The IVF Secret That Shook a Dynasty novel Chapter 398

Hillary had traveled a thousand miles to Riverdale, dragging her ailing body along, all to get an answer to this question. So, despite her fear and embarrassment, she forced herself to speak her mind.

“It’s not unusual for children not to resemble their parents. Genetics can skip a generation,” Joseph calmly countered, shutting down her arguments one by one.

“But Vivica doesn’t have a good relationship with them,” Hillary said urgently.

Joseph looked at Raymond. “You investigated her?”

Raymond’s face flushed. He hesitated, then answered honestly, “No, not really. I just heard that Vivica had divorced, so I did a little digging into her ex-husband’s affairs and learned that her relationship with her biological family was strained. And when I met her and her mother, Vivica’s clothes and style were in a completely different class from her mother’s. If they had a good relationship, and the daughter married into wealth, the mother should be living comfortably as well.”

They were all intelligent people, and Raymond was skilled at deducing things from small details.

Joseph hadn’t considered that angle and, for a moment, couldn’t refute it. He hadn’t been there when Raymond had shown up uninvited, and Vivica had taken Evelyn to meet him. He had been busy that day.

Even so, he couldn’t just let it go without a fight. “Vivica is a simple person who has never been extravagant. It’s only recently, after marrying me, that she started paying more attention to her appearance. As for my mother-in-law, older people are often frugal by habit.”

“You’re a lawyer. No one can win a war of words with you,” Raymond said, knowing Joseph was bending the truth.

Joseph smiled faintly. “I’m merely stating facts and reasoning. How can you insist two people are mother and daughter just because they look alike, despite being from places thousands of miles apart?”

“When my cousin was lost, what if she was taken by human traffickers? It’s entirely possible she ended up here,” Raymond argued.

“Lost…” Joseph mulled over the word. “May I ask, how old was the child when she was ‘lost’?”

Hillary replied, “Almost six months old.”

“She couldn’t even walk then. She would have needed round-the-clock care. How could she get lost? And if she did, why wasn’t it reported to the police immediately? Why didn’t you start looking for her right away?”

Initially, Joseph had no interest in these details. But since they were so persistent, trying to force him to acknowledge Vivica’s connection to them, he decided to press a little harder and see if their consciences stung.

“But the girl didn’t develop well in the womb. She was underweight, and her organs weren’t fully mature. She had to stay in the hospital right after birth, which cost a lot of money.”

“We were poor. My husband had been working out of town, sending money back, but when I was six months pregnant and we found out it was twins, he came home to take care of me and start a small business.”

“He had no experience and lost money at first. We had to borrow from everyone just to pay for the birth. So when my daughter’s hospital stay added to our debts, my in-laws became very critical. They even suggested we bring her home and just… see if she could make it. If she did, we’d raise her. If not…”

In those days, it was a common, harsh reality for poor families with sick newborns. They were often left to fate.

“But my husband and I refused. We scraped together money from wherever we could and insisted on her treatment. The little one stayed in the hospital for a full month until she was finally strong enough to come home. But since she’d been in the hospital since birth, she wasn't used to us. She was incredibly difficult, crying all through the night…”

“At that time, my husband had raised enough capital to try the business again. We couldn’t afford to hire help, so I had to work alongside him. That meant we had to leave the children with my in-laws.”

“They already had a preference for boys. On top of that, my son was chubby and easy to care for, while my daughter was frail, constantly sick, and always needing trips to the hospital. My in-laws grew to adore their grandson and became more and more resentful of their granddaughter.”