Alle Kapitel von The Hockey Star Wasn't My Baby's Father. His Father Was : Kapitel 31 – Kapitel 40

031: ELARA POVThe library is nearly empty this late, just a handful of other students scattered across the reading room, the particular hush of a building that's stopped pretending to be anything other than tired. I'm supposed to be finishing a paper due tomorrow. I've read the same paragraph four times without absorbing a word of it.It hits without warning, the way the others have — no lead-up, no sense of it coming, just the library dissolving around me mid-sentence and something else rising to take its place.*The Hale study, lamplight low and warm. I'm crying, telling him about feeling invisible, about Ronan leaving again for some tournament, about the particular loneliness of always being the one who gets left behind by people who claim to love her. Dominic listens. Really listens, the way almost no one in my life ever has, without waiting for his turn to talk, without trying to fix it before I've finished feeling it.**"You've always been extraordinary," he says, quiet and cer

The filing hits public record on a Wednesday morning, and by the time I make it to my first class, half of campus already seems to know the specifics better than I do.*Elara Vale named in contested estate claim — Eleanor Hale alleges manipulation, undue influence.* The headline runs above a photo of me from the dean's office weeks ago, my face caught mid-sentence, looking exactly as guilty as a carefully chosen still frame can make anyone look. I read the full article standing outside the lecture hall, my stomach tightening with every paragraph.Eleanor's filing doesn't just contest the trustee petition anymore. It paints an entire narrative a calculating young woman who identified a wealthy, vulnerable older man and systematically maneuvered herself into his life, his money, his name. It cites the scandal, the pregnancy, even Ronan's history with me, twisted into evidence of some elaborate long-game seduction I supposedly orchestrated since childhood.It would almost be impressive,

Marcus has three monitors going when I walk into his office, which is usually a sign he's found something significant enough to need the visual real estate."Tell me you have good news," I say, dropping into the chair across from his desk."I have thorough news. Whether it's good depends on your definition." He gestures at the center monitor, where a web of connected boxes and arrows fills the screen the kind of diagram that makes sense to him instantly and takes me a solid minute of squinting to parse. "This is everything connecting Eleanor's assistant to the original campus rumor, the gossip account, and the medical records breach. All three, same architecture, same digital fingerprints once you know what to look for.""Walk me through it."He does, patiently, tracing each connection with the practiced clarity of someone who's explained complicated financial and digital forensics to enough confused attorneys that he's learned to make it accessible without dumbing it down. The origin

037: DOMINIC POVI read the news of the criminal filing three times before I fully absorb it, sitting alone in my office long after my last meeting of the day has ended, the city lights starting to come on in the windows behind me.Kieran texted me the basic details out of courtesy, nothing more she filed, it's moving forward, the evidence is strong. He didn't ask for anything from me, didn't request resources or legal support, simply informed me because he correctly judged that I'd want to know.I sit with the specific shape of my own reaction, turning it over carefully. A few months ago, learning that Elara had taken a major legal action without consulting me first would have triggered something proprietary in me not anger exactly, but a kind of anxious need to insert myself into the process, to make sure it was being handled correctly, to offer resources whether or not they'd been requested. I notice, tonight, that the impulse barely registers at all. What I feel instead is somet

039: ELARA POV"You kissed him."Mia says it flatly, not a question, sitting cross-legged on her bed with her laptop forgotten beside her, staring at me like I've just confessed to something far more scandalous than anything that's already happened this year."I kissed him," I confirm."Okay." She sets the laptop aside entirely now, giving me her full attention. "I need details. Not gratuitous ones. Just.....how did that happen? Last I heard it was dinner. Quiet, no agenda, his words.""It was quiet. It was no agenda." I sit down on the edge of her bed, still turning the evening over in my mind, trying to find language for something that doesn't fit neatly into the categories I've been using to process everything else this year. "He said he wanted to kiss me and wasn't going to, not until I was certain. And then I just.... was. Certain, I mean. I didn't decide it consciously. My body just moved before my brain caught up."Mia studies me for a long moment. "How do you feel now? Not per