جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 100

My phone buzzed on the table, the screen flashing the one name guaranteed to test human patience. Zach Romano.I stared at it for a beat, then swiped to answer with all the enthusiasm of a cat in a bathtub. His voice hit immediately, sharp and cold, like always—fast, businesslike, as if the whole world existed to serve him.“Where are you?” No hello. No how are you. Straight to the point. Romantic as ever.I took a sip of water, answering lazily. “Restaurant.”“You think I don’t know that?” His tone dripped with irritation. “My question is which restaurant, and why the hell you’re not in the office. Three days, Zane. Three. And you haven’t opened a single one of my messages. Did you die?”I glanced at Ash, still tracing patterns in his ice cream with his tiny spoon. “Almost,” I said lightly. “But not yet.”Zach growled. “You… Jesus. So where the hell are you hiding now? Don’t tell me you’ve been holed up in bed with some Botoxed socialite from the Hamptons. Krystal’s already bitching

Ash kept circling the yard, his feet thudding on the paving stones. Spaghetti looked like a surrendered prisoner of war, though his tail wagged every time Ash lifted him too high. I leaned in the doorway, arms folded, trying not to laugh.“I’m gonna bathe him later!” Ash shouted, like he’d read my mind. “Papi says cats like baths if there’s bubble bath!”I shot a look at Zane. “You told him that?”He shrugged. “A little motivation never hurts.”“Motivation?” I almost laughed, bitter. “That’s sabotage. If Ash tries to bathe Spaghetti with bubble bath, we are all going to die tonight.”Zane grinned, his white teeth catching the late sun. He looked like sin wrapped in birthday paper. Worse, he knew it.Ash panted up to us. “Mommy, can Spaghetti sleep in my room?”“No.”“Why not?”“Because he has claws, and you have a face I intend to keep intact.”Ash sniffed and turned to Zane for an ally. “Papi, say something.”Zane knelt and ruffled Ash’s hair. “You know the difference between winners

It was six a.m. and my body refused to cooperate, but my brain was already too loud to go back to sleep. I hauled myself up and shuffled down the dark hallway, stopping at Ash’s door. It was cracked open.I peeked in.Ash was curled inside his dinosaur blanket, his cheeks still damp from sleep, mouth half open. Spaghetti looped against his side, tail flicking lazy arcs. At the edge of the bed, Zane lay with one long arm draped over half of Ash’s little body, breathing slow and honest. He looked vulnerable in sleep, hair messy, jaw finally..calm.My chest pinched. Last night was still sharp. The words. He wasn’t my son. How I’d managed to stand there and stare, how I’d—I chased the memory away fast.Not my problem. My problem was Amelia. My client. Work.I closed the door gently and went down to the kitchen.+++A knife pressed into my palm while I chopped onions on the wooden board. The rhythm of knife on board was the only thing keeping me sane. The pan started to hiss when the kit

I turned the camera back on and raked my fingers through my hair—close enough. No time to look like a morning talk-show guest. Not that it mattered. Our clients were two freshly rich idiots who couldn’t tell the difference between a contract clause and an I*******m caption.“I think we can move on to the next prenup draft.” My voice hit the same tone as a courtroom gavel. “And, as before, please ignore whatever your personal manager said. Legal advice from someone who calls custody ‘ownership’ doesn’t count.”Sophia typed beside me, expression flat as usual. The couple on screen—faces glowing from installment-plan facials—nodded like bobbleheads. The woman kept twisting her hair. The man leaned back like he’d just won a boxing match instead of sitting through a call.An hour later, after too many words and zero substance, they vanished. The screen went black. My exhale wasn’t graceful.“I need a vacation to Mars.”Sophia leaned back. “You need more than a vacation. You need an exorcism

Never in my life had I walked into a courtroom knowing my heart would be the defendant.Until that morning, when I stepped into the family courthouse. Black blazer cut like it had been sharpened, heels too expensive for New York slush, and my pulse banging like a thief caught in the act, I thought I had seen every kind of personal disaster. I had not.I had lived through a morning of petty theatrics: Ash refusing his cereal because “Spaghetti does not eat cereal, Mami,” then declaring our four new feral cats a “no-bath brigade.”The only reason that stubborn kid finally sat still for three spoonfuls of rice was because Zane bribed him with a story about a monster truck that danced on the moon. I could not tell which was the bigger betrayal of logic: my son or that damn man who made nonsense sound sensible.Now I stood in a gray building with an overzealous AC system and white lights that made everyone look guiltier. The waiting room felt like a theater before the curtain: quiet and tau