Chapter 6: The Paternity Panel

Jasmine stared at her phone screen so hard that the words *PATERNITY BLOOD SCREENING* started to blur, swim, do backflips, and then rearrange themselves into scarier words like *YOUR SECRET IS FINISHED* and *PACK YOUR GHANA-MUST-GO BAGS NOW*, and her thumb, which was usually very good at typing fast replies to landlord Mr. G and her roommate Chioma, suddenly forgot how to function and just hovered over the email like a confused fly that had entered a mansion by mistake and could not find the exit.

Lila, who was still sitting on the kitchen floor with her, tilted her small head, squinted at the phone with the serious concentration of a three-year-old who believed she could read, and asked with the innocent bluntness that only American-born children of billionaires possess, "Jazzy, what is pa-ter-ni-ty? Is it like Mickey Mouse?"

"No, my love, it is not like Mickey Mouse, it is like... it is like very big American wahala that your daddy just used his big American money to order for my body without asking me," Jasmine whispered, quickly locking the phone and shoving it deep into the pocket of her giant NYU hoodie as if the hoodie could somehow swallow the email and digest it like it had digested her shame for the past five months.

Her mind was doing calculations faster than Damian Cole's Tokyo acquisition team, because in Lagos, when a Nigerian girl hears the words paternity test and she knows the father is standing in an elevator above her head wearing a suit that costs more than her entire village's yearly budget, her brain enters what her mother used to call "Holy Ghost emergency mode."

Thursday 8 AM was in seventy-two hours, which was three days, which was seventy-two hours minus the eight hours she needed to sleep, minus the hours she needed to make Lila's organic, gluten-free, dairy-free, joy-free toddler meals, minus the hours she needed to hide her prenatal vitamins inside an empty Lipton tea box so Lila wouldn't find them — which Lila always found anyway because Lila had the investigative skills of EFCC.

"Oya, Jasmine, think," she muttered to her stomach, pacing the massive kitchen in her giant hoodie that swished like a sad, oversized flag, while Lila followed her like a small, loyal duckling in mismatched unicorn pajamas. "If Dr. Chen does blood test, he will see baby is half Nigerian, half American, and if he sees baby is half American with blue-gray eyes like oga, he will tell oga, and oga will remember that night at Sterling Gala when he was drunk and you were carrying champagne tray and you said 'you look worse' and he laughed and then —"

She stopped pacing, because the memory of that night — the whiskey smell, the woody cologne, the way he had mumbled her name wrong against her neck — was so vivid it made her knees weak, and being weak-kneed when you are five months pregnant and hiding a paternity secret from a billionaire who just called your imaginary ex "useless" is not advisable.

Her phone buzzed again.

Another email.

*From: D. Cole*

*Subject: Re: Thursday*

*Body: My assistant added the paternity panel as standard for all live-in staff with dependents. Protocol. Don't overthink it. - D.C.*

Don't overthink it.

Don't overthink it?

Jasmine almost threw the phone inside the Wolf oven that probably cost more than her entire university education in Lagos.

Standard protocol? Since when is testing who the father of your nanny's baby is standard protocol for hiring a nanny? Is this what rich American people do? In Nigeria, standard protocol for hiring a nanny is you ask her village, you ask her pastor, you check if she can cook jollof without burning it, you do NOT order a paternity blood screening like you are ordering extra foam on your latte!

Lila tugged her hoodie again. "Jazzy, you are doing worried face. Like Daddy does when Tokyo people don't sign paper."

Jasmine crouched down, ignoring the sharp pain in her lower back that felt like someone had inserted a small, angry carpenter inside her spine, and cupped Lila's tiny face.

"Princess, if... if someone asks you about my tummy, what will you say?" Jasmine whispered conspiratorially, because she had learned in the past two days that Lila, despite being three, was more loyal than most adults in Brooklyn.

Lila thought deeply, her brown curls bouncing, then whispered back, "I will say Jazzy ate too many blueberry pancakes like Daddy says I do!"

Jasmine burst out laughing, a real, loud, cackling Lagos laugh that echoed off the marble counters, and for a second the terror left her body.

"Good girl, that is perfect answer, you are now officially my legal counsel, you have passed the bar," Jasmine said, kissing Lila's forehead, and Lila giggled, proud to be promoted from toddler to lawyer at age three.

But the relief lasted only until 6:02 PM, when the private elevator chimed and Damian Cole returned, and he returned not alone.

Behind him was a woman.

Not just any woman — a woman who looked like she had been manufactured in a laboratory where they only produce intimidating, beautiful, rich American ex-wives who wear white pantsuits to children's homes and smell like Paris.

She had long, straight blonde hair that did not have a single strand out of place, unlike Jasmine's braids which had two rebellious baby hairs that refused to lay flat even after she used Chioma's expensive edge control, she had legs that went on for days, and she had a smile that did not reach her eyes when she looked at Lila.

"Genevieve," Damian said, his voice instantly going back to that icy, cold, boardroom voice, not the soft voice he had used that morning when he talked about his mother singing in Italian.

So this was her. The mother who packed her bags for Paris and decided a corporate board seat was more important than a daughter. Lila's mother. The Paris woman.

Jasmine, still in her giant hoodie, holding Lila's hand, felt suddenly very Nigerian, very pregnant, very not-white-pantsuit, and very much like she wanted to disappear inside her hoodie and live there permanently like a tortoise.

Genevieve's eyes slid from Damian to Lila — who instantly hid behind Jasmine's legs, a clear vote — and then to Jasmine, scanning her from the giant hoodie down to the swollen ankles that were peeking out from under the hem.

"Damian, darling, you didn't tell me you hired help," Genevieve said, her American accent crisp, polished, the kind of accent that went to private school in Connecticut and summered in the Hamptons, not the kind that took Uber from Flatbush for thirty-two dollars. "And pregnant help at that. Is that... wise?"

Jasmine felt Lila's grip tighten on her leg.

Damian stepped slightly in front of Jasmine without even realizing he was doing it, a small, protective, very American billionaire move that made Jasmine's heart do that stupid flip again.

"Genevieve, you're early, Lila is not ready for dinner with you yet, we agreed on six-thirty," Damian said flatly.

Genevieve ignored him, crouching down to Lila's level with a perfume cloud so strong Jasmine sneezed internally.

"Lila, sweetie, Mommy is here, don't you want to come to Paris for two weeks? Mommy has a big house with a pony?"

Lila shook her head violently and buried her face deeper into Jasmine's hoodie, and Jasmine, without thinking, placed a protective hand on Lila's curls, the same hand that had sung Yoruba lullabies at 2 AM.

Genevieve stood up, her eyes narrowing at Jasmine's hand on her daughter's head.

"What's your name, dear?" she asked Jasmine, with a smile that was sweeter than poisoned honey.

"Jasmine, ma," Jasmine said politely, because her mother raised her well.

"Jasmine," Genevieve repeated, and then she did something that made Jasmine's blood turn to ice water. She turned to Damian and said, with a light, airy laugh, "You know, Damian, she looks so familiar. Have you seen her before? That face... I swear I saw her at the Sterling Gala last year, near the catering entrance, when you were... you know... having your little episode after our custody mediation."

The entire penthouse went silent.

The expensive AC hum stopped, or at least it felt like it stopped, and all Jasmine could hear was her own heartbeat doing gbim-gbim-gbim so loud she was sure Genevieve could hear it through her giant hoodie.

Damian frowned, his blue-gray eyes flicking from Genevieve to Jasmine, and that dangerous, analytical, CEO stare came back, the same stare from the first interview, the tie scene, the receipt scene.

Sterling Gala. Catering entrance. His little episode.

He was remembering. Not fully, but the puzzle pieces were clicking together in that big, scary, American billionaire brain that never forgets anything.

Jasmine's mouth was dry like harmattan season.

Genevieve smiled, satisfied that she had planted a bomb, and walked toward the living room, her white pantsuit glowing.

Damian didn't follow her. He stayed rooted, staring at Jasmine, and slowly, very slowly, he said, "Sterling Gala. Five months ago. Were you there, Jasmine?"

Lila, still hiding behind Jasmine's legs, whispered loudly, "Jazzy, why are you shaking?"

And before Jasmine could invent another Femi, another lie, another giant sentence to save herself, her phone buzzed again in her hoodie pocket, loud enough for Damian to hear, and the caller ID that flashed on the locked screen was:

*Dr. Chen - Cole Family Medical - URGENT: Need to reschedule your Thursday Paternity Panel to TONIGHT 8PM - Mr. Cole requested expedited results.*

Damian's eyes dropped to the phone screen glowing through the thin fabric of her hoodie pocket.

He had seen it.

He had read every single word.