Whether I know her name or not, we’ll always be connected.
I think about the healthy baby girl who looks like me—the one I’ll never meet.
Rising, I interrupt their quarrel. “If you’ll all excuse me, I’m going to head back to the hotel. Steen, Farber, make sure you negotiate a killer deal for my recipient. It’s the only way I’ll sign a damn thing.”
With that, I head out. And within minutes, I’m driving back in radio silence. By the time I pull into the hotel valet lane, I have no recollection of the drive. My mind was too focused on her.
The beautiful, mystery baby mama who wants absolutely nothing to do with my money, my time, or me.
Chapter 5
Rossi
* * *
“How’d it go?” Carina asks the instant I walk in the door.
I drop my purse and keys on the kitchen island and head to the living room, where my daughter drops blocks into a bucket. Her eyes light when she sees me, and when I take a seat beside her, she hands me a blue wooden cylinder.
“You seem … frazzled.” Carina takes a seat across from me and pages through a soft ballerina book. “What’d they offer?”
I blow a puff of hair between my lips. “Twenty-five grand. Can you believe that?”
“That’s it?”
I nod, rolling my eyes. “Their lawyers claimed they didn’t legally owe me anything because the breach didn’t involve my name—only his. But they were sorry and they wanted to offer this.”
“If they don’t legally owe you anything, why have you sign an NDA?”
Shrugging, I say, “Who knows. Maybe it’s a precaution.”
“The whole thing sounds shady. Did you sign though?”
“Nope.” I reach for a purple triangle and hand it to Lucia.
“So … what are you going to do?”
“Going to find a lawyer of my own, have them go over the contract and just make sure everything’s kosher,” I say. “And then I’m going to act like none of this ever happened.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Probably not—but I’m going to try.” Lucia crawls to the far corner of her blanket to grab a stuffed elephant. Once there she promptly shoves the snout in her mouth. I envy her blissful unawareness, and I intend to keep it going for as long as I can. Her life is so easy, so uncomplicated. And that’s exactly what she deserves.
That said, if there’s one thing I’ve seen in my career that has completely decimated families, it’s secrets and lies. My baby’s not even a year old yet, and already I’m burdened with hiding her father’s identity from her until she’s grown enough to comprehend this.
“So … I met him,” I blurt. The entire way home, I debated bringing it up to Carina. It all happened so fast, our little exchange in the parking lot. And for half the drive home, I wondered if I imagined it.”
“Wait, what? You met whom?” She scoots closer. “Fabian?”
I nod. “By accident. We were both outside at the same time. I tripped and spilled my purse. He handed me my lipstick and sunglasses, and my god, Carina. We locked eyes and it was like someone had used a stun gun on me or something. My entire body went numb. My thoughts were racing in every direction. My mouth went dry. I kept telling myself to keep walking, to get in the car and drive away—but then half of me thought I should thank him because I’m never going to see him again, and I truly am so grateful for the gift he gave me.”
“Rossi.” Her tone is low and her hand clamps over her open mouth.
“He wanted to know why I didn’t want to meet with him. He said something like how did you know I wasn’t going to offer you money or something like that,” I say, “and then the next thing I know, he’s asking if it’s a boy or a girl, if she’s healthy, what she looks like …”
“Seriously?”
“It’s clear he wants to be a part of her life—which was exactly what I was afraid of.”
“Did he say that? Did he explicitly state that?
I shake my head. “He didn’t have to. Why else would he be shoving money in my face and asking questions about her?”
Carina’s brows furrow and she tugs her hair tie out of her dark hair before twisting it into a messy bun.
“He wanted to know my name,” I say. “But I left.”
She winces. “This is tough because … you have his name. Isn’t it only fair he has yours now? And before you protest, hear me out. What if ten years from now he finds out he has an inheritable heart condition and wants you to know for Lucia’s sake?”
“They did extensive hereditary testing on him during the donor process—he’s clean.”
“What if … years from now … he has no other children and he wants to leave his estate to his one and only biological offspring? What if Lucia could inherit hundreds of millions of dollars?”
I laugh. “No one needs hundreds of millions of dollars. I want Lucia to work for what she has, not have everything she’s ever wanted handed to her simply because she won the genetic lottery.”
Carina rests her elbows on her knees, picking at threads of carpet. “Okay, then what if someday, eighteen years from now, when you tell Lucia who her father is, she finds out that he wanted to be a part of her life and you denied her of that?”
I hate that she has a point.
I bury my face in my hands and breathe through steepled fingers. “I’m just scared, Carina.”
“Of what? Of not being a single parent anymore? Of allowing your daughter to know her roots?” She laughs. “You realize how ridiculous this sounds coming from you of all people? You’re the queen of family trees.”
“My whole thing is—what if he wants joint custody? Can you imagine having to ship my baby off on some private jet every other week so she can spend time with her father?”
“You’re forgetting that the man signed away all of his legal rights to this baby the day he made the deposit at the sperm bank …”
“And you’re forgetting he has an insane amount of money and access to the best lawyers in the country,” I say. “There’s not exactly a precedent for this kind of thing. Believe me, I spent a couple hours googling it this morning. In all the custody cases I found, the judge almost always instated parental rights of some kind to the parent requesting it. Courts tend to favor uniting families.”
“You’re catastrophizing,” Carina says. “Let’s flip this. What are all the ways this could be the best thing to ever happen to the two of you? Maybe he wants to be a part of her life, but not legally. They could have a relationship of some kind, whatever that looks like. And maybe nothing would change except you have to let them FaceTime a couple times a week. Maybe he sends her Christmas gifts or visits on her birthday. You’d be okay with that, right?” Her lips inch up at the corners. “Or what if the two of you spend time together and somehow … maybe … accidentally … fall in love?”
Chuckling, I grab a throw pillow off the sofa behind me and pretend like I’m going to toss it at her. “You had me until the love part.”