What the law says

Olivia's POV

By six in the morning I'd already gone through three cups of coffee and every excuse I could think of not to make the call. At seven, I made it anyway.

Marissa Chen had been a family lawyer for almost ten years. We'd met at Lily's old daycare, back when her son was in the same class, back before I even had a reason to need a lawyer for anything. I'd kept her number in my phone the way you keep a fire extinguisher, hoping I'd never actually have to use it.

She picked up on the second ring. "Olivia? It's early."

"I know, I'm sorry. Just need to ask you something….Hypothetically.” I said quickly.

"Okay." She paused, could hear her moving somewhere quieter. "Go ahead."

"If a father found out about a child, after years of not knowing... and he had a lot of money. Like, a lot. Could he actually win custody? Even if the mother's been the only parent the whole time?"

The silence on the other end lasted a moment.

"Olivia. Is this hypothetical, or is this about you?"

I closed my eyes. "It's about me."

-------

We met an hour later at a coffee shop two blocks from my apartment, because I couldn't stomach the idea of sitting in an actual law office and making this feel more real than it already was.

Marissa listened without interrupting while I laid it out. Adrian, the company, the DNA test he'd taken without my knowledge and finally the ultimatum.

When I finished, she sat back, turning her coffee cup slowly between her hands. "Okay. First…. the DNA test itself, done without your consent, that's actually something we could use against him. It won't destroy his case, but it shows a pattern of disregard for your rights as her guardian. It's not nothing."

"Okay." I nodded, feeling a small, thin thread of hope. "That's something."

"But… " She said gently, the way you'd tell someone bad news about a diagnosis. "I'm not going to lie to you. If he wants to fight for custody, and he has the resources you're describing, this would not be a quick or easy case."

"But I've raised her alone for seven years. Doesn't that count for something?"

"It counts. Courts do weigh the existing bond, stability, routine… all of that favors you significantly." She set the cup down. "But courts also look at what each parent can provide. Financial stability, housing, education, time. And Olivia, if he decides to make this ugly, he can afford lawyers who do nothing but this, full time, for years. He can afford to appeal every ruling that doesn't go his way, can afford to make this take so long you go bankrupt before it's even decided."

My chest tightened. "So he wins by just... outlasting me."

"Sometimes that's exactly how it works." She reached across the table and put her hand over mine. "I'm not saying you'd lose. I'm saying it wouldn't be fair and it wouldn't be fast, and it would cost you money you don't have to fight it. Best case, it drags out two or three years, and Lily spends that whole time in the middle of it. Evaluations, interviews, maybe even having to talk to a judge herself."

"She's seven."

"I know."

I stared down at my coffee. "So what am I supposed to do?"

She was quiet for a moment. "I can't tell you what to do. I can tell you what's realistic." She squeezed my hand once before letting go. "If there's any way to resolve this without a courtroom, for her sake, I'd at least consider what that looks like before you refuse outright. That doesn't mean he gets to bully you into anything. It means going in with your eyes open, instead of swinging first and finding out later what it costs you."

I sat there long after she'd gone, staring out the window at people walking by. Marry a man who betrayed me seven years ago. Or spend years and money I didn't have fighting him, with no guarantee I'd win, and every guarantee that Lily would feel the war being fought over her head the entire time.

I was still staring out the window when Marissa's phone buzzed against the table between us.

She glanced at it, her expression changing instantly, the color draining slowly from her face.

"Marissa?" I stared at her.

She didn't answer right away. She just turned the phone toward me.

KINGSTON HEIR'S SECRET LOVE CHILD — WHO IS OLIVIA CARTER?

Beneath it, a photo of me from the gala. The emerald dress and the velvet box in my hands, frozen mid-panic, the exact second Adrian had placed it there in front of the entire ballroom.

I shook my head. "No."

"Olivia…"

"No, that's not…." My hands had gone cold around my coffee cup. "How does anyone even know about her? Nobody knows, we never…"

"Keep reading." She held my hands, rubbing them.

I scrolled. My stomach dropping to the floor with every word.

*...sources close to the Kingston family confirm a paternity test was recently conducted...the child, age seven, has been kept out of the public eye for her entire life...questions remain over why Miss Carter concealed the identity of her daughter's father for nearly a decade...*

"They have the DNA test." I whispered. "Marissa, they have the actual result. How does a tabloid have that?"

She was already typing something into her own phone. "That's not a leak, there's someone who wanted this out."

Behind the counter, the television mounted in the corner of the café, tuned to some muted morning show suddenly cut to a breaking news banner. The barista grabbed the remote and turned the volume up without a second thought.

".....developing story out of New York this morning, as Kingston Holdings CEO Adrian Kingston is now at the center of speculation surrounding a secret child, believed to be the result of a relationship that ended nearly seven years ago…"

A photo of Lily filled the screen.

It wasn't a paparazzi shot, or blurry, neither did it look like it was stolen from a distance.

It was her school photo. The one from the folder I kept in my nightstand drawer, I had never posted anywhere, never shared with anyone outside her school and her pediatrician.

My cup slipped out of my hand and shattered against the floor.

Every head in the café turned but I didn't care at that momentm I couldn't hear anything except my own pulse roaring in my ears, staring at my daughter's face plastered across a screen for strangers to pick apart.

“Who did this and how did they get access to Lily's photo?”