All Chapters of My Brother's Best Friend's Secret Baby: Chapter 271 - Chapter 280

Rosalie's POV I called Daniel Osman that same evening Aiden came home from Richard's office. The children were in bed. My father had gone to the guest room. Aiden and I were sitting at the kitchen table. Richard had given him notes, and I went over the different options, the way I approached any information needed to make an informed decision, calmly and without rushing. The statute of limitations had expired for most of the direct legal avenues. Richard had been very thorough about that. What remained was the complaint to the teachers' licensing board, which Richard had confirmed was still viable because Sarah was still certified and still working at a school in the same district, and the journalist's article, for which I only needed to provide confirmation. I thought for a long time about the licensing board option. It was the most effective option. A formal complaint supported by the documents Daniel had could lead to a review of her certification and have consequences for

Aiden's POV The fire escape had become the place where we thought through things that deserved thinking through. Not intentionally. It had started when Rosie was living in the old apartment, those evenings she spent alone on the fire escape, and it had continued in this apartment and in our marriage without either of us ever deciding it should. Some nights, we were both out there. Other nights, only one of us. It was a place where the air felt different from inside, where the sounds of the city were present but muted, and where that particular atmosphere made room for the kind of conversations that required a little distance from the rooms where everything was happening. It was Wednesday evening, three days after the article had been published. The children were asleep. My father-in-law had gone home two days earlier. The apartment had settled back into its quiet after a week of extra people and noise. I was reading. Rosie came outside with tea and sat in her chair. I set my

Rosalie's POV Jeffery came by on a Thursday afternoon while I was between meetings at the gallery. I saw his name on the screen and answered, expecting an ordinary call without any difficulty, like the ones we had several times a week now that he lived closer and our relationship had settled into a comfortable, regular routine. He wasn't calling about anything pleasant. "Who," he said before I had even finished saying hello, "gave my phone number to a documentary production company?" I sat down. "They called you," I said. "Forty minutes ago. A woman named Claire who works in development spoke to me very enthusiastically about how important their work was and how much your story deserved to be told. "She thought that, as the closest member of my sister's family, I might be able to help her understand your reluctance." He paused. "Rosie." "I know." "Resistant. That's the word she used. Not refused. Not said no. Resistant." "I know what word she used." "I told her

Aiden's POV I called Marcus on a Sunday evening. "I'm taking next week off," I said. A silence. "Everything okay?" "Everything's fine. I'm taking a week off. For anything non-urgent, contact Richard. For anything that genuinely can't wait, text me and I'll tell you whether it can wait." Another pause, the kind Marcus took when he was hesitating to ask the question he wanted to ask. "This is about Rosie." "Yes." "Okay." He didn't ask anything else. Over the years of working together, Marcus had developed a reliable instinct for knowing when he could ask questions and when he couldn't. "I'll handle things this week." "I know you will. Thank you." I called Richard next and gave him the same information. Richard asked fewer questions than Marcus because he focused on specific points, and taking a week off was a specific point with clear parameters. Monday morning, I was home. Rosie understood on Monday that it was somewhat unusual, on Tuesday that it was deliberate,

Rosalie's POV Lucy came to me on a Sunday afternoon with a notebook and a pen, wearing that particular expression she had when she had prepared herself for something. "I have a school project," she said. "I have to interview a family member about a challenge they overcame. I prepared questions. I'd like to interview you." She said it the way she did formal things, directly and with the implicit assumption that the answer would be yes, which it was. "Sit down," I said. We were in the living room. Aiden had taken Alessandro to the park. The apartment had a particular quiet to it, simply because there were fewer people than usual. It had the particular atmosphere of a Sunday afternoon when the space seemed to breathe. Lucy sat across from me, her notebook open on her lap. Her pen was ready. Clearly, she had already gone through this in her head. "I'm ready when you are," I said. She consulted her questions. "How long did the challenge last?" I thought about the best way