Updated Oct 1, 2025 • ~11 min read
The interview was scheduled for Thursday morning—a major lifestyle magazine, sympathetic journalist, controlled environment where Sienna and Damon could finally tell their story without tabloid spin.
They never made it to Thursday.
Because on Tuesday, at 11:47 AM, Lucas Cross walked into Damon’s office unannounced and threw a magazine on his desk.
Not the interview magazine. A different one—one of the trashy tabloids that lived for scandal and destruction.
The cover showed Sienna and Damon from that library kiss, but the headline was new:
EXCLUSIVE: Sienna Laurent’s Secret Diary Reveals ALL—”I Don’t Know Which Brother Is the Father”
Damon stared at the magazine like it was a bomb. Which, in a way, it was.
“What the hell is this?” he demanded.
“Read it.” Lucas’s voice was pure ice. “Page fourteen. Direct quotes from what they claim is Sienna’s personal diary.”
Damon flipped to the article with hands that weren’t quite steady. Skimmed the text, and felt his blood run cold.
“I don’t know whose baby this is. The timeline overlaps too closely. Lucas or Damon—how do I choose which lie to tell?”
“Lucas proposed tonight. I said yes. Not because I love him, but because he’s the easier answer. The safer choice.”
“Damon showed up at my apartment again. I should turn him away. I should commit to Lucas. But when he touches me, I forget every reason we shouldn’t be together.”
There was more—page after page of alleged diary entries that painted Sienna as calculating, manipulative, a woman who deliberately played both brothers against each other.
“This isn’t real,” Damon said. “These aren’t her words.”
“Are you sure?” Lucas’s expression was carved from stone. “Because it sounds exactly like what she did. Playing us both, keeping her options open, lying about everything.”
“Someone fabricated this—”
“Or she wrote it and someone found it. Either way, it’s out there. Everyone’s reading it. Everyone thinks she’s been lying about paternity this entire time.”
Damon was already calling Sienna. She answered on the first ring.
“Have you seen—”
“Yes.” Her voice was shaking. “Damon, I didn’t write any of that. I don’t even keep a diary. This is—someone made this up—”
“I know. I believe you. But Lucas is here, and he’s—” Damon looked at his brother’s face. “He’s not in a good place.”
“Put me on speaker,” Sienna said. “Let me explain to him—”
Damon did. “Sienna, you’re on with both of us.”
“Lucas.” Her voice was steady despite the fear underneath. “Those diary entries are fake. I never wrote them. Someone is trying to destroy us—”
“Us?” Lucas laughed, sharp and bitter. “There is no ‘us,’ Sienna. There’s you and my brother, and apparently a baby that you’ve been lying about.”
“I haven’t been lying about the baby—”
“Haven’t you? Because these entries suggest you don’t actually know who the father is. That you’ve been guessing this whole time.”
“That’s not true! Damon is the father. I’ve said this from the beginning—”
“You’ve said a lot of things. Most of them were lies.” Lucas leaned on Damon’s desk. “So here’s what’s going to happen. We’re doing a paternity test. Today. Right now. And if it turns out that baby isn’t Damon’s—”
“It is Damon’s,” Sienna insisted.
“Then you won’t mind proving it.”
“The baby isn’t born yet. Paternity testing now could be risky—”
“There are non-invasive tests. Blood draw from you, DNA comparison. My lawyers already have a clinic lined up.” Lucas pulled out his phone. “You have one hour to get there, or I’m assuming the worst.”
“Lucas, this is insane—” Damon started.
“Is it? Because from where I’m standing, I’ve been lied to for six months. I was engaged to a woman carrying another man’s child—or so she claims. But these diary entries suggest she’s not even sure. So yeah, I want proof. Today.”
“And if I refuse?” Sienna asked quietly.
“Then I go to Eleanor with these articles, tell her you’ve been lying to all of us, and watch her disinherit both of you before lunch.” His voice was cold, clinical. “Your choice.”
The line went silent for a moment. Then Sienna said, “Fine. Send me the address. I’ll be there.”
She hung up.
Lucas straightened. “She actually agreed.”
“Because she has nothing to hide,” Damon said. “But you—forcing her into medical testing because of fake diary entries? That’s low, even for you.”
“I’m protecting myself. And our family. If that baby is mine—”
“It’s not.”
“But what if it is?” For the first time, Lucas’s composure cracked. “What if she’s been lying this whole time, what if the timeline works, what if I’ve been hating you for something that was actually my responsibility?”
“The baby isn’t yours, Lucas.”
“How do you know? Because she told you? She told me a lot of things too, and they were all lies.” Lucas headed for the door. “One hour. The clinic on Madison. Don’t be late.”
He left, and Damon immediately called Sienna back.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “We can fight this, get lawyers involved—”
“No. Let’s just prove it and end this.” She sounded exhausted. “I’m so tired of defending myself, Damon. Let’s just take the test, show Lucas he’s wrong, and move on.”
“Sienna—”
“Pick me up in thirty minutes. Let’s get this over with.”
The clinic was sterile and impersonal, the kind of place where secrets were confirmed or destroyed with clinical precision.
Sienna sat in the waiting room between Damon and Lucas—both brothers present, neither speaking, the tension thick enough to choke on.
“Ms. Laurent?” A nurse appeared. “We’re ready for you.”
Sienna stood, and Damon moved to follow.
“Just her,” Lucas said. “We’ll wait here.”
“Like hell—” Damon started.
“It’s fine.” Sienna squeezed his hand. “I’ll be right back.”
The blood draw took ten minutes. The nurse explained the process—they’d compare her DNA to both brothers’, determine paternity with 99.9% accuracy, have results in three days.
Three days of uncertainty. Three days of Lucas’s suspicion. Three days of defending a truth she knew in her bones.
When she returned to the waiting room, both brothers were on opposite sides of the space, pointedly not looking at each other.
“Done,” she said. “Now we wait.”
“Three days,” Lucas confirmed. “Then we’ll know the truth.”
“We already know the truth,” Damon said. “This is just you punishing her.”
“This is me protecting myself from more lies.” Lucas stood. “Three days, Sienna. Then either you were telling the truth, or you’ve been playing us both from the beginning.”
He left without another word.
Sienna sank into a chair, hands shaking. “This is a nightmare.”
“It’s Lucas being vindictive.” Damon sat beside her. “But in three days, we’ll have proof. Undeniable proof that shuts him up permanently.”
“And those diary entries?”
“We’ll find out who fabricated them and destroy them legally.” He took her hand. “This is almost over. Just three more days.”
But three days felt like an eternity.
The diary story spread like wildfire.
Every gossip site picked it up. Every tabloid ran excerpts. Sienna’s face was everywhere, always paired with speculation about paternity, lies, manipulation.
Her phone was a disaster—death threats, marriage proposals from creeps, reporters offering obscene amounts of money for interviews.
She stopped leaving Damon’s penthouse. Stopped checking social media. Stopped doing anything except waiting for the test results that would prove what she already knew.
On day two, Eleanor called a family meeting.
Another one. Because apparently that was their solution to everything.
This time, it was just the five of them—Eleanor, Mrs. Cross, Lucas, Damon, and Sienna. No servers, no witnesses. Just family and their accumulated damage.
“I’ve read the diary entries,” Eleanor said without preamble. “They’re either a complete fabrication or the work of someone remarkably stupid.”
“Thank you?” Sienna said weakly.
“That wasn’t a compliment. If you didn’t write them, then someone is orchestrating a campaign to destroy you. And by extension, this family.” Eleanor’s gaze swept the room. “I want to know who.”
“We’re investigating,” Mrs. Cross said. “But these things take time—”
“We don’t have time. The board meets in six days. They’ll want answers about this circus. And I won’t have answers because we’re all too busy pointing fingers at each other.”
“The paternity test results come back tomorrow,” Lucas said. “That will answer at least one question.”
“And if they confirm what Damon’s been saying? That he’s the father? What then, Lucas?” Eleanor’s voice was sharp. “Will you finally accept reality and stop torturing everyone?”
“I’ll accept whatever the test says.”
“Will you? Because from where I’m sitting, you’re hoping for a different result. Hoping the baby is yours so you can be right about something.”
Lucas’s jaw tightened. “That’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair. But we’re dealing with it anyway.” Eleanor turned to Sienna. “How are you holding up?”
The unexpected concern nearly broke her. “I’ve been better.”
“I imagine so. Being pregnant is hard enough without tabloid persecution and family warfare.” Eleanor’s expression softened microscopically. “For what it’s worth—I don’t believe you wrote those diary entries. You’re many things, Sienna, but you’re not stupid enough to document your schemes.”
“Thank you. I think.”
“Definitely not a compliment. But accurate.” Eleanor stood. “Tomorrow, we get test results. Whatever they say, we move forward as a family. Understood?”
Everyone nodded, though Lucas’s agreement looked like it physically pained him.
The call came at 9:17 AM on day three.
Sienna was eating breakfast—or trying to, nausea making everything taste like cardboard—when Damon’s phone rang.
“It’s the clinic,” he said, and put it on speaker.
“Mr. Cross? This is Dr. Demir from Madison Diagnostics. We have your paternity test results.”
“And?” Damon’s hand found Sienna’s, squeezed.
“The results show a 99.9% probability that you are the biological father. Lucas Cross is excluded as the father.”
Relief crashed over Sienna so hard she nearly sobbed.
“Thank you,” Damon said, his voice rough. “Can you send the official report?”
“It’s already been emailed to all parties listed on the consent forms.”
Which meant Lucas had it too.
They sat in silence for a moment after the doctor hung up.
“It’s over,” Sienna whispered. “Finally, it’s over.”
“The paternity question is over. The rest—” Damon pulled her close. “We still have to deal with whoever’s sabotaging you. But at least now Lucas has to accept the truth.”
Her phone rang immediately. Lucas.
She answered with shaking hands. “You saw the results.”
“I did.” His voice was unreadable. “You were telling the truth. The baby is Damon’s.”
“I told you—”
“I know what you told me. I just—” He took a breath, and when he spoke again, there was something broken in his voice. “I wanted it to be mine. Even after everything, I wanted some part of this disaster to be mine.”
“Lucas—”
“Don’t. Just—congratulations. You and Damon are having a son.” A pause. “I’ll tell my mother and Eleanor. Update the lawyers. Make sure everyone knows the truth.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I didn’t do this for you.” He hung up.
Sienna set down her phone and finally, finally let herself cry—relief and exhaustion and grief for Lucas, who’d wanted so badly to be part of something that was never his.
Damon held her while she sobbed, and when she finally pulled herself together, her phone buzzed with a text.
From Lucas: I’m sorry I doubted you. But I’m not sorry I asked for proof. We all needed to know for sure.
Another text, seconds later: For what it’s worth—he’ll be a good father. Damon’s a lot of things, but he doesn’t do anything halfway.
A third: Take care of yourself. And him.
Sienna showed the messages to Damon, who read them with an expression she couldn’t quite name.
“He’s trying,” Damon said quietly. “In his own broken way, he’s trying.”
“Is it enough?”
“I don’t know. But it’s something.”
That afternoon, Eleanor released a statement—brief, clinical, final:
Paternity has been definitively established. The Cross family asks for privacy as we navigate this transition. No further comment.
The tabloids still speculated. The diary entries still circulated. But the fundamental question had been answered.
Damon Cross was the father.
And Lucas Cross had to finally, publicly, accept what he’d been fighting since the beginning.
“Whose child is it?” he’d demanded weeks ago, and the echo of that question had torn them all apart.
Now they had an answer.
The question was whether any of them could survive it.
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