“What did you say? What do you mean I’m not part of the family?” I raised my voice as well.
Natalie wouldn’t have said that without a reason, so there must be some kind of secret that I did not know of.
“Natalie!” Nathan yelled at her.
“It’s time to stop hiding it, Uncle Nathan! Yvonne doesn’t give a sh*t if you treat her like family, so you should just tell her the truth! Yvonne isn’t your daughter, and yet you’ve raised her like your own! She has no right to treat you like this!” Crystal butted into the conversation as well.
I stared wide-eyed at Crystal in shock. All these years, I have never considered the possibility that I’m not Nathan’s biological daughter! I simply assumed he was angry and frustrated at my mom for leaving him, so he took it out on me. I used to hate him for betraying Mom, but… If I’m not his biological daughter, then what’s the point of all this?
I grew up knowing Nathan and Isabelle as my parents. Imagine the shock and disbelief I felt when Crystal told me I was not Nathan’s daughter!
The next thing I knew, we were surrounded by a group of journalists who kept snapping away while firing questions about our family relationship.
“Is Yvonne Tanner really not your daughter? Is what Ms. Yates said true?”
“Ms. Tanner has been living with the Tanners since childhood, so whose daughter could she be? Please answer us, Mr. Tanner! Who’s causing the Tanner family to go bankrupt? Rumor has it that the Goldstein family plays a part in this incident. Is that true?”
That was a question that I wanted to know the answer to as well, and I looked at Nathan in hopes of him giving me the answer. All sorts of thoughts began running through my head, but I had a feeling that Crystal was telling the truth.
That was the only way to explain everything that had happened. It made sense why Nathan would love Crystal and Yvette more than me – that was because I wasn’t his daughter, to begin with!
The fact that he had raised me even though we weren’t related by blood was indeed a selfless act of generosity in itself.
“Dad… Is what Crystal said true?” I forced those words out of my mouth. Even though I already knew the answer to that question, I still wanted to hear it from the man himself.
Nathan glanced deeply at me and took a moment to calm down before saying in front of all the journalists around us, “Yes, it’s true. You are indeed not my daughter. I even have a DNA test report here that clearly states we are not related by blood at all, and that you…you’re not my daughter.”
The look on his face made it seem like admitting this fact was the hardest task in the world.
I staggered a few steps back in shock and leaned against the wall to stop myself from falling. “When did you find out?”
I remembered him being really nice to me back then, but he started hating me at one point and began treating me horribly. Perhaps that was the time he found out about the truth.
Nathan took a deep breath. “I knew about it long ago, even before Yvette was born.”
I closed my eyes. Whatever hatred I felt toward Nathan seemed to have vanished in that instant. I used to hate him so much for being an irresponsible father, but it turned out he wasn’t my father to begin with, so he didn’t owe me anything.
As Crystal said, he wouldn’t have been in the wrong even if he kicked me out of the Tanner family. Instead, he simply let me stay even after Mom left me behind.
