Chapter 6: The Morning After She Was Born
Her name was Nora.
Rosalie decided it at 4:17 in the morning, forty minutes after Nora arrived, while Dara was crying quietly in the corner and Giancarlo was standing very still near the window with his back turned in a way that suggested he was also crying and preferred not to be observed doing so.
Nora was small and loud and absolutely certain of her own importance.
She latched immediately, nursed fiercely, and fell asleep with her fist pressed against her own cheek as if she had opinions about the whole experience and was reserving judgment.
Rosalie held her and didn't think about Caleb at all for exactly one hour and fourteen minutes.
Then her phone buzzed.
Dara picked it up before Rosalie could reach it.
She looked at the screen.
"It's not Caleb," Dara said.
"It's a number I don't know."
"Read it."
Dara read aloud.
"Rosalie.
This is Millicent.
I know you've spoken to Marcus Hale.
I know what he told you.
Before you make any decisions, you should know that Caleb is prepared to contest paternity.
He has already retained a specialist.
Whatever your father told you about the custody arrangement, a paternity challenge will complicate everything for months.
Think carefully about what you want the next year of your life to look like.
There is still a simpler path.
Call me."
The room was quiet.
Nora made a small sound in her sleep and resettled against Rosalie's chest.
"She's threatening you," Dara said.
"The morning after you gave birth."
"She's not threatening.
She's negotiating." Rosalie looked down at Nora.
"She thinks I'm still someone she can negotiate with."
Giancarlo turned from the window.
His eyes were dry.
His expression was not.
"A paternity challenge," he said.
"Against me."
"Can she do it?" Rosalie asked.
"She can file it.
It will be dismissed.
My documentation is complete — your mother and I had correspondence going back thirty years, and I have legal records your mother's attorney prepared before she passed." He paused.
"But Millicent is right that it takes time.
And time, with a newborn and a trust hearing in nine days, is exactly what they're trying to take from you."
"So she's buying time."
"She's trying to."
Rosalie looked at the message again.
*There is still a simpler path.*
"What's the simpler path?" Dara said.
"What does she want?"
"She wants me to agree to a custody arrangement voluntarily.
Probably shared guardianship.
Probably with financial conditions attached." Rosalie set the phone face-down on the blanket.
"She wants me to hand her Nora and the inheritance without a fight, because fighting is expensive and exhausting and I just had a baby and she thinks I'm too tired to think straight."
"Are you?"
"Yes," Rosalie said.
"But I'm thinking straight anyway."
She looked at Giancarlo.
"How good is our attorney?"
"The best I've worked with in thirty years."
"Then tell her to file everything.
The counter-motion on the trust.
Whatever challenges Millicent's paternity filing.
All of it." She adjusted Nora slightly.
"And I want Caleb served today.
Not tomorrow.
Today."
Giancarlo picked up his phone.
"Today," he confirmed.
Dara sat on the edge of the bed and looked at Rosalie with an expression that was somewhere between admiration and worry.
"What are you going to say to Caleb?
When he comes?"
"He'll come here?"
"He'll find out where you are by noon.
You know he will."
Rosalie did know.
Caleb was not someone who accepted being outmaneuvered quietly.
He would come.
He would be calm and reasonable and he would have a version of events that made everything sound like a misunderstanding.
He was very good at that.
He had been very good at that for two years.
"I'll let him talk," Rosalie said.
"I'm going to let him say everything he wants to say."
"And then?"
Rosalie looked down at Nora's sleeping face.
"And then I'm going to let him know that Marcus Hale isn't the only person who made a copy of that document."
Dara's eyes went wide.
"You have a copy?"
"I have everything Marcus sent last night.
All of it.
Timestamped.
Forwarded to three separate email addresses before midnight." Rosalie looked up.
"Including the second attorney's name.
Including the preliminary motion.
Including the internal communication between Caleb and Millicent about the timeline."
The room was very quiet.
"Caleb doesn't know that yet," Rosalie said.
"No," Dara said slowly.
"He doesn't."
Outside the window, the sky was beginning to lighten.
Nora slept on, entirely unbothered, her small fist still pressed against her cheek.
Rosalie had not slept.
She did not feel tired.
May you like
She felt something she hadn't felt in a very long time.
Ready.
