Chapter 5: Before Things Get Complicated
Christopher arrived at my office at three o'clock exactly.
He had dressed carefully.
Dark suit, no tie, the kind of deliberate casualness that was meant to signal confidence.
He glanced at Marcus standing near the window and his jaw tightened slightly, but he said nothing about it.
He sat down across from my desk.
"You didn't have to bring a witness," he said.
"I didn't have to do a lot of things," I replied.
"Sit down, Christopher."
He was already sitting.
The correction landed the way I intended it to.
"I want to resolve this quietly," he said.
"The motion my attorney filed this morning — that doesn't have to go anywhere.
We can amend the divorce agreement.
I'm willing to increase your settlement.
The lake property, if you want it.
I know you always liked it there."
"I don't want the lake property."
"Then name something.
Stephanie, you signed those papers.
This is already done.
I'm trying to give you a graceful exit."
I folded my hands on the desk.
"Christopher.
Do you know a man named Daniel Reeves?"
Something moved behind his eyes.
Fast, and then gone.
"He works here," Christopher said carefully.
"Finance.
Why?"
"He was Sabrina's supervisor."
"I know who he is."
"Do you know him well?"
Christopher leaned back.
"What is this?"
"I'm asking a simple question."
"And I'm telling you it's not relevant to—"
"The DNA results came back this morning," I said.
The room went completely quiet.
Christopher's hands, which had been resting loosely on the arms of the chair, went flat against his thighs.
"You're not the biological father of either child," I said.
"Both children share a paternal profile that matches Daniel Reeves."
Marcus did not move from his position near the window.
Christopher stared at me.
The color in his face shifted through several stages — disbelief, calculation, anger — before settling on something colder.
"That's not possible," he said.
"The match probability is 99.998 percent."
"Labs make errors."
"Not with this methodology.
Not with a confirmed database match." I opened the folder and slid the report across the desk.
"Sixty-eight pages.
Chain of custody is clean.
Your attorney is welcome to commission an independent review.
The result will be the same."
He didn't touch the report.
"Sabrina told me—" He stopped.
"What did Sabrina tell you, Christopher?"
His jaw worked.
"She said the children were mine."
"She told you that you were the father of children conceived with another man.
A man who is currently employed at this company and who may or may not know those children exist." I paused.
"That is the situation you are in right now."
He stood up abruptly.
The chair scraped back.
"This is a setup," he said.
"You planned this.
You sat at that dinner and you let me—"
"I let you humiliate me in front of your entire family," I said.
"Yes.
I did.
Because I needed you to do it in front of witnesses before I showed you what I already knew."
"You could have told me—"
"Told you what?
That your mother and I had been protecting your pride for nine years?
That the fertility problem was never mine?
That you watched me go through procedures and injections and apologize to your family for something that was medically impossible for me to fix?" My voice stayed level.
"When exactly should I have told you, Christopher?
At which holiday dinner?
At which birthday party?
At which doctor's appointment where your family looked at me like I was broken?"
He had no answer.
"The paternity challenge will be filed by end of week," I said.
"The motion to void the divorce agreement will not succeed.
The glasses were collected legally, documented by counsel, and the chain of custody is intact." I closed the folder.
"If you want to settle this without further litigation, your attorney can call Jacqueline.
Otherwise, we proceed."
Christopher looked at me for a long moment.
Something in his expression shifted — not remorse exactly, but the specific look of a man who has just understood, too late, the full dimensions of what he walked into.
"What happens to Sabrina?" he asked.
It was the first question he had asked about anyone other than himself.
"That depends on what Daniel Reeves decides to do when he finds out," I said.
Christopher picked up the DNA report from my desk.
He walked out without another word.
Marcus waited until the door closed.
"Stephanie," he said quietly.
"Are you all right?"
I looked at the empty chair across from my desk.
"Ask me again in a week," I said.
His phone buzzed.
He glanced at it, and something in his expression changed.
"What is it?" I asked.
He turned the screen toward me.
It was a message from Patricia Ames on the board.
Four words.
May you like
*We need to talk.
Tonight.*
