Shattered Illusions Love Lies and Redemption (Lizetta and Remington) novel Chapter 1398

The little girl's features and facial structure in the photograph were an exact copy of his own.

The second he laid eyes on the picture, a strange, undeniable sensation washed over him. It was the exact same feeling he'd experienced in the hospital room when the girl had rushed in and hugged his legs. No wonder Liz was so convinced this was his and Kimberley's child.

But the realization quickly turned absurd. He had no memory of ever being intimate with Kimberley. Where on earth did this baby come from?

He had barely interacted with Kimberley over the years. Yet, the child's face and Kimberley's incredibly defensive attitude practically screamed that they shared a profound connection.

Jerome clutched his phone. He recalled the patient chart clipped to the hospital bed, which had listed Candy's age. Working backward from that number, he furrowed his brow, trying to pinpoint any interactions he'd had with Kimberley around four or five years ago.

Amidst the fleeting shadows of his past, a long-buried memory finally surfaced.

He remembered attending a business dinner where a few of his grandfather's closest friends were present, prompting him to drink more than usual to show respect. He was already buzzed when he ran into a former colleague of his late mother. Talking about her stirred up a heavy sorrow in his chest, leading him to throw back a few more drinks.

After that, his body had felt overwhelmingly heavy and strange. In a haze, someone had guided him up to a hotel suite. His memory of that night was fragmented back then, and looking back now, it was nothing but a massive blank void.

Later, he pulled the security footage from the estate and confirmed that Andrea had indeed brought his drunk self home the previous night. He hadn't dwelled on it further, writing off those steamy flashes as drug-induced hallucinations.

His body had felt perfectly clean, with no physical evidence of any wild encounters. He had hired an investigator to look into the spiked drink at the banquet, which turned out to be a massive mix-up. The laced glass was never meant for him; he was just collateral damage in someone else's scheme.

Satisfied with that answer, Jerome had dropped the investigation and pushed the incident to the back of his mind. But thinking about it now... if Candy was really his daughter, it could only have happened on that exact night.

Jerome zoomed in on Kimberley's face in the photo. He stared intensely at her features, desperately trying to map her silhouette onto the blurry, chaotic haze of that night. But back then, he had dismissed the entire experience as a wild dream. Now, years later, the details were impossibly out of reach.