A company wholly owned by Elise.
Maël read the document twice.
— I never signed that.
“You signed it,” replied Camille. “Or rather, someone did a very good forgery of your signature.”
The same flaw appeared. That infamous D that was too straight.
This time, Maël doesn’t say that Camille had tricked him.
He understood that she had just prevented him from disappearing under his own name.
Elise was found two days later in a discreet hotel in Montpellier. She hadn’t taken the babies with her. She had left them with Hélène with a one-sentence note: “I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”
Camille found this sentence indecent.
That same evening, Elise showed up at Camille’s Paris apartment. Without makeup, her hair hastily tied back, she no longer resembled the radiant woman in the photo.
— Let me explain.
Camille could have closed the door. Perhaps she should have.
But she stepped aside.
Elise entered the office and saw the documents on the wall.
— You’ve got it all figured out.
— Not everything. Why me?
Elise lowered her eyes.
— Because I envied you.
Camille remains still.
— Did you sleep with my husband because you were jealous of me?
— I thought you had it all. Intelligence, money, presence, Maël. When you walked into a room, people would fall silent to listen to you. I was always the one next to you.
— So you wanted to take my place.
– Yes.
The simplicity of the confession hurt more than a long justification.
Elise wiped her cheeks.
— At first, I thought Maël wanted children. Then I realized he wanted heirs. And when Martin Caradec discovered the history of the clinic, he told me I could become independent. That Maël wouldn’t suspect a thing. That everyone would be too busy admiring the twins to check the paperwork.
— Did Martin help you forge the signatures?
– Yes.
— And Valorys?
Elise looked up.
— There’s worse. Martin has been stealing from the company for years.
Camille felt her blood run cold.
Elise gave him a password. A hidden archive. Accounting files that Martin thought he had deleted.
In three hours, Camille found €31 million in transfers to shell companies. The transactions were worded in such a way as to frame Maël in the event of an investigation. Martin didn’t just want the foundation. He wanted to bring down Valorys, acquire the assets at a bargain price, and then make Maël take the blame.
The following Monday, the confrontation took place in the Valorys boardroom, in La Défense.
Martin Caradec arrived convinced he was attending a financial crisis meeting. He found Camille sitting at the head of the table. Maël to her right. Élise to her left. Hélène near the bay window. Two lawyers and three independent accountants were waiting at the back.
Martin stopped abruptly.
— Camille.
— Sit down.
He gave a contemptuous smile.
— I don’t work for you.
Camille slid a document in front of him.
— Since the divorce restored my shares, I am the largest individual shareholder of Valorys.
The smile died.
For 90 minutes, they dismantled his system: hidden accounts, forged signatures, shell companies, manipulation of the foundation, illegal access to medical records. Martin denied everything until Elise placed her phone on the table.
His voice came through the loudspeaker, clear.
— As soon as the foundation recognizes the children, we transfer them before anyone requests a test.
Martin turned grey.
At 4:30 p.m., he was suspended from all his duties. Criminal proceedings ensued. The authorities were notified. The accounts were frozen. Valorys trembled, but did not fall.
After the meeting, Maël remained alone with Camille in the council chamber. He stared at the empty chairs.
— I thought you wanted to take everything from me.
— I was protecting what belonged to me.
He nodded.
— I know that now.
Then he looked at her. For the first time in a long time, there was no arrogance in his face.
— Camille… sorry.
She did not answer.
— I held you responsible for our lack of children.
Silence.
— I made you feel defective.
Camille’s jaw contracts.
– Yes.
— I called you after the divorce because I wanted you to suffer.
– Yes.
He lowered his eyes.
— I don’t know how to fix that.
— You can’t.
He raised his head.
“Some apologies are not bridges,” said Camille. “They only serve to acknowledge that they have been burned.”
That was the true end of their marriage.
Not the papers.
Not Elise.
Not the twins.
This sentence.
The following months were less dramatic, but more difficult. Damien Morel finally arrived. He had never asked to become a father like this. He had never authorized the use of his samples. Yet, when he saw the twins, he refused to consider them an administrative error.
“They are children,” he told Maël. “Not evidence in a case.”
Against all odds, the two half-brothers talked for six hours. About their father. About money. About lies. About what blood gives, and what it is never enough to build.
Maël became the twins’ legal and daily father, with Damien’s explicit consent. Élise, after admitting her involvement in the fraud, was initially granted only supervised visits. Hélène restructured part of her assets into a protected trust for the children, with no access until they reached the age of majority.
“No child should grow up believing that money is the reason they were wanted,” she said.
Camille, for once, agreed with her.
Then Helen sent him an envelope.
Inside, there was an old letter, written by Maël’s father before his death. It was addressed to Camille “in case the truth should ever come out”.
Camille read it alone, one rainy evening.
Maël’s father had known for years that his son likely had a fertility problem. Maël himself had never known. He had discovered the information through an insurance file and had kept it hidden out of family pride. But the letter also revealed something else: during their own examinations, a doctor had noted a mild, treatable condition in Camille, which did not necessarily mean infertility.
