THE DIVORCE GAMBIT From Dumped Wife to CEO's Forever novel Chapter 834

Carey never would have thought that sharing some pastries with Tina could unravel something so monumental.

"But you can't determine we're mother and daughter just from a few pastries, right?" Carey asked, still grappling with the flood of new information.

She had so many questions. If she really was Carey, then why was she at Vance Castle? How did she become Flavia Cartwright? What on earth happened twenty years ago?

As if reading her mind, Caitlin answered the unspoken questions. "I'm guessing you want to know what happened to separate you from us for all these years, right?"

Caitlin then told her about the car crash two decades ago. When Carey heard that her daughter had been only three months old when she was torn from her parents, she felt a crushing weight on her heart, as if someone were squeezing it tight.

"After the crash, my dad fell into a coma and was bedridden for twenty years. You disappeared completely—no sign of you, alive or dead. My grandfather took me in and raised me..."

As she spoke, Caitlin took out her phone and pulled up a photograph. "Look at this. This is a family portrait of the three of us. Dad said I had just turned one month old."

The photo showed a happy family of three. Carey was holding a baby Caitlin in her arms, while Stuart Gonzales had his hand resting on his wife's shoulder. All three were smiling blissfully.

Seeing the woman in the photo—a woman who looked exactly like her—Carey froze, her eyes wide with shock.

Caitlin pointed to the image. "This is you. This is my dad, Stuart. And this is me."

She swiped to the next picture.

"This is a photo of just you."

"If you still don't believe me, we can do a DNA test."

It was the photographs that finally broke through Carey's wall of doubt. She pulled her daughter into a fierce hug, tears streaming down her face. "Freya, my poor child, you've suffered so much..."

"I'm not the one who's suffered, Mom. Not at all. It's you. You must have gone through hell at the Vance family's hands all these years, haven't you?" Caitlin's voice was gentle as she asked, "Can you tell me how you ended up there? How did you become Flavia Cartwright?"

Carey shook her head. "I don't know. Twenty years ago, when I woke up, the Vances told me my name was Flavia Cartwright. They said I grew up in an orphanage, that I had no parents. They told me they raised me, that I was betrothed to their son. They said my husband, Quinton, died in a fire trying to save me."

"Because of that, they told me I had to live as his widow, that my entire life had to be spent atoning for his death."

Hearing Carey's story, a layer of ice seemed to form over Caitlin's face.