Diego took a step backward.

And Selina’s crying stopped, all at once, as though a switch had been thrown.

And in that single silent, horrified look that passed between his brother and his mistress, Arthur understood a truth far worse than any ordinary infidelity.

Because the question hanging in the air was no longer only who lied to me. It was a colder, more specific question.

If Mateo was not Arthur’s son — and if Diego had been the one to orchestrate the swab, and to pass cash to Selina in secret — then there was really only one other man in that family who would have any reason to know exactly who the boy’s real father was.

And there was only one reason a man would go to such monstrous lengths to convince his own brother that another man’s child was his.