Chapter 3: What the Results Said
Douglas laid the first page on top of the folder and held it out toward Brandon.
Brandon didn't take it immediately.
He looked at it the way people look at things they already know will hurt them — with one second of delay, like that second changes anything.
Then he took it.
His eyes moved across the page.
Once.
Twice.
"This isn't possible," he said.
"The lab ran it twice," Douglas said.
"The results are the same."
Brandon's head came up.
He looked at Lauren.
She was staring at the floor.
Her arms had crossed over her chest, holding herself together.
"Lauren." His voice was different now.
The performance was gone.
"Tell me this is wrong."
She didn't answer.
"Look at me."
She looked up.
Her eyes were red.
She had been crying before Douglas even arrived — I could see it now.
The slightly swollen lids.
The careful way she had been blinking.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"You're sorry." Brandon repeated it like he was testing the weight of the words.
"What does that mean?
Who — " He stopped.
His hand tightened on the paper.
"Who is the father?"
Lauren's mouth opened.
Closed.
"Lauren."
"Marcus," she said quietly.
"Marcus Webb."
The name landed in the hallway like something dropped from a height.
I watched Brandon's face.
I had expected anger.
I had expected the performance to restart — the raised voice, the audience, the controlled explosion he was so practiced at delivering.
Instead, he went very still.
Marcus Webb was Brandon's business partner.
Had been for six years.
They had built the firm together.
They played golf on Sundays.
Brandon had been the best man at Marcus's first wedding.
"How long," Brandon said.
Not a question.
A sentence with the end bitten off.
"Brandon — "
"How long, Lauren?"
She pressed her lips together.
"Two years."
The older man near the magazine rack had stopped pretending to read.
The nurse behind the desk had her eyes fixed on her screen with the focused concentration of someone working very hard not to look up.
Brandon set the paper back on top of the folder.
He did it carefully.
That careful movement told me more than any raised voice would have.
"You told me he was mine," he said.
"I know."
"You let me — " He stopped again.
His jaw worked.
"You let me stand here.
In front of her.
And say those things.
While you knew."
Lauren said nothing.
Brandon turned and looked at me.
I had not moved.
I was still standing where I had been when Douglas arrived, my tablet under my arm, my hands quiet at my sides.
"You knew," he said.
"You already knew."
"Douglas contacted me ten days ago," I said.
"When the results came in."
"And you said nothing."
"You had a great deal to say this morning.
I thought I'd let you finish."
Something crossed his face.
It wasn't anger.
It was worse than anger.
It was the particular expression of a man who has just understood that the humiliation he came to deliver had been redirected, carefully and completely, back to him.
"This doesn't change anything," he said.
His voice had found its footing again.
"Between us.
What's done is done."
"I agree," I said.
"What's done is done."
"So what is this?" He gestured at Douglas, at the folder.
"What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?"
Douglas answered before I could.
"Mr.
Foster, the paternity results are relevant to the divorce settlement.
Specifically to the asset division your attorneys contested last year on the basis of your new family situation.
That argument no longer holds."
Brandon's eyes sharpened.
"You can't reopen the settlement."
"We already have," Douglas said.
"The motion was filed four days ago."
The baby in the stroller reached for the toy giraffe again and made a small, contented sound.
Nobody looked at him.
Brandon straightened.
The smug smile didn't come back — but something harder replaced it.
"I'll fight it," he said.
"Every step."
Douglas nodded pleasantly.
"That's your right."
Brandon picked up the diaper bag from the stroller handle.
His movements were controlled and deliberate, the way they always were when he was deciding his next move rather than reacting to someone else's.
He looked at Lauren one more time.
She was still holding herself, arms crossed, eyes somewhere near the floor.
He didn't say anything to her.
He just walked toward the elevator.
Lauren stayed.
The elevator doors closed behind him.
And then it was just the two of us — me, and the woman who used to be my closest friend — standing in a hallway full of people pretending not to watch, with a baby between us who belonged to neither of our stories the way we had each believed.
Lauren finally looked at me.
"Gwen," she said.
"I need to tell you something.
About the divorce.
About why Brandon really pushed for it when he did."
My tablet buzzed.
Staff meeting.
Four minutes.
"My office," I said.
"Six o'clock."
She nodded.
Her hands were still shaking.
I walked back down the hallway toward my meeting.
Douglas fell into step beside me.
"She'll talk," he said quietly.
"I know," I said.
"That's what I'm counting on."
May you like
What Lauren had to say at six o'clock was not what I expected.
And it changed everything I thought I had already understood.
