Chapter 9: Wedding In Two Days
1098 Words
Kiera's POV
"You have a son?"
Zake asked again.
"I... I..." I couldn't find the words.
Jayden looked up at Zake and his eyes lit up instantly.
He let go of me, walked across the room and stopped directly in front of Zake and looked up at him for a long, serious moment.
Then he threw both arms around his waist and held on.
"Daddy!" he said.
My heart stopped. Zake went completely still.
"Jayden..." I crossed the room in three steps. "Baby, no..."
"He has my eyes, Mama." Jayden pulled back just enough to look up at Zake's face, pointing between their eyes with one finger, completely certain. "See? Same ones."
"Jayt, sweetheart..."
"You said we might meet him here." He said.
"I said possibly..." My voice came out rough.
"Possibly means maybe yes." He turned back to Zake. "You're my daddy."
The room was absolutely silent.
"Baby,listen to me." I crouched down and took Jayden's hands in mine. "This is Mr. Langston. He's not your..." I stopped.
Because I didn't know how to finish that sentence, what if he was his father?
"But he has my eyes." Jayden insisted.
"Grandpa had your eyes too," I said slowly. "You could have gotten it from there."
"So maybe it's him." He looked back at Zake. "Maybe it's him, Mama."
I stood up and looked at the assistant hovering in the doorway. "Can you take him, please? Get him something to eat."
Jayden spun around. "I don't want to go..."
"Jayden..."
"I just found him..." He whined.
"Jayden." My voice cracked slightly. "Please."
His lip trembled. He turned back to Zake, his eyes filling with tears, the way they did when he was trying very hard not to cry. He still had Zake's jacket in his fist.
Zake crouched down.
I watched it happen and felt something pull in my chest that I had absolutely no use for.
"Okay, go eat something." His voice was different, quieter, something in it I hadn't heard before. "I'll be here when you get back."
"Promise?" Jayden's voice was very small.
"Promise," Zake said after a second.
Jayden looked at him for a long moment. Then he let go of the jacket, wiped his face with the back of his hand in one swift motion, and took the assistant's hand without another word.
I followed and locked the door shut, then stood with my back to Zake for a moment, just breathing.
"Why didn't you tell me you had a son?" Zake's voice came from behind me.
"I didn't think it was important." I turned around.
"You didn't think it was important?" His voice was controlled but something sharp was running underneath it. "You walk into a meeting that determines your entire inheritance, and a child is not important?"
"He wasn't supposed to be in here." I said
"It doesn't matter." He said.
I pressed my lips together. "I thought I could keep him out of it."
"Out of what, exactly?" asked.
"Out of..." I gestured at the room, at him, at all of it. "This, whatever this is. I didn't know you were going to be involved. I didn't know you existed in any of this still now."
He went quiet for a moment, then he sighed.
"Kiera." He said my name slowly. "Is he mine?"
"I..." I stopped.
"Yes or no?" He asked.
"I don't know." The words came out barely above a whisper.
He tilted his head. "You don't know."
"No." I said.
"He's five years old and you don't know who his father is?" He asked.
"I know how that sounds..."
"Really?" He crossed his hands across his chest.
"I was married," I said, my voice rising slightly. "I was married when it happened, with you. There was window of time and I don't... I never confirmed it because..."
"Because?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Because if I'd confirmed it," I said, "and it was Denise, my ex-husband's, he would have used it. He would have taken my son and made it ugly and I wasn't going to give him that." My jaw tightened. "So I didn't look. I chose not to know."
He was watched me with those eyes that saw too much and said too little.
"What if it's mine?" he said.
"I don't know what that means yet." I said quietly.
"It means," he said quietly, "that this just became a lot more complicated than a marriage clause."
"I'm aware..."
"I want a DNA test." He said quickly.
"Fine." I nodded my head slowly.
"The wedding is in two days." He said. "There will be a gown fitting, you can choose the gown and then...."
"There will be no wedding." I said quickly, cutting him off.
"The wedding is happening." He didn't raise his voice. "You just came back to this city with a child whose father you cannot confirm. The board finds out before there's any legal structure in place, and they will find out and the story becomes the estranged daughter with an illegitimate child arriving to claim an inheritance she had no part building. That story damages the company, It damages you and the child too."
I opened my mouth then closed it.
"The clause already exists," he continued. "The marriage will make everything easier. The paternity question gets answered quietly, privately, inside a framework that protects all parties. Including your son."
I hated that he was right.
I looked at the table. The clause sitting there in black and white. My father's handwriting on a document reaching across death to rearrange my life.
"You don't know what you're asking for," I said quietly.
"I know exactly what I'm asking." He said.
"We don't..." I stopped. "We don't know each other, well not really. One night six years ago isn't enough to..."
"It's more than most contract marriage start with."
The bluntness of it knocked me sideways. I looked up at him.
He was already looking at me. Those ice-blue eyes, steady, giving nothing away.
"Two days is not enough time." I looked away.
"It's enough." He said.
"I don't have a..."
"Like I said, the will makes provisions." He cut me off. "Gowns will be sent to wherever you're staying, choose one and show up. That's all."
I laughed. I couldn't help it, it was short and sharp. "That's all."
"Kiera." His voice dropped slightly. "I understand this isn't what you planned."
"That is the single greatest understatement I've ever heard." I said.
"Get some rest." He picked up his jacket from the back of the chair. "You're getting married in two days."
- Writer
