Simone, meanwhile, had built a fantasy around Darius and me.
We looked happy.
Stable.
In love.
Everything she believed her own marriage was not.
When she discovered our transfers were scheduled the same morning, something in her broke.
She told investigators she did not originally intend to switch the embryos.
She only wanted to “look.”
Then she saw the labels.
And made a decision that lasted less than sixty seconds.
She exchanged them.
She later claimed she imagined that carrying Darius’s biological child would somehow create an invisible connection between them.
She did not expect us ever to discover it.
She planned to leave Greenhaven.
Raise Leah.
Keep the secret forever.
But life destroyed the fantasy.
Jonathan died.
Leah became ill.
DNA testing revealed the truth.
And after seven years, Simone reached for Darius again.
Not because she suddenly wanted honesty.
Because the secret was collapsing.
And she believed Darius might choose her.
