Semua Bab My Brother's Best Friend's Secret Baby: Bab 11 - Bab 20

Aiden's POV The presidential suite at the Grandview Hotel cost four thousand dollars a night. I knew that because my assistant had made the reservation and sent me the confirmation. I'd glanced at the total without really registering it, the way numbers stopped meaning much when they no longer affected your daily life. Four thousand dollars a night was nothing to me now. It hadn't always been. There was a time when four thousand dollars was more than my father earned in two months, and we knew exactly what that meant when January rolled around and the heating bill arrived. I stood in the middle of the suite's living room thinking about Rosie pushing a housekeeping cart through this same space that morning. The thought sat heavily on my chest. She'd probably been here around seven or eight in the morning, either before or after her shift at the school. I didn't know her exact schedule. But she'd been in this building, cleaning rooms. Maybe even this room. Stripping sheet

Rosalie's POV Monday morning, I stood in front of twenty-three first graders and taught them about colors. "Red and blue make purple," I said, holding up the two paint jars. "Yellow and blue make green. Red and yellow make orange." I set them down on the demonstration table. "These are primary colors. They're the building blocks of every other color." Twenty-three little faces looked back at me with varying levels of attention. Priya, in the front row, was completely focused. The boy beside her was drawing on his hand with a marker he definitely wasn't supposed to have. I confiscated it without interrupting my lesson. "The colors you get when you mix two primary colors are called secondary colors. Purple, green, and orange." I opened a jar of yellow paint and another of blue, then mixed them together on the palette. Green slowly appeared, just as it always did, the yellow giving way to something entirely new. "Simple rules," I said. "Follow them, and you'll get a pred

Rosalie's POV The legal aid office was on the fourth floor of a building that smelled like old carpet and coffee that had been sitting on the burner too long. The waiting room was furnished with plastic chairs in a color that might once have been green and a rack of brochures about tenants' rights, domestic violence support services, and how to obtain an emergency protective order. I'd made the appointment Tuesday morning and was scheduled to come in Wednesday after school. I'd told Mrs. Willow I had an errand to run and would be back around six. She'd nodded without asking any questions, which was one of the many reasons I appreciated her. The attorney's name was Dana Flores. She looked to be about twenty-eight, younger than I'd hoped, but her handshake was firm, and she reviewed the documents I'd brought with the focused expression of someone who had read a great many of them and formed strong opinions along the way. She didn't make small talk. I appreciated that. She spent a

Aiden's POV Rosalie called on Thursday evening. I was in my hotel suite, rereading a contract my partner Marcus had sent over. It needed my signature and my full attention, but I couldn't manage either. I'd been staring at the same paragraph for twenty minutes. The moment my phone rang and I saw Rosalie's name on the screen, I set the contract aside. "I'll meet with you," she said, without any greeting or preamble. "One time. To discuss the letter and what happens next. That's it." "Okay." "I choose the location." "Okay." There was a pause, as though she'd been expecting more resistance and was recalibrating. "Tomorrow. Eleven in the morning. There's a coffee shop called Birch on Clement Street. Do you know it?" I didn't. I looked it up while she was still on the phone. A small café with strong reviews, four blocks from her apartment according to the address my investigator had on file. It was four blocks from her apartment. She was choosing a place she could

Rosalie's POV The results came back four days later. I already knew what they would say. Aiden knew too. Both attorneys knew as well. The nurse who had swabbed the inside of Lucy's cheek probably could have guessed too. But the legal process required paperwork, and paperwork required waiting, so we waited. When Dana called Thursday afternoon to confirm that Aiden King was Lucy's biological father, I was sitting in my car in the school parking lot after a staff meeting. I thanked her, hung up, and sat there motionless for several minutes staring through the windshield. Then I went home, made Lucy dinner, helped her with her homework, and didn't think about it again until after she fell asleep. Then I did. Not in a spiraling sort of way. More like feeling my way through something in the dark. The confirmation felt different than I'd expected. It was not like a door closing, but more like a door opening onto a hallway whose end I still couldn't see. The legal agreement was fin