Chapter 14
“I’m their father.”
“Biologically.”
He went still.
“You become their dad by showing up.”
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he nodded.
“Fine.”
“Slowly.”
“How slowly?”
“As slowly as they need.”
He looked frustrated.
Then he remembered who this was for.
“All right.”
The DNA test was completed that afternoon.
The results would take several days.
Ryan did not need them.
Neither did I.
But legal certainty mattered now.
Before I left, he stopped me near the door.
“Natalie.”
I turned.
“What?”
“Vanessa and I never married.”
I stared at him.
“I didn’t ask.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
His expression was difficult to read.
“Because I need you to know that what I destroyed our marriage for did not become what I thought it would.”
I held his gaze.
Five years ago, that sentence would have meant everything.
Now it meant almost nothing.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He seemed surprised.
“For me?”
“For the version of you who had to learn that.”
Then I opened the door.
His voice followed me.
“And us?”
I looked back.
“What about us?”
“Are you sorry for that too?”
I thought about three ultrasound pictures.
Three children asleep in a hotel room.
Five years.
“I was.”
Then I left him standing beside another black folder.
The night my husband's childhood sweetheart grabbed my waist so hard that I nearly fell in front of Chicago's wealthiest families, I expected him to defend me. Chapter 1: PART 1: THREE HEARTBEATS AND A BLACK FOLDER
PART 4: A FATHER CANNOT BUY BACK FIVE YEARS
The DNA report confirmed what everyone already knew.
Ryan Whitmore was the biological father of Alexander, Ethan, and Lily.
He read the report twice.
Then he asked whether he could take them to lunch.
I said no.
His face tightened.
Then I offered something smaller.
“Forty-five minutes in the hotel lounge. I’ll stay nearby.”
Ryan almost argued.
Instead he nodded.
Progress.
The children knew the meeting was coming.
Ethan had prepared seventeen questions.
He had written them in purple marker on hotel stationery.
The first was:
ARE YOU RICH?
The second:
DO YOU HAVE A DOG?
The third:
WHY DID YOU LEAVE MOM?
Ryan handled the first two well.
“Yes.”
“No.”
The third stopped him.
I had been sitting at another table pretending to read email.
I looked up.
Ryan looked at Ethan.
“Because I made a selfish decision.”