8- The Test Results
1584 Words
The words lingered in the air long after Luca said them.
“I wish I had a dad.”
Simple.
Quiet.
Innocent.
And catastrophic.
The entire room froze.
Parker felt the blood drain from her face so fast it left her dizzy.
Across the table, Maxton went completely still.
Not a blink.
Not a breath.
Not a single movement.
Like someone had driven a blade straight through his chest and left it there.
Meanwhile, Luca—blissfully unaware that he’d just detonated every fragile boundary holding the room together—dipped another fry into chocolate syrup and grinned proudly at his own culinary disaster.
Sophia cleared her throat first.
Too loudly.
“Okay,” she said carefully. “I think that’s enough sugar and emotional trauma for one lunch.”
Parker stood so quickly her chair scraped harshly across the floor.
“We should go.”
Luca blinked up at her.
“But—”
“Now.”
The sharpness in her voice cut through the room instantly.
Luca flinched.
And the guilt hit Parker just as fast.
God.
She crouched beside him immediately, forcing softness back into her tone even while panic clawed up her spine.
“Hey,” she whispered, brushing syrup from his cheek. “Come on, baby. We’ve got things to do.”
Luca studied her face carefully.
Too carefully.
That was the terrifying thing about her son.
He noticed everything.
“…Okay,” he said quietly.
Sophia stood, reaching for her purse, but her eyes flicked once toward Maxton—and whatever she saw there made her expression falter.
Because Maxton still hadn’t moved.
Hadn’t looked away from Luca once.
Parker could feel it.
The shift.
The moment everything became irreversible.
She grabbed Luca’s jacket with trembling fingers and avoided looking at Maxton entirely.
Because she knew.
Knew exactly what was coming.
And she wasn’t ready for it.
Not even remotely.
⸻
That night, Maxton sat alone in the dark of his penthouse office.
The city glittered beneath him in fractured gold and white, sprawling endlessly beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Normally, he liked the view.
Tonight, he barely saw it.
A single sealed envelope sat in the center of his desk.
Waiting.
Heavy enough to change his entire life.
He hadn’t opened it yet.
Hadn’t touched it.
Because as long as it stayed sealed, reality remained suspended.
Possibility instead of certainty.
Hope instead of devastation.
But once he opened it—
there would be no going back.
His phone buzzed against the desk.
A text message.
Parker.
Luca had a good time today. Thank you.
Maxton stared at the screen for a long moment.
Then at the envelope.
Then back at her message.
Something twisted violently in his chest.
Because Luca had laughed with him today.
Argued with him about race cars.
Stolen fries off his plate.
Looked at him with easy trust.
All while having no idea he’d been sitting beside his father.
Maxton finally reached for the envelope.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
His fingers broke the seal.
The sound alone felt final.
He unfolded the report.
Read the first line.
Then the second.
And by the third—
the world stopped.
Probability of paternity: 99.9998%
His son.
The paper trembled slightly in his hand.
Luca was his son.
A harsh breath left his chest.
Then another.
Like his lungs had forgotten how to work.
For a long moment, Maxton just sat there staring at the words, unable to process the magnitude of them.
He had a child.
A son.
A little boy with dark curls and stubborn opinions and his exact eyes.
A boy who laughed with his whole body.
A boy who’d looked at him across a lunch table and said,
I wish I had a dad.
Something inside Maxton shattered.
Because he should’ve known Luca’s first word.
Should’ve been there for his first steps.
His first fever.
His first nightmare.
He should’ve known what cartoons he watched and what foods he hated and whether he needed a nightlight to sleep.
Instead—
he had missed everything.
Six years.
Six birthdays.
Six Christmas mornings.
Six years of bedtime stories and scraped knees and tiny milestones he could never get back.
Gone.
Stolen.
His chest tightened so violently he had to brace one hand against the desk.
No business deal.
No empire.
No amount of power—
had ever brought him to his knees like this.
And the worst part?
Luca had wanted him.
Without even knowing who he was.
Maxton lowered his head, one hand covering his mouth as grief tore through him in absolute silence.
No anger.
No shouting.
Just devastation so deep it hollowed him out from the inside.
Because no matter what happened next—
he would never get those years back.
And Parker—
whether she meant to or not—
had taken them from him.
Slowly, the grief hardened.
Not disappearing.
Transforming.
Into resolve.
Because Maxton Sutton had never been a man who accepted loss quietly.
⸻
Across the city, Parker couldn’t breathe.
Luca was asleep.
Sophia had gone home.
And Parker had spent the last hour pacing the same stretch of hardwood floor barefoot, restless energy tearing through her veins.
Something had changed tonight.
She could feel it.
Like the entire world had tilted slightly off its axis.
The results were in.
She didn’t know how she knew.
She just did.
And somehow—
that terrified her more than the actual answer.
Three sharp knocks echoed through the apartment.
Parker froze instantly.
Her heart dropped.
No.
Slowly, she walked to the door and opened it.
Maxton stood on the other side.
Suit jacket gone.
Tie loosened.
Dark hair slightly disheveled like he’d been dragging his hands through it repeatedly.
But it was his face that made her stomach twist.
He looked wrecked.
And in his hand—
was the folded DNA report.
Parker’s pulse stumbled painfully.
Without a word, she stepped aside.
Maxton entered.
The door clicked shut behind him.
Silence swallowed the apartment whole.
For several seconds, neither of them spoke.
Then Maxton held out the report.
Parker took it with numb fingers.
Read the words she already knew were there.
And felt every wall she’d spent six years building begin to c***k.
Slowly, she looked up.
“I already knew.”
A hollow laugh escaped him.
“Did you?”
The pain in those two words nearly gutted her.
“Maxton—”
“He’s mine.”
Not loud.
Not angry.
Worse.
Certain.
Absolute.
Brutally broken.
Parker carefully set the report down before her shaking hands gave her away.
“Yes.”
Maxton stared at her like he didn’t recognize the woman standing in front of him.
“You let me spend six years not knowing my own son existed.”
Her throat tightened painfully.
“I thought I was protecting him.”
“From me?”
“From your world.”
His jaw flexed hard.
“My world didn’t stop you from bringing him into it today.”
“That was different.”
“Why?”
She opened her mouth—
then closed it again.
Because suddenly none of her reasons sounded strong enough anymore.
Maxton stepped closer.
And when he spoke again, his voice was lower.
Raw.
“Do you know what it feels like,” he asked quietly, “to read on paper that you missed six years of your child’s life?”
Tears burned Parker’s eyes instantly.
“I never wanted to hurt you.”
“But you did.”
The words landed like a knife between her ribs.
Because they were true.
God.
They were true.
Maxton dragged a hand through his hair before glancing toward the hallway where Luca slept peacefully down the hall.
“I should’ve been there,” he said hoarsely.
Parker’s voice cracked completely.
“I know.”
He looked back at her then.
And whatever grief had broken him upstairs in that penthouse—
had hardened into something terrifying now.
Steel.
Control.
Decision.
“What happens next,” he said quietly, “is no longer entirely your choice.”
Fear iced down Parker’s spine.
“Maxton—”
“I’m filing for custody.”
The words slammed into the room.
Parker physically recoiled.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t just walk in here and threaten to take my son—”
“Our son.”
The correction cracked through her like thunder.
Parker shook her head immediately.
“You don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“No,” Maxton said, voice deadly calm. “I understand exactly what I’m doing.”
Panic surged through her chest.
“Luca is happy. He’s safe. He has a stable life—”
“And no father.”
Her breath caught.
Maxton stepped closer again, eyes burning now.
“You let my son grow up believing he was unwanted.”
Pain exploded across Parker’s face.
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
“He was loved!”
“I’m sure he was,” Maxton snapped. “But he still sat across from me today wishing he had a father while I sat there too damn blind to realize he was talking about me.”
Silence crashed between them.
Heavy.
Violent.
Heartbreaking.
Parker’s voice shook.
“You think taking me to court is going to fix this?”
“No,” Maxton said quietly.
His expression fractured for the first time all night.
“But it’s the only way I know to make sure I never lose him again.”
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