My Son’s Father Is the Wrong Brother

Erika’s POV

“Theo needs a stem cell transplant,” Dr. Kirk said. “And we are running out of time to find a donor.”

My son was asleep on my lap. Three and a half years old, twenty-six pounds, one arm wrapped around the stuffed rabbit he’d had since birth.

“Can’t you use my stem cells?”

Dr. Kirk shook her head. “No, his tissue type is rare, and I have checked… you are not a match. But I don't have any information on his biological father, that could help. At the very least, having his typing would open up options we don’t have right now.”

“Oh.”

“Is Theo’s biological father in your life?”

“No.”

“Is he reachable?”

I looked down at Theo’s dark lashes and the sharp jaw that had never come from me. “I don’t know his last name. I met him once, almost five years ago. I never saw him again.”

Dr. Kirk took off her glasses. “Then I’ll be honest with you, Erika, whatever chance Theo has might run through that man. Find him.”

“How long do I have?”

“Weeks.”

I buckled Theo into his car seat and called my sister from the driver’s seat with the engine off.

“I can’t do the dinner tonight,” I said when she picked up.

“Erika, don’t you dare—”

“Theo’s results came back. He needs a stem cell transplant, Isabelle. The doctor wants me to find his father.”

Isabelle went quiet, and I listened to her breathe on the other end.

“It’s not going to be easy,” she said flatly.

“I know.”

“Well.” She let out a long breath. “You’re still going tonight.”

“Are you hearing me? My son is—”

“I’m hearing you. And Julian’s mother is paying for every specialist Theo has ever seen. His family’s insurance is the only reason your son has a hospital bed. His family’s support is the only thing keeping ours from going bankrupt. You skip this dinner, you put your son and your family at risk. So you’re going.”

A drawer slammed on her end. “Wear the green dress.”

***

Julian stood up when I carried Theo into the private dining room. He kissed my cheek and lifted Theo out of my arms, settling him into the high chair.

“There are my two favorite people,” he said. “You look beautiful.”

“You clean up all right yourself.” I made my mouth smile.

Julian was tall and lean, light brown hair, a jaw he shaved clean every morning. He’d proposed after four months since we met, and I’d said yes because Theo needed money, and then I’d grown fond of him because he made it easy.

His mother reached across the white tablecloth for Theo’s hand. Her silver hair was pinned up, and she had pearls at her throat. Her back never touched the chair.

“There he is,” Victoria said. “My future grandson.” Then, to me: “You look pale, darling. Is everything all right at the hospital?”

“Nothing new,” I lied. “He’s stable.”

“Good. This family takes care of its own. You’ll see.”

The fourth chair sat empty.

“Where is your brother? I told him that we are expecting company.” she asked Julian.

“He told me he is going to be late. As usual. ”

Victoria checked her phone and muttered, “Damien, honestly. He works too hard.”

My fingers tightened around the stem of my glass. The father of my son’s name is Damian.

Maybe Damien is a more common name than I thought. I made myself let it go.

I just have his name on my mind is all…

The door opened behind me and I turned. Everything in me went still.

I knew him before he cleared the doorway. Five years hadn’t softened the face I’d spent months trying to forget. He stood a full head over the waiter beside him, broader through the shoulders than the man I’d left in that hotel room, his dark hair shorter now, a black suit open at the collar.

He had Julian’s coloring, but the jaw was harder and the brows heavier—and I knew that jaw. My son pressed it into my shoulder every night in his sleep.

Theo’s father… is Julian’s brother.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said to Victoria, and sat down without looking at the rest of us.

“Forty minutes, Damien.”

“The merger doesn’t care about dinner, Mother.”

“Well, I do. Damien, this is Erika, Julian’s fiancée. And this is Theo.”

His eyes passed over me. “Nice to meet you, Erika.”

“Nice to meet you too, Damien,” I said, on autopilot. “This is my son, Theo.”

His gaze dropped to Theo for a second, then he signaled the waiter. “Scotch. Neat.”

I made myself breathe. Common coloring, a hard jaw. Half the tall men in this city had a hard jaw. I was frightened for Theo, and I’d had the wrong man’s name in my head all night.

Now I was seeing ghosts across a tablecloth.

I wanted to be wrong. I needed to be wrong.

Because if I was right, then I was about to marry a man whose own brother had fathered my son, and I couldn’t think of a single way to deal with it that didn’t end with Julian in pieces.

The first course came out on long white platters: seared scallops, crostini with a pale spread, olives. Victoria picked up her story about the florist.

Theo pointed across the table at Damien. “Mama. That man is big.”

“Theo,” I whispered. “Inside voice.”

“But he’s really big.” Theo held his arms out wide to demonstrate.

Damien glanced at him. One corner of his mouth tugged. “You’re not wrong, kid.”

Theo grinned at him, then lunged sideways in his high chair and grabbed a crostini off the shared platter.

“Theo—” I pried half of it out of his fist, but the other half was already in his mouth. He grinned at me, cheeks stuffed. I gave up and ate the rescued half. Toasted bread, something rich ground into the spread.

The waiter set a bread basket near Damien and leaned in. “The walnut crostini is on the left, sir. Be careful.”

Damien nodded without looking up. “Thanks.”

Julian smiled. “What are the odds? Theo’s got the same allergy. Hasn’t he, Erika?”

My hand stopped halfway to my glass. “Yes,” I breathed. “Since birth.”

A walnut allergy. I’d never once traced it on my side of the family, and I had looked, back when the pediatrician first asked. It was the first thing about my son that had never come from me.

I was watching the man it came from reach past a basket of bread he couldn’t touch either.

The door I’d been holding open, the one that let me be wrong, swung shut an inch.

I watched Damien reach past the bread basket for his scotch, and that was when I saw it.

A scar ran from the base of his thumb down to his wrist, a thin white line I had traced with one finger in a dark hotel room five years ago.

How did you get this? I’d asked.

Stupid accident. I was nineteen.

And I’d pressed my mouth to it. In the morning I’d left before he woke.

There it was, and there was no arguing with it. The scar. I’d had my mouth on that scar, and now it sat six feet away while its owner listened to Victoria talk about peonies.

The last of my hope that I was wrong went out.

The father of my son sat across from me in a black suit, drinking scotch, and he had no idea.

I looked at Julian. He was cutting a scallop into small pieces for no reason, smiling at something his mother said, the ring he’d given me sparkling on my own hand.

He had been nothing but good to me. His family was the reason Theo had a bed at Memorial East at all.

And here I sat at his mother’s table, trembling with the truth that could take all of it apart—the wedding, the only safety net my son had.

Whatever I do, Julian cannot be the one who bleeds for it.

“Mama?” Theo tugged my sleeve. “Can I have more bread?”

“Yes. Not the ones on the left though, baby,” I croaked. “Here. This one.”

I handed him a plain roll and held him against me while my eyes stayed on Damien over the top of my child’s head.

Theo needed that man. My son’s life might be in that man’s blood, and I had to find a way to reach it without setting fire to everything else.