The Secret Father Discovers His Daughter's Mother Trapped in His Fiancée's Kitchen
Previously: When Matteo rushed into his fiancée's high-end restaurant kitchen, he expected to find a professional staff. Instead, he found the bruised, weeping mother of his long-lost daughter hidden away in the shadows.
The Price of a Secret
The silence in the kitchen was suffocating, broken only by the low hum of the commercial refrigerators. Matteo’s hands dropped from Elena’s face, turning into tight fists at his sides. He turned to Victoria, his eyes burning with a rage she had never seen before. The glamorous facade of the wealthy socialite began to crack under his intense glare.
"What did she just say?" Matteo whispered, his voice dangerously quiet. "Victoria, answer me. What daughter?"
Victoria scoffed, though a flicker of fear darted through her eyes. She took a sip of her champagne, trying to regain her composure. She stepped forward, the silk of her pink dress rustling loudly in the quiet room.
"She’s lying, Matteo! She’s a desperate, unstable woman whom I hired out of charity," Victoria sneered, pointing a sharp nail at Elena. "She’s trying to ruin our engagement because she couldn't keep you years ago."
But Elena shook her head, pulling a crumpled, damp piece of paper from her apron pocket. She handed it to Matteo with trembling fingers. It was a DNA test result, dated five years ago, alongside a legal non-disclosure agreement signed by Victoria’s father.
"She paid off my medical debts when Lily was born," Elena explained, her voice shaking but resolute. "But the condition was that I had to disappear. When I tried to contact you last month because Lily got sick, Victoria found me. She threatened to take Lily away forever using her family's lawyers. She forced me to work here, under her watch, keeping me isolated so I could never tell you the truth."
Matteo stared at the documents, the reality crashing down on him. Five years ago, after a brief, passionate romance, Elena had vanished without a trace. He had been told she left the country. All this time, his own fiancée and her powerful family had hidden his child from him, using Elena’s poverty to keep them apart.
"You knew," Matteo said, looking at Victoria with pure disgust. "You built our entire relationship on a lie."
”"You built our entire relationship on a lie."