will hate me when she finds out the truth."
Tears slipped down her cheeks. The anger soon transformed into sadness. Her hands flew to cover her face, her shoulders slumping.
"I don’t know what to do?" she sobbed. "I wasted all those years for nothing. The futures of my children are bleak. I don’t know if Gina will forgive me even if I tell her the truth."
Keith’s irritation softened at the sight of her breaking down, and he sank beside her, wrapping an arm around her.
"Alright, Claudia, stop crying," he said stiffly, his voice lacking any real warmth or reassurance. There was an edge of frustration in his tone, a clear displeasure at how things had unraveled.
His words failed to give any comfort to her. "I wasted my life," she muttered bitterly. "I sacrificed so much – I gave up my own daughter, married a man I didn’t even love – all for wealth, all to secure a future I thought would be worth it. And now...what’s left?"
She pulled her hands down and glared at him resentment flashing in her gaze. "This is your fault," she accused. "It was your ambition, your obsession with the Reid fortune, that pushed me into this. I gave up everything for your plans. And now look at where I am – alone, betrayed, facing the ruin of everything I ever cared about."
Keith’s face hardened, his jaw clenched as her words struck him. Anger sparked within him. The sympathy he had felt for her a moment ago vanished altogether. He pulled away from her, his gaze cold and accusatory.
"Don’t put this all on me," he snapped. "I never forced you to do anything, Claudia. I told you my plan, yes, but you had a choice. You could have said no. You chose this path – you chose to abandon Gina and marry Theodore’s father. That was your decision."
Claudia’s face twisted with hurt, her tears flowing freely. "So now it’s my fault?" she cried out, her pain evident. "Do you have any idea what I went through? I did this to make your dream a reality. I sacrificed everything– my love, my happiness, my own child. Do you know how difficult it was for me? To marry someone else I don’t love, leaving my newborn daughter? Yet, I lived a lie, all for you, for the future we thought we were building together."
Keith’s voice rose in response to her accusations. "Don’t act like you did it all out of some selfless love for me. You wanted this just as much as I did. You were just as willing, just as ambitious. Not once did you say you wanted to stop."
Claudia’s heart ached even more as the resentment in his words struck her deeply. Helpless and angry, she started sobbing harder and harder. She was left feeling as though the years of sacrifices and secrets had amounted to nothing. She realized that they had both been driven by a shared ambition that had now turned them against each other.
Keith ran his fingers through his hair, anxious and restless. He couldn’t afford for everything they had built to fall apart now. "Stop crying, Claudia." Sighing, he softened his tone, trying to contain his irritation. "We need to focus on fixing this. There’s still a chance. We just have to stop Theodore before he can do more damage."
She looked up, her tear-streaked face filled with desperate hope. "But how, Keith?" Her voice trembled. "How are we going to stop him? He is already unraveling everything. He knows too much."
Keith’s expression turned calculating, a spark of determination igniting in his eyes. "We’ll find a way," he said firmly. "Theodore has his weaknesses, and we just need to exploit them before he has a chance to destroy us. But it’s going to take careful planning."
Keith’s gaze grew steely as he outlined the plan. "We still have the footage against him," he muttered. "The first step is to hand it over to the cops."
"No, we can’t do that," she chimed in before he could even finish the sentence properly. "If we do that, he will tell Gina everything about the secret. He’ll tell her the truth, Keith, and she’ll despise me for it."
"Claudia, the truth is going to come out eventually," Keith said calmly. "This is the time to tell her everything. Once we go back home tomorrow, we’ll tell her the truth before Theodore can manipulate her."
Claudia hesitated, the enormity of the decision washing over her. For so long, she had lived under the weight of her secrets, hoping they’d never be discovered. But Keith’s words rang with logic, compelling her to reconsider.
"Once the authorities have the tape," he continued, "they’ll haul Theodore in for interrogation. And in that window, we make our move – we will capture his grandfather, and his beloved woman, Bella."
"Bella?" Claudia echoed, her brow furrowing. "They’re divorced, Keith. She has nothing to do with this. Theodore hates her. Why would she matter?"
"Do you believe that?" Keith scowled at her. "Just now, you said that Theodore had been investigating you sneakily all those days. He was focused on exposing you – us. A man like that would do anything to achieve his goals – even lie about a divorce."
Claudia’s eyes narrowed as she listened.
"If they’re truly over, how did Bella land a job at Limeart Fashion House, the most prestigious in the country?" Keith continued with conviction. "I doubt she could’ve done it without Theodore’s help."
He explained how he had uncovered Bella’s recent collaboration with a top-tier fashion house that had suddenly partnered with her. The timing struck him as too convenient, and suspicions bloomed. He was certain that Theodore might have influenced the Limeart Fashion House to collaborate with her.
"I’ve been watching her since then," Keith said with suspicion. "She is incredibly cautious. She keeps to herself, avoiding friends, and steering clear of events. It’s as if she is trying to keep her life as low-profile as possible, which makes me think she is still in touch with Theodore."
Claudia was surprised and annoyed at the same time. "All this was just a drama! Is he using Gina as part of some game? If he is still tied to Bella, then...is he planning to hurt Gina?"
She clenched her fists, her thoughts drifting to her daughter. She could see Gina’s excitement for the engagement and happiness whenever she spoke about Theodore. The possibility that he was leading Gina only to break her heart filled Claudia with fierce protectiveness.
"Gina thinks that he will marry her," she added anxiously. "She doesn’t know Theodore is planning to break her heart. We have to stop him anyhow."
Keith nodded; his jaw set in determination. "We will," he promised. "He may think he is clever but hasn’t faced us at our strongest. We’ve invested too much, and sacrificed too much, to be outplayed by him now. This ends with him defeated."
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