Chapter 3: I'm Short a Father

My mouth went dry. He'd never said my first name. In seven years I had been Dr. Hale, counselor's favorite witness, Hale when he was being a bastard about it. Never Nora. "Yeah," I said. "It's me." Silence on his end. A chair scraping. A door closing. "You had a baby yesterday," he said. I sat up too fast and felt every stitch. "How do you know that?" "Answer the question." "That wasn't a question." "Nora." Something in his voice was wrong. Raw at the edges. "Why are you calling me from a hospital?" Three weeks ago we'd been in the same mediation room, and he'd looked at my belly, then at my wedding ring, for exactly one second too long. Then he'd said, in that dry way of his: "Shame. Wouldn't it be more efficient if you'd married me? We'd stop being enemies and start being the most dangerous household in the state." I'd told him to choke. Everyone laughed. It was a joke. It was obviously a joke. I closed my eyes. "Killian." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "I'm short a father on a birth certificate." Nothing. "It's due to the registrar at noon tomorrow. The man I married is in Aspen with another woman, and his mother has informed me that no Whitlock name goes on my daughter until I submit to a paternity test." I forced the words out fast, before pride could stop them. "I will not do that. I will not put a dash on that line. So I need a name, and I need a signature, and the only way that's legal is if the man signing is my husband." Still nothing. The silence stretched so long I heard the monitor beeping in the next room. "So I'm asking you," I said. "Mr. Rourke. Would you like to marry a woman you've spent seven years trying to destroy, and sign her daughter's birth certificate." One second. Two. Three. He's going to laugh, I thought. He's going to laugh, and I will live inside that sound for the rest of my life. "Nora." His voice had gone strange. Rough. "Is this a joke?" Something in my chest folded up. "Forget it," I said quickly. "Forget I called. I'm not myself, I lost a lot of blood, just—" "Yes." I stopped breathing. "What?" "I said yes." Steady now. Absolutely steady. "I'll do it." My sister, who had her ear approximately half an inch from my phone, made a noise like a kettle boiling dry. "You—" I had to put my head back against the pillow. "You understand what I'm asking. This isn't a favor where you show up and smile for a photo. This is a marriage license. This is a child's legal father. That is permanent, Killian. That follows you into every form you fill out for the rest of your life." "I'm aware. I read documents for a living." "There's no prenup. There's no time." "I don't want one." "Killian—" "One condition." Of course. Of course there was a condition. My stomach dropped, because I knew exactly how this man negotiated. I'd lost to him nine times. I'd beaten him eleven. I knew what he did when he smelled leverage. "Name it," I said. "Not on the phone. Say yes first." "Absolutely not, I've testified against you under oath—" "Then you already know I could ask for anything, and you'd still be short a father in nineteen hours." I hated him. God, I hated him. "Name it," I said again. A long breath on his end. When he spoke, every trace of the boardroom was gone. "Rourke men don't do fake," he said. "So understand me, Nora. If I sign that line, I'm not a placeholder. I'm not a legal convenience you thank quietly and annul in six weeks. I'm not signing a piece of paper and then watching you raise that girl alone across town." "Then what are you?" "Her father." His voice dropped. "And your husband. A real one. In every sense of that word. Someone who sleeps in your house and gets up at three in the morning and is written on every form she ever fills out for the rest of her life." The room tilted. "You're serious," I whispered. "I have never been more serious about anything." Down the hall, a newborn was crying. My mother had both hands over her mouth. My father had turned to face the window, and his shoulders were not steady. I thought about Grant saying good girl before he hung up. I thought about Vivienne saying paternity test. I thought about the weight of seven pounds and one ounce on my chest. And I said—