Chapter 6: What He Was Prepared to Do
Patricia Osei's office was on the twenty-second floor of a building in Midtown, with a waiting room that was quiet and deliberately calm — no loud artwork, no aggressive furniture, just good light and the kind of stillness that said the people here had seen worse than whatever you were bringing in.
I had taken the afternoon train back from Boston.
Ruth met me at Penn Station and rode with me in the cab without asking questions, which was exactly what I needed.
Patricia came out to meet me herself.
She was in her late forties, compact and precise, with reading glasses pushed up on her head and a handshake that meant business.
"Clover," she said.
"Come in."
Ruth stayed in the waiting room.
I followed Patricia into her office and sat down across from her desk.
"I read what Ruth forwarded," she said.
"And I've had time to look at the document more carefully than you probably have.
There are a few things I want to flag."
"Go ahead."
She opened a folder.
"The custody draft is aggressive for something described as exploratory.
The travel clause is specific — it cites your average monthly travel days by name, which means someone compiled that information deliberately.
That's not something a lawyer does on a first pass.
This draft has been revised at least once."
My stomach tightened.
"Meaning he's been planning this longer than I thought."
"Meaning the first version existed before this one." She looked up.
"Do you know when you first told him you were pregnant?"
"Eleven weeks ago."
"And when did he start the mentorship arrangement with the intern?"
I thought back.
"About four months ago.
Maybe a little more."
Patricia wrote something down.
"So the mentorship predates the pregnancy."
"Yes."
"And the custody draft arrived in your legal department's system when?"
"The forwarding email was dated four days ago.
I don't know when the original was submitted."
"We can find out." She set down her pen.
"Here's what I want you to understand.
The document itself isn't filed anywhere — it's a draft.
He has no legal claim on this child yet, and he won't until the child is born and a court is involved.
What this document tells us is his intention.
And his intention, based on what's written here, is to establish himself as the primary parent before you have any chance to respond."
"Using my career against me," I said.
"Using your career against you," she confirmed.
"The irony being that your career is almost certainly what funds the lifestyle he's been enjoying."
"He's a Senior Manager.
I'm a Senior Director.
I earn more."
"By how much?"
I told her.
She wrote it down without reacting.
"And the apartment?"
"Joint lease.
I pay sixty percent."
"And the wedding expenses so far?"
"Mostly mine.
His family contributed to the venue deposit."
Patricia looked at the folder again.
"Clover, I want to ask you something, and I want you to answer honestly.
Is there any part of you that wants to reconcile with him?"
I sat with the question for a moment.
I thought about the train platform.
The glass door closing between us.
His blazer on Camellia's shoulders.
The voicemail asking me to hold it together for one evening.
"No," I said.
"Good.
Then here's what we do."
She walked me through it methodically — the steps, the timeline, what I needed to document, what I needed to stop doing, what I needed to preserve.
She was clear and fast and did not soften anything, which I appreciated.
At the end, she leaned back in her chair.
"One more thing," she said.
"The intern.
Camellia."
"What about her?"
"Is there any reason to believe the relationship is more than professional?"
I thought about the train.
His hand in her hair.
His blazer.
*No.
Stay where you are.*
"I don't know," I said.
"I've suspected it.
I've never had proof."
"It may not matter legally," Patricia said.
"But it matters to the full picture.
If he's been building a parallel life — even emotionally — it affects how a court reads his motivations."
I nodded slowly.
"Get some rest," she said.
"Don't contact him tonight.
Let him wonder."
Ruth was waiting in the lobby when I came out.
She stood up immediately and looked at my face.
"Well?" she said.
"She's good," I said.
"What do we do now?"
I thought about Luke's voice on the phone that morning.
*I was protecting myself.* The confidence in it.
The certainty that I would not have seen the document.
That I would walk into Boston unprepared, close the deal under his name, and come home to a wedding eight weeks away with no idea what he had already set in motion.
"Now," I said, "we find out exactly how long he's been planning this."
Ruth took my arm as we walked toward the exit.
Outside, the city was loud and ordinary and indifferent, the way cities are when your life is reorganizing itself around you.
My phone buzzed in my bag.
Luke's name on the screen.
I put the phone back without reading it.
May you like
Whatever he had to say could wait.
I was done being the one who adjusted.
