“She said yes,” I heard Jackson say. Vanessa stood glued next to him, looking up at him with complete love in her eyes.
“We clearly did something right with bringing you up if you managed to persuade this wonderful lady to marry you,” my father said, shaking Jackson’s hand and kissing Vanessa’s cheek.
I smiled, my eyes filled with tears, utterly happy for them and completely cut with jealousy at the same time. “Congratulations,” I said, moving forward into the hubbub of my family. “Let me see the ring.”
Vanessa held out her hand and I recognised our mother’s engagement ring. Jackson had checked with us – me, Max and Callum, and we’d all been happy for him to give it to Van. I hugged her, feeling my eyes overflow.
Over her shoulder I saw Killian, shaking Jackson’s hand and saying his congratulations. Jackson was pulled away by Max, and Killian looked over at me, our eyes catching and I understood exactly what he was saying, his face like stone.
“You’ll have sisters, and irritating brothers,” I said to Vanessa. “Package deal.”
“I can’t wait,” she said, admiring the ring. “I was so surprised.”
“Really? No one else was!”
Vanessa laughed. “Clearly. It was a good job I said yes.”
Seph shimmied over, and I realized he'd chosen to wear his old glasses rather than his usual contacts. I felt for a moment that I'd been shoved back in time before my model-worthy brother had looked quite so fantastic. I half expected to see acne speckling his forehead. “So, when am I going to be an uncle?”
Vanessa smacked him arm.
“You’re allowed to hit him harder than that,” I said. I looked up to where Killian had been, but he had disappeared. I checked behind me and found no sign, which was odd as either he or one of his employees were my shadows since I’d taken on the Katie Worthington case. “Where’s Killian?”
“He’s had to make a phone call,” Seph said. “He didn’t look too happy.”
I didn’t think that the phone call was why he wasn’t happy. “Excellent. I’ve lost my babysitter for a bit.” The band started up and Jackson led a half-embarrassed Vanessa to the dancefloor to a round of applause. They looked beautiful, swaying together as the band played. My father and Marie joined them, then other couples, Seph and Payton who were my twin siblings, Callum and Ava who was the youngest of us and Max, stepped up as well. All of my world together.
Almost.
Chapter One
Claire
“There’s something else I need to tell you.”
Rain bounced against my office window, rhythmic and loud and a suitable soundtrack to my life at this current moment in time. A statement like the one Katie Worthington had just made was not my favourite thing to hear from a client. It was loaded, full of warning signs and I felt my eyebrow twitch.
Katie nervously picked at her fingers, nails which were painted every few days chewed down too far. I looked at her and smiled sympathetically. This was going to be one of the most challenging and multifaceted cases I’d had in my career and each week had brought yet another curveball to add to the layers of complexity. “Tell me,” I said, encouragingly. She was no longer the woman portrayed in the media: her skin was pale and lacked lustre, her hair hung lifelessly around her shoulders, roots visible and hair extensions poking through and today she wore no make-up, except yesterday’s mascara.
“I think I’m pregnant.”
I stood up and walked around my desk as her shoulders began to shake and tears fell as heavily as the raindrops outside. She grabbed onto the chair as she got to her feet and then clutched on to me as I hugged her, feeling that she was too thin and bony. “It’s going to be okay,” I told her, and it would be, that I could make sure of, but I didn’t know how long it would take to be okay, or what we were going to have to go through to get there.
Eventually, she let me go and sat back down in the antique leather chair that had belonged to my grandfather, a previous partner in Callaghan Green, the law firm that had been owned by my family for more than a century. Now it was run by my second eldest brother, Jackson, while another three of my siblings were all partners in the firm too, specialising in different areas of law. I loved my family and I loved working with them, except when they irritated me, which to be fair, was relatively frequently.
“Are you going to ask me if it’s Dean’s?” Katie said, clutching her hands, her eyes still pooled with tears.
I wished I didn’t have to but her divorcing one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in London meant that I had no choice. This was going to ensure that tonight, at least, was sleepless. Not that I ever slept much, not since I was in my second year at university. “Yes,” I said simply.
“It’s his. He will want a paternity test. He will want custody.” Her expression was pained and I ached for her. Pregnancy shouldn’t be like this: it should have been exciting for her, full of love and joy. Not dread. “I think I’m two months gone. It must have been the last time that I slept with him.”
“Have you been to your doctor yet?” I said, trying to keep my emotional distance but aching to cry for her. My siblings, friends and colleagues saw me as the ambitious workaholic, the prickly family lawyer who hung husbands out to dry and made pre-nups vanish like they had never existed. You had to appear tough to coach someone through a divorce or help mediate custody of children who were caught completely in the crossfire of a war they never should’ve been a part of. And I was - tough. But every case had my heart.
Because the man I had given my heart to couldn’t have it anymore.
“No. You’re the first person I’ve told. I’ve been in denial for a month. I put down missing my periods to stress, but I’d started being sick. I haven’t done a test and I know I should but I can’t…” She looked down at her hands. “If it says I am I have decisions to make. Big ones.”
I gulped a mouthful of lukewarm coffee. “It’s a big decision either way and you do have a little time. Is there anyone you can talk to?”
