Chapter 7: The Expedited Result

New York City at 8 PM on a Wednesday does not care that you are a pregnant Nigerian girl hiding inside a giant NYU hoodie in a Tribeca penthouse worth more than the entire economy of Ikeja, Lagos, because New York City is a very busy, very rude, very expensive woman who is too busy honking yellow cabs and selling $28 salads to care about your personal paternity wahala, but Jasmine cared, she cared so much that she felt her whole body sweating inside that hoodie even though the central AC in Damian Cole's sixty-second floor penthouse was still blowing that expensive lemon smell like it was trying to baptize her sins away.

Damian had seen the phone screen.

He had read the words *URGENT: Need to reschedule your Thursday Paternity Panel to TONIGHT 8PM - Mr. Cole requested expedited results* glowing through the thin fabric of her hoodie pocket, and his American face — that sharp, handsome, billionaire American face that belonged on Forbes and also on a warning label that said "Do Not Fall In Love With This Man If You Are His Pregnant Secret Baby Mama" — went completely still, like the way Manhattan goes still for half a second before a thunderstorm breaks over the Hudson River.

"Tonight?" he said quietly, not to Jasmine, but to himself, because he had not requested tonight, his assistant had, and his assistant was about to be fired in the most polite, most American, most billionaire way possible.

Jasmine clutched Lila tighter, because Lila was now officially her human shield, her lawyer, and her only friend in this cold city of glass and money.

"I — I didn't ask for tonight, sir, I swear, I didn't even want Thursday!" Jasmine blurted out, her Nigerian accent now fully out of hiding, doing full legwork on every word, because when a Nigerian girl is caught, the accent always shows up like backup dancers. "I told your assistant I am fine, I am strong, I don't need paternity panel, Femi is in Lagos selling lace, I don't need to know anything!"

"Femi again," Damian muttered, and he said the name Femi like it was a pebble inside his expensive Italian shoe that he could not shake out.

From the living room, where Genevieve — Lila's blonde, white-pantsuit, Paris-pony mother who looked like she had never taken the A train from Flatbush to Tribeca in her entire life — was scrolling through her phone and pretending not to listen while actually listening with the precision of a CIA agent, came a light, airy, poisonous voice: "Damian, darling, who is Femi? Is that the father? How... exotic."

Jasmine wanted to throw a blueberry pancake at her, but she had no pancakes, only panic.

Damian ignored Genevieve, which in itself was a very American billionaire power move, and stepped closer to Jasmine, close enough that she could smell his cologne again, that same woody, expensive, Sterling Gala cologne that had haunted her nose for five months, close enough that Lila had to crane her neck to look up at both of them.

"Jasmine, look at me," he said, his voice low, so low only she and Lila could hear it over the distant honking of Greenwich Street sixty-two floors below. "Did you know I grew up in Queens before my father moved us to Manhattan? My mother was a nurse. She told me never to trust a man who doesn't show up for his kid. So if Femi from Lagos is not showing up, then Femi is a fool."

It was the most American thing anyone had ever said to her, and also the most Nigerian thing anyone had ever said to her, because Nigerian mothers say the exact same thing in Yoruba, Igbo, and Pidgin, just with more shouting and maybe a slap with a wooden spoon.

Jasmine's eyes filled with tears before she could stop them, because she was tired of carrying this secret and this baby and these Ghana-Must-Go bags and this giant hoodie that now smelled like blueberries and fear.

"He is a fool, sir," she whispered, and for once she wasn't lying about Femi, because any man who would leave Jasmine Alvarez alone in New York City pregnant would indeed be a fool, even if that man did not exist.

Damian's hand twitched, like he wanted to reach out and fix something again — her hoodie, her braids, the tears that were threatening to fall — but Genevieve's voice cut through again, sharper now.

"Damian, if your nanny is having some sort of... paternity crisis tonight, perhaps Lila should come with me early to the Mandarin? I have a reservation and I really don't think a child should be around... this kind of drama."

Lila, who had been quiet, suddenly shouted with the fierce loyalty of a three-year-old New Yorker who had already chosen her side in this Tribeca vs Paris war, "I stay with Jazzy! Jazzy not drama, Jazzy is pancakes!"

And then Lila did something that made Jasmine's heart stop and Damian's entire body freeze.

Lila lifted Jasmine's giant hoodie.

Not much, just a few inches, just enough to show the small, hard, round, unmistakable twenty-two weeks bump that was no longer looking like too much jollof rice, but looking exactly like what it was — a baby, a very American-Nigerian baby that had Damian Cole's stubborn jawline hidden somewhere inside it.

Genevieve gasped, not in horror, but in the delighted, vicious way American ex-wives gasp when they have found gossip that will cost you more than a divorce settlement.

"Oh. My. God," Genevieve said slowly, her eyes wide, her hand flying to her mouth, and then she looked straight at Damian with a smile that could cut diamond. "Damian, darling... do the math. Five months ago was December. Sterling Gala was December. You were... indisposed that night, remember? And you told me you woke up alone?"

The math.

He did the math.

Damian Cole, who did math for Tokyo acquisitions before breakfast, who could calculate compound interest in his sleep, who had just been told by a tiny blonde woman in a white pantsuit to do the math that every woman in New York City was already doing just by looking at Jasmine's bump and his blue-gray eyes.

He looked at Jasmine's stomach, then at her face, then at the date on his own expensive watch that told New York time, Lagos time, and Tokyo time all at once.

December. Sterling Gala. Catering girl. Twenty-two weeks.

His eyes, those cold, analytical American billionaire eyes, went completely blank, then completely wild.

"Jasmine," he whispered, and this time his voice wasn't low and sexy, it was shattered, like glass falling from the sixty-second floor onto Greenwich Street below. "Whose baby is it?"

Jasmine opened her mouth, but no lie about Femi and lace fabric and Port Harcourt came out, because Lila was still holding her hoodie up, Genevieve was filming mentally for her lawyer, and Damian was looking at her like he was seeing her for the first time since that dark hotel hallway five months ago.

And then the private elevator dinged again — DING — loud and cheerful and completely inappropriate for the moment — and the doors slid open to reveal Dr. Chen, a small Chinese-American man in a crisp white coat holding a black medical bag and a stack of forms, smiling politely like he had no idea he had just walked into a full-blown New York City telenovela.

"Good evening, Mr. Cole! Ready for the expedited paternity panel? I just need a quick cheek swab from Ms. Alvarez and... oh, I see we have company!"

Dr. Chen looked at Jasmine's bump, then at Damian's face, then at Genevieve's smug smile, then at Lila holding the hoodie, and his polite smile slowly faded as he realized he had arrived sixty seconds too early to a secret that was about to blow up the entire penthouse.