HIS FORSAKEN WIFE HIS GREATEST REGRET

Four DNA Tests Later

Roberta's POV

The door swung open.

What I saw almost stopped my heart.

Millie was on top of Jace. Her body was moving. She was in a short black lingerie gown barely covering anything. Jace had nothing on.

Their heads snapped toward me.

His hands were still on her hips.

For one second, nobody moved.

Then Jace cursed under his breath.

“Oh s**t. Roberta— damn it. Can’t you knock?”

Millie climbed off him slowly like she had all the time in the world. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and walked to my vanity chair. Sat down. Crossed her legs. Like she had always sat there, many times before.

My best friend.

In my bedroom.

On top of my husband.

Jace pulled on his shorts and stood up.

I closed my eyes.

Please let it be someone else. Please let me open my eyes and see someone I don't know.

A different woman. Anyone. A stranger. A prostitute. Definitely not Millie. Not my best friend.

I opened my eyes.

It's still Millie. Oh my God.

My knees went weak. I grabbed the doorframe.

"Millie?" My voice came out small and broken. "It's you? It's been you all along? You're Nolan's mother? You've been sleeping with my husband?"

Millie didn't answer. She just looked at me like I was the one who had done something wrong.

Jace stepped toward me. "Roberta. We should talk outside. Let's just—"

He reached for my arm.

I jerked away from his touch without looking at him. I was still looking at Millie. "You were my best friend."

Millie held my gaze.

"I called you when she had a fever. I told you everything—" My voice broke. I pressed through it. "Everything. And the whole time you were—"

"Roberta." Jace stepped forward. "Let's go outside and—"

"Ziva is dead."

The room stopped.

Jace's face went blank. "What?"

"She died tonight." My voice was used up.

Jace's sat down on the bed like his legs stopped working. His mouth opened. Nothing came out.

Millie's face shifted to concern just a little. Then it went smooth again.

"You killed her." I was crying hard now. Big, terrible sobs that ripped out of my chest. "You took her. You let them cut her open. You put my daughter in a cab after a bone marrow transplant! A cab! Jace, and now she's gone."

Millie stood up. "Roberta, I'm sorry. We didn't mean for things to go this far."

I stared at her.

"You didn't mean—" I laughed. It came out broken. "You didn't want things to go this far."

"It wasn't supposed to—"

"You were my best friend." My voice was low. "We grew up together. I trusted you with my life. You were the one person I always ran to. And you—" I thought about every time she'd held my face in her hands and said you are not alone. "I trusted you with everything."

Millie said nothing.

Then I remembered.

It hit me so hard I actually laughed out loud — a short, sound that made Jace look up.

"You told me not to let Ziva do the transplant." My hand went to my temple. "You argued with me. You said it was foolish. You said don't let Jace brainwash you." I shook my head and laughed again. "You were covering your tracks. The whole time you were just—" I pressed my hand harder over my mouth. "I have been such a fool. Such an enormous, spectacular fool."

She had played me. The whole time. She had pretended to be on my side while she was in my bed. While she was planning with Jace on how to take my daughter's bone marrow for her son.

"I've been a fool." I laughed again. It hurt. "A big, stupid fool."

Jace dragged a hand over his face.

“Ziva... Is she really dead?"

“Don’t say her name!”

My scream shook the room.

“Don’t you dare say her name like you loved her! You killed her!"

His eyes reddened instantly.

“I never wanted her dead. She was my daughter—"

"You never once acted like it. You never played with her. You never picked her up from school, not once, not until you needed something from her." My voice was climbing, and I didn't stop it. "She used to tell her classmates you were her father, and they didn't believe her. Did you know that? She'd come home and tell me and try to laugh it off, but I could see it. How much it hurt her." I stepped closer. "She drew pictures of you. She kept them. She would point at every tall building we drove past and say Daddy made that. She was so proud of you. She loved you more than you deserved."

Jace's jaw was tight. His eyes were bright in a way I hadn't seen from him. Something real moving behind them.

I cried harder. "Do you know the one thing she wanted more than anything? She wanted you to see her. She wanted you to love her. To accept her."

Jace looked down at the floor.

"She asked me once—she asked me why her daddy didn't want her. Do you know what that does to a child? To feel invisible? To feel like she doesn't matter? One smile from you could make her happy for days.”

“Stop—”

“No!” I screamed. “You don’t get to stop this! You don’t get to escape it now!”

He looked destroyed now.

I stepped closer.

My voice was breaking.

"The one time you took her out—it was to guilt trip her into giving her bone marrow to Nolan. You used her like a tool."

Jace put his head in his hands. "I'm sorry. I know I wasn't a good dad. I know that. But I never wanted her to die."

"Cut the pretence!" I screamed. "This was exactly what you wanted."

Millie crossed her arms suddenly.

“No, you cut the pretence, Roberta.”

I turned slowly toward her. "What did you say?"

“You heard me.” Her voice hardened.

You've been lying to him for eight years. So don't stand there and lecture him about being a bad father when he was raising another man's daughter."

The words didn't make sense.

"What?"

Millie smiled. It was ugly. "Ziva isn't Jace's biological daughter."

I stared at her. Then, I laughed once in disbelief.

“You’re making up disgusting lies now just so you can keep sleeping with my husband?”

Millie chuckled softly. "You know I’m not the liar here."

Jace looked away.

Millie stepped closer. "What exactly did you expect?” she asked coldly. “For him to ignore his real son and play daddy to a child you got from a one-night stand?”

My stomach dropped.

I shook my head. "That's not true. That's insane. Ziva is Jace's daughter."

Millie turned toward Jace.

“When are you ever going to tell her?"

My heartbeat became louder.

“Tell me what?" I looked at Jace.

He wouldn't look at me.

"Jace." My voice was small. "What is she talking about?"

Jace stood up. He walked to the safe in the corner of the room. Punched in the code and pulled out papers. Several of them. He walked back.

"I've known since she was one year old." His voice was flat. "I had a DNA test done."

He held the papers out to me. I took them.

DNA results. Four of them. All dated differently. The earliest was when Ziva was one year old. All are reading the same number.

Zero per cent probability of paternity.

My hands started shaking.

"No." I looked up at him. "No, this isn't right—this can't be—"

"I couldn't believe it." Jace's voice cracked. "I did it four times. Four times. I kept hoping the results would change. I wanted her to be mine, Roberta. I wanted it so badly."

I stared at him. At the papers. At the numbers that said my daughter wasn't his daughter.

His eyes burned red. “You’re standing here talking about how I treated Ziva while you lied to both of us about who her real father was. You're disgusting, Roberta."

“I didn’t lie!” Tears blurred my eyes.

"Tell me the f*****g truth!" Jace's voice was hard now. "You say I was a bad father but I never ask to father another man's child. If not for Millie, I never would’ve known the truth.”

Millie stepped closer to Jace. Put her hand on his chest.

I looked at Millie. At her hand on my husband's chest.

Then he kissed her rght in front of me.

He kissed her hard, but his eyes were on me and it was cruel.

I gasped. My chest physically hurt watching it.

"She told me to get a DNA test." Jace smiled. "A year after Ziva was born. She told me you said you had doubts about Ziva being being mine. That the pregnancy could have also come from the reckless one night stand you had. Remember?"

I nodded. I did remember.

"Who is the he?" Jace's voice cut through. "Will you even recognise him if you ever saw him?"

My mind flashed instantly to the night it happened.

Of course, I was always going to recognise him. I never forgot about him.

I had kept that night somewhere underneath everything for eight years.

Brett.

The same man who had just helped me up at the hospital a while ago.