Chapter 1749:


    The words died in his throat as a memory surfaced — a night years ago when he had been disoriented and in pain. He had spent that night with a woman, but she had been gone before he opened his eyes, vanishing sopletely that he couldn’t even recall her face. He had tried to find her afterward. His people had searched, ande back with nothing.


    Was it possible that woman had been Gillian?


    “What just urred to you?” Colette asked, watching his expression shift.


    “There was one night,” Alban said slowly. “A few years ago. I was with someone, but I could never track her down afterward.” He paused. “I looked for a long time.”


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    The rest of the family went quiet. None of them had genuinely expected the guess tond anywhere close to the truth.


    If this was real, a DNA test needed to happen as quickly and quietly as possible. Given that Alban could no longer have children, if that little girl was truly his, she would be the only heir the Martel family had.


    “I think we may have just found something extraordinary,” Colette said, her voice bright with barely contained excitement.


    Alban looked at his family working themselves up and let out a long, heavy breath. “Life isn’t a drama series. Don’t build your hopes on a theory.”


    He wasn’t the kind of man who put stock in convenient coincidences. And there was something else behind his caution — he knew that if he allowed himself to hope, and it turned out to be nothing, the fall would be far worse than not hoping at all.


    Even so, somewhere beneath the skepticism, something quiet and stubborn refused to be entirely dismissed. If the girl was his, Gillian might finally have a reason to reconsider his proposal. He pushed the thought aside before it could take root.


    Alban drew a slow breath, irritated at himself. He had never let a woman get inside his head like this. It was unsettling in a way he didn’t know how to manage.


    “Real life doesn’t have to follow any logic,” Colette said. “Stranger coincidences happen every day.”


    “Exactly,” Santos agreed, his mind already moving ahead. “Coincidence or not, we need to find a way to get a DNA sample and run a paternity test.”


    Henrik was just as tightly wound. “This concerns the future of the Martel bloodline. Even if the odds are slim, we handle this carefully. We can’t afford a mistake.”


    “Then I’ll go speak to her,” Alban said, recognizing that his family wasn’t about to let the matter rest — and, if he was being honest with himself, finding that he wasn’t entirely opposed to having an excuse to see Gillian again.


    “Absolutely not,” Henrik said sharply. “You cannot simply ask her. This has to be done without her knowing.”


    They all understood why. If Gillian suspected they were trying to collect a sample, she would assume they were after her child somehow, and she would shut them out without a second thought. The only path forward was to obtain what they needed quietly. If the results confirmed what they suspected, then Alban could approach Gillian properly — as the father, with every right to do so.


    “I—” Alban began, but Henrik spoke over him before he could finish.


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