Chapter 8: Not a Punishment

“He cannot do this, he cannot write that I am a liar on a piece of paper and make it true,” I said, with the pages crushed in my fists.

“Give me those before you tear them, ripped paper makes terrible evidence,” Zola said, pulling the petition gently out of my hands, and then she stopped, because I had started to shake.

“Mina, sit, sit, sit, look at me,” Zola said, guiding me to the sofa.

“I fired him, I put his shoes on the lawn, I was so proud of myself, and he still gets to stand up in a courtroom and say my baby belongs to him,” I said.

“It does not belong to him, it does not belong to anyone, it belongs to you,” Zola said.

“You do not understand, he will say I cheated, he will say I do not know who the father is, and everyone will believe him, because look at me, I am the girl who was too boring to keep, they will say I was desperate,” I said, and my voice broke on the last word.

“Nobody is going to say that,” Zola said.

“Everybody is going to say that, Zola, it will be in every newspaper, and my father will read it at his desk with that flat face and say he is disappointed, and he will be right, I made one reckless choice in twenty four years and look what it cost,” I said.

“It cost you a baby, and the baby is not a punishment, say it with me, not a punishment,” Zola said, taking my face in both hands.

“Not a punishment,” I whispered, and the tears came so fast that I could not breathe around them.

The door buzzed, and the guard’s deep voice came through the speaker. “Miss Hale, Kade Voss is here.”

Kade came in fast, with his tie loose and his jacket open, as if he had run down every one of those forty floors, and he stopped when he saw my face.

“Brandt called me, what happened?” Kade asked.

I held out the petition because I could not say it, and he read the first page standing, and I watched a muscle jump in his cheek and his knuckles go white around the paper.

“He filed this today, with a court seal, he wants a test, and he sent a message asking if I want to pay him or let everyone know whose baby it is,” I said.

“Show me the message,” Kade said.

I handed him my phone, and he read it twice.

“I am going to destroy him,” Kade said, very calmly.

“Please do not, you will go to jail, and then I will have to explain that to a grape,” I said, and Zola made a strangled noise.

“A grape?” Zola asked.

“The baby is the size of a grape, Zola, you told me,” I said.

“I did, and I am going to cry again, give me a minute,” Zola said, covering her face.

Kade almost smiled, but it did not last, and he crouched in front of me.

“Mina, listen, he cannot win this, a paternity claim from a man who has not been near you in two months is a joke, my lawyers will bury it,” Kade said.

“Even if you win, it will all be said in court, and the whole world will know I was in bed with you three weeks after my ex left,” I said.

“Then we do not give him a story, we give the world a different one,” Kade said.

“What different one?” I asked.

“The truth, with better lighting, you and I are married before the end of the week, quiet, legal, and nobody can say a thing about whose baby it is,” Kade said.

“That is not romantic,” I said, my voice cracking on a laugh.

“No, it is a shield, I am not going to pretend it is anything else,” Kade said. “But when I saw that paper in your hands I wanted to break something, and I have never wanted to break anything for another person.”

“Kade,” I said.

“You think you are alone in this, you are not, I am standing right here, and I am not leaving, not tonight, and not at sunrise,” Kade said.

Something in my chest opened, and I could not stop it, and I put my forehead against his shoulder and cried like a child, loud and ugly and finally, while he held the back of my head with one hand and said nothing at all.

“I am going to start a list of reasons to hurt Dean, it is on page two already, please do not stop me,” Zola said from the corner, wiping her eyes.

After a while I lifted my face. “I am sorry about your suit,” I said.

“It was an expensive suit, and I do not care,” Kade said, and he wiped my cheek with his thumb, so gently that I forgot to breathe.

“Rule three,” I whispered.

“I know, I am working on it,” he said.

“Why are you doing this, Kade, you could have signed a check and sent a lawyer,” I said.

“Because my father left when I was nine, he packed one bag and told my mother he needed air, and I stood at the window for three days waiting for him to come back,” Kade said.

“I am sorry,” I said.

“I told myself I would never be a man who made a child wait at a window, I just did not think I would get the chance this soon, or with a woman who slaps like a champion,” Kade said.

“I did not mean to hit you so hard,” I said.

“You did, and I respect it,” Kade said, and I laughed into his shirt.

“What if I am bad at this, what if I am cold like my father, what if I give this baby what I got?” I asked.

“What did you get?” Kade asked.

“A schedule, a school, a driver, and a man at the end of the table who never once asked how my day was,” I said.

“Then our child will have a mother who asks, and a father who is going to be very bad at it and very loud about trying,” Kade said.

Zola’s phone buzzed, then buzzed again, then began to buzz without stopping.

“Why is everyone texting me, my agent just sent forty exclamation marks,” Zola said, and she looked at the screen, and she went white.

“Zola?” I asked.

“Mina, you need to see this,” Zola said, and she turned the phone around.

On the screen was a gossip page with a blurry photo of me outside the pharmacy, hood up, a pregnancy test box sticking out of Zola’s bag, and a headline in red letters, HALE HEIRESS PREGNANT, FATHER UNKNOWN.

“How,” I said, and I could not finish the word.

Kade read it over my shoulder, and his voice dropped so low it was barely a sound. “Brandt,” he said into his phone. “The leak is not only Dean, find me whoever sold this photo, every name, right now.”

My phone began to ring on the sofa cushion, and the name on the screen made the whole room go cold.

“Who is it?” Kade asked.

“My father,” I whispered, “calling at ten o’clock at night, and he has never once called me after dark.”