“Absolutely fucking not,” he seethed, glaring at Tom. “Honestly, we thought you’d throw money at her to get her out of the way. Pay her off and see her out. With a reprehensible track record like yours, that would almost have been the decent thing to do. At a stretch, we might have organised a few visits, but this... raising Reine, when you know absolutely nothing about her, have spent zero time with her and—”
At that, Tom also jumped to his feet. “You think I don’t know all this? You think I don’t hate myself for everything I’ve missed? But you know something, I can’t take the past back. I can’t go back in time and fix what I did wrong. But I can do better going forward. Reine is my daughter, I fully accept that. In fact, you know something? I take joy in the knowledge. Sheer, wonderful joy in knowing that she is my child. She is my daughter, and I want to get to know her. I want to spend time with her. I want to be a father to her.A father,” Tom said firmly. “And whatever the two of you think of me, this decision is between Ari and I. Reine’sparents.”
Silence descended over the room. Ari could hear her own breathing, pained and shallow, echoing across the table. She sat, stunned, while she processed Tom’s words.
He wanted to be a parent. He wanted joint custody. He wanted to help raise Reine.
“No,” she said finally, coming to a stand. Her legs were shaking, and she gripped the table’s edge, hoping to disguise her fear. “No,” she said more firmly. “Tom, I want to talk with you. Privately. Everyone else needs to get out.”
“Ari,” Marnie stood too, looking at her plaintively. “Ari, this is a shock to you, I realise. But you must understand—”
“I want you all to get out.” Ari’s voice was hardly higher than a whisper. “Get out.”
“Ari—” Sebastian began, but she turned on him too, slamming a hand down on the table.
“Please,” she begged. “Please get out of here and let me talk to Tom.”
Luis stood, clapping a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go. Ari needs to talk toTomhere.” Luis gave Tom a withering glance. “You can expect to hear from our lawyer.”
“Yes,” Sebastian nodded at Marnie and her lawyer, “we’re going to hire someone so good Mr Andrew A. Andrews will need to buy another vowel — probably an A — and get ready for a fight. We won’t walk away from Ari and Reine so easily asTom Millerdid.”
Ari watched as the two men walked out of the room, hand-in-hand, their heads held high. Marnie, surprisingly, immediately followed, leaving only Ari, Tom and Mr Andrews in the room.
Mr Andrews was shuffling papers into a worn briefcase, looking at Tom and Ari with appraising eyes.
“I haven’t read through all the information Marnie sent me last night, but I’ve seen enough this morning — more than enough — to understand that this is a complicated situation,” he said, clicking his briefcase closed. “If it goes to court, it could drag on for years, both in London and the State of New York. Itwill be expensive, hurtful and in no way in Reine’s interests. My advice to you is to settle this as adults.” He gave them both a stern look.
“That means quickly and out-of-court. If I may be so bold,” he turned to Ari, and she chewed on her lip nervously, “I would advise you, Ms Lightowler, to accept the very generous financial settlement my client has offered you. His offer has not only gone well beyond the state-mandated requirements for child support, it’s also completely against my advice.”
Mr Andrews leaned forward, pressing a cheque into Ari’s hand. She unfolded it with trembling fingers, gasping audibly when she saw the numbers Tom had written in his hurried cursive. It wasn’t just the sheer amount of money he’d offered that gave her shock — although it was an insane amount, and much more than she’d ever expected — it was the handwriting too.
It was Tom’s handwriting. The loops and curls and messy flourishes... Ari had seen them all before. With a pang of pain, she remembered the small notes he used to leave on her pillow.I’m just getting coffee, be back in ten minutesorGetting a run in before our day starts, don’t shower without me.Ari had always teased him for his messy handwriting.
“You write like you’re always in a rush,” she would say, smiling.
“They’re notes to you,” Tom replied, running his thumb over her cheek. “I’m always in a hurry to talk to you. You call them messy, but I call them lovingly rushed.”
He’d written love notes after that, his handwriting becoming messier and messier, until it was a running joke between them. Ari paused, staring at the cheque in her hand. Whenever Reine asked for a story about the man who’d fathered her, Ari would talk about Tom’s handwriting.
“He made my world a little more beautiful with his writing,” Ari would say, smiling at her child. “He wrote the sweetest things to me. Wonderful things.”
And now he was writing her cheques. Making a beautiful thing ugly and paying her off. Ari felt her heart harden as she folded the cheque, banishing Tom’s words and her memories of Tom Miller into papery shadows.
“Eight years of child support, plus hardship expenses,” Mr Andrews intoned. “I’ve also been instructed by Marnie that Reine is to be written immediately into her will. Likewise, with Mr Somerset here,” Mr Andrews gave Tom a short glance, “he’s also asked that Reine be written into his will — and, should he father more children, be treated equally among them.”
Sasha,Ari at once thought.He was thinking of the children he would have with Sasha.
“It’s really too much—” Ari began, and Mr Andrews nodded.
“Yes, it is. I estimate Tom’s share of Reine’s care to be sixty-nine per cent of your combined income—”
“Wait,” Ari stopped, turning to Tom. “How do you know my income?”
Tom stared at her, his eyes still wearing that empty, haunted look from before. Mr Andrews cleared his throat.
“Once Marnie established that Reine was her son’s child, she asked my firm to do some research. A quick check of the UK Companies House register gave me most of the information I needed, and then we found out the details of your mortgage, your rental costs prior to this and—”
“Did you know about this?” Ari’s voice was hoarse as she turned to Tom. “This... utter invasion of my privacy? Did you know?”
