All Chapters of My Ex's Boss is My Baby's Father: Chapter 191 - Chapter 199

199 Chapters

Chapter 192: Clara at Ten

Clara arrived in London for half-term with a book about cephalopod cognition and strong opinions about the seating arrangement on the Eurostar, which she expressed to Leo directly and without apology during the journey.I was told this by Leo when he arrived at my parents' house on the Wednesday, Clara already in the hallway taking off her coat with the efficiency of someone who knew where she was going and was not going to be delayed by coats. Matteo was behind her with a rucksack that appeared to contain, among other things, a substantial collection of rocks. Daniel came last with the luggage and the expression of someone who had been on a train for two hours with Clara's opinions and Matteo's rocks and was glad to have arrived somewhere with other adults.Clara was ten years and four months old and had been developing her opinions since approximately the age of three, the opinions becoming more precise each year rather than more numerous, as though she was refining toward something

Chapter 193: The Scholarship

Leo had been planning the gathering for four months, which I knew because he had mentioned it in February and then had not mentioned it again until June, which was his method: raise the thing once to confirm it was real, then execute it without requiring anyone else to manage their anticipation of it.The invitation had gone to every scholarship recipient from the first ten cohorts who had provided a current contact address, which was most of them. Sixty-three people had confirmed. Twelve countries. Leo had arranged it for a Thursday evening in July at Circle's London offices, a building I had been to many times and that had the quality of a space that reflected what it was built for: the long room on the fourth floor, the garden behind it that Leo had insisted on when the lease was signed, saying he wanted somewhere for people to go when the room became too much.I arrived early, which was my habit at events where I expected to want time to be in the space before it filled. Leo was a

Chapter 194: The Book

He had been writing it for three years, which I knew because I had been watching him write it for three years without being shown any of it, which was not his usual way of working.Lucien had always been someone who tested ideas by saying them out loud, who used conversation to clarify thinking before committing anything to paper. In thirty years of marriage I had been the person those conversations happened with, which I had understood as a form of trust as much as a practical method. He thought by talking to me and I had learned to listen in the way that was useful to him, which was without resolving things too quickly.The book was different. He had been writing it in his study with the door closed, which he had never done before, and had said very little about the content beyond: it is about the company and what the company taught me. I had not pushed. He would show me when it was ready and I had thirty years of evidence that his timing was reliable.He gave me the manuscript on a

Chapter 195: Nadia

The question came on a Tuesday morning in October, which was not when Jack and Priya had expected it, because you could not predict when a five-year-old would decide the moment had arrived.I heard about it that evening, when Jack called me from London.He told it the way Jack told things: in order, without drama, with the specific attention to detail that indicated the event had been important enough to fix precisely in his memory. I listened without interrupting, which was what the telling required.Nadia had been at the kitchen table with her breakfast, which she ate with the focused efficiency she brought to most tasks, working through it in a sequence that followed some internal logic Jack had observed but never fully decoded. The wooden dog was on the table beside her bowl, which was not unusual. The wooden dog attended most meals.Jack was at the counter with coffee, half-reading something on his phone, when she looked up and said: "Papa. Where did I come from before here."He

Chapter 196: Process Opens

We flew to Berlin on a Thursday morning, Lucien managing the logistics with the efficiency he brought to everything that mattered, and arrived at the hotel in Mitte with enough time to rest before the evening opening.I had seen photographs of the installation during development, the images Emma had sent across the months of construction, but photographs did not prepare me for the Hamburger Bahnhof in October, the vast former railway station that had been a museum of contemporary art for thirty years and that received the installation the way certain spaces received certain works: as though it had been waiting for them.Lucien took my hand as we went in.The four of them were already there when we arrived, managing the final hours before the public opening with the focused energy of people who had been working toward something for months and were now in the last stretch before it became the thing rather than the thing-being-made. Leo near the garment suspension system, talking to a te

Chapter 197: The Grandchildren

We had been trying to arrange it for two years, the scheduling of three families across multiple cities and multiple professional calendars finally aligning in August, a full week at the Greece estate with no work obligations for any of us.Leo and Daniel arrived with Clara and Matteo on a Sunday afternoon. Jack and Priya came the following morning with Nadia. Lucien had been at the estate since Friday, having managed the logistics of the week with the precision he brought to all family operations, the kitchen stocked, the beach equipment ready, the sleeping arrangements organised so that the children were on the same floor.I was on the terrace when the second car came through the gate, Nadia in the back seat with her face pressed to the window, the wooden dog visible in her hand even from a distance.The three children had not been in the same place before. They had met in pairs: Clara and Matteo had been at Nadia's third birthday in London, and Nadia had attended the family Christm

Chapter 198: In Japan

I had been talking about Japan for fifteen years.Not seriously, not with plans attached, just the recurring mention of it at the edges of other conversations: an article about Kyoto in autumn, a fabric technique I had read about that originated in a specific region, Leo's postcard from his gap year that had stayed on my desk for three years because of the quality of the light in the photograph he had enclosed. Lucien had been talking about it for roughly the same length of time, for different reasons that amounted to the same reason: we had always meant to go and had always been building something that needed us more than the going.In June I booked it.Three weeks in October. The guesthouse in Kyoto that Leo had stayed at during his gap year, which I had researched from his postcard and from conversations with him and had booked four months in advance with the specific intention of eating the breakfast he had described as the best breakfast of his life. A loose itinerary that allowe

Chapter 199: What Comes After

We came home on a Thursday, the Japan trip behind us, and the house received us the way it always did after a long absence: a little formal at first, the air of a space that had been waiting, then familiar again within an hour, the particular London light through the kitchen windows and the sounds of the neighbourhood settling back into their ordinary positions around us.Lucien made tea while I unpacked, which was our standard return ritual. Tea first, luggage second. The luggage could wait.I came downstairs to find two mugs on the kitchen table and Lucien sitting with the particular quality he had been developing across the Japan weeks: the unhurried quality, the person who was not also managing something else. It was still present, which I noted with quiet satisfaction. The trip had not been a temporary state. Something had settled."Alright," I said, sitting down. "Let's have the conversation."He looked at me. "Which one.""The one we've been approaching for three years. What th

Chapter 200: The Beach Again

The reunion had been Lucien's idea, which surprised no one who knew him.He had proposed it in January with the same quiet efficiency he brought to all family logistics: a week in Greece in August, the estate, everyone who could come. He had sent the dates and the details and had managed the responses and the travel arrangements without making any of it feel like management, which was the particular skill he had been developing for thirty years and had not lost in retirement.Everyone came.Leo and Daniel with Clara, now eleven, and Matteo, who was eight and had brought a field guide to Mediterranean marine life that he had been annotating since April. Emma and Saoirse from Dublin. Jack and Priya with Nadia, who was six and had the wooden dog and strong opinions about the seating arrangements at dinner. Marcus and Ezra from Brooklyn, Marcus already composing something in his head, I could tell from the way he occasionally stopped mid-conversation and looked at nothing for three second

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