What Is 'In The Best Interests Of The Child' Book About?

Rhea Ravelle, heiress of a powerful and influential family, goes against her family's wishes and cuts ties with them. She chooses to marry Carter Jamison, a man with a failing career and two children born out of wedlock. For six years, she raises his children as if they were her own and helps Carter rebuild his crumbling business. Under her care, the kids grow into kind, well-mannered little stars, and Carter's company finally makes it big and goes public. But right at the celebration marking his entry into high society, the biological mother of his two children suddenly shows up. And Carter, who is usually so calm, completely loses it. He begs the woman to stay, making Rhea the laughingstock of the entire city. That night, he doesn't come home. Instead, he takes the children and runs straight back to his old flame, playing house as a happy family. Soon after, Carter files for divorce. "Thanks for everything, Rhea. But the kids need their birth mother." The children's mother also says, "Thank you for taking care of them all these years. But a stepmother will never compare to a birth mother." So blood beats love? If that's how it is, then she's done playing stepmother. However, the children reject their birth mother flat-out, and they don't want Carter either. They declare, "Rhea is our only mom! If you're getting divorced, then we're going wherever she goes!"

He believed a lie. He broke my heart. But his son needs me and nothing will stop me from helping him. I promised to love my husband forever, but he didn't do the same for me. Just one lie and I found myself alone at the worst time of my life. I lost my baby, the man I loved and the life we ​​were building together. My career as a pediatrician not only lifted me up, but became my reason for living. I may not have been able to save my daughter, but I can save other people's precious babies. But it's in the hospital, in my little refuge, that Connor Mycroft has come back to haunt me. His son, a child I never even knew existed, is sick and needs the best pediatrician possible to lead his treatment. And unfortunately for the Mycroft family, that someone is me. My ex-husband still thinks I am the cause of all his misfortunes. His family hates me. His female "friend" seems willing to do anything to get rid of me. But I love little Theodore like I loved my own child and nothing will stop me from saving him.

When Royal Robinson loses his brother and sister-in-law in a fatal car crash, the truth about their child comes to light. Finding out they had used a surrogate and hid the truth from the family devastated him, especially when he found out it was never made legal and the biological mother still has legal entitlement to the child. When Famke Noor realizes the people she had considered her friends were gone and his family wants her to step in and assist in raising the child who she felt strongly she was never meant to parent, she finds herself in over her head. Two strong and stubborn personalities with their hearts in the right place but their pride in the way will need to learn to put their differences aside to help a five year old little girl navigate a world without the only parents she ever knew. Despite nosy family, high-maintenance exes and drama she asked for Famke finds herself falling in love with the billionaire tycoon and his pint-sized charge. Is love enough when the world is against you? Famke is about to find out.

The seventh time Dante Moretti served me divorce papers, I was sitting with my son in a cheap diner on Chicago's South Side. I forced a smile and brushed my hand over my son's hair. "Just wait a little longer, sweetheart. This time, Mommy will get custody of you." He stayed quiet for a long moment. Then he looked up and asked, “Mommy, how much do you need to sell me for before you're happy?” Before I could answer, he pulled a handwritten divorce agreement from his backpack and pushed it toward me. "I know you keep fighting Dad for me because you want more money from him." "I wrote the agreement for him. Please sign it. Dad is already tired. Stop making his life so hard." His handwriting was crooked, but every word had been written with care. Dante would give me three million dollars. At the bottom, in my son's childish scrawl, was one more line. [After you take the money, don't bother me, Dad, and Serena anymore. Let us be happy.] Serena was Dante's childhood sweetheart. The woman he trusted more than his own wife. For five years, I had stood against Dante's family, his lawyers, and half the Chicago underworld just to keep custody of my son. For him, I would've walked away with nothing. But the child I had raised for eight years had already chosen another mother. So why shouldn't I give their perfect little family exactly what they wanted?

Raising your own child was natural. But raising another’s child was totally different. When Hannah wholeheartedly played the mommy and daddy role to Elisha, it had been her greatest fear to one day have the child’s real parents knocking on her door to take their unwanted baby back. But for four years, Hannah and Elisha managed to live peacefully. Just when Elisha’s real parents, Olive and Nate were about to tie the knot, Olive was found pregnant with another man. To be able to have her freedom, she told Nate, who surprisingly had no knowledge that he fathered a child, about Elisha. Furious that his daughter was kept secret from him for years, Nate took Elisha from Hannah. But up to what lengths could a mother go to keep her child? Even if Hannah didn’t give birth to Elisha, she’d do everything in her capacity to fight for her daughter. Even if it would mean going against the heartless and dangerous Billionaire, Nate Sarmiento in the process. Even if it seemed like she didn’t have a right, Hannah still raised his child and that’s an irreversible fact. But would Hannah survive the harsh treatment before she could even see Elisha again? If she would, what about from Nate’s charms? Could her inexperienced heart handle the danger of falling in love with a man who loves someone else?

After dropping the big news of my pregnancy on my husband, Maxwell Ford, who loves me to the moon and back, I expect him to burst into tears out of elation. But I don't expect him to harbor a slightly guilty look. "I'm sorry, Val. I'm still not ready to become a father just yet. Can we only work on having another child after a few more years?" Although I can't bear to part with my unborn baby, I still go through a medical abortion obediently. Three years later, I accidentally witness Maxwell holding another woman's hand as they pick up a little girl from kindergarten. With a wide smile on his face, Maxwell picks up the girl and says, "It's your third birthday today, sweetheart! Why don't I give you the position as the only heiress to my company as your birthday gift?" As I stare at the family of three walking away from me, I feel as though I've been plunged into an icy abyss. It turns out that Maxwell is lying about not being ready to become a father. He just doesn't like the child that I bear…