Page 56 of Single Mom's Daddies
He yawns. “Do you want me to?”
“No, but thank you for asking.”
“Okay.” He’s asleep before I turn out the light.
My hands are shaking when I close their door. And then I walk. Down the hall. Past the gallery. To the study.
They’re here. Roman in his usual chair, back straight, eyes unreadable while he reads. Victor by the window, one hand resting on the sill like he’s debating jumping through it, the other hand taken by a glass of something rich and red. Nikolai leaning against the bookshelf, arms crossed, expression cool but shadowed, checking his phone.
They look up as I enter.
I don’t sit. I don’t smile. I close the door. “It was you. The three of you. The night Ivy was conceived.”
They remain in their positions, preternaturally still.
“Ivy,” I say. “She’s yours. I just thought you deserved to know.”
No one speaks. They just stare.
14
ROMAN
The room is still.
The clock ticks on the wall. The fire crackles low, untouched since earlier this afternoon. The scent of the woodsmoke’s faded into something faint, something you don’t notice unless you’ve got nothing else to hold on to.
And right now, I’ve got nothing else.
Saffron’s words are still hanging in the air, hovering like something with weight. Like a knife suspended by thread.
“She’s yours,” she said.
Victor is standing just to my left, posture straight, but not tense—yet. Nikolai hasn’t moved. His arms are still crossed, his expression unreadable in that way he’s perfected over the years. None of us have budged. I’m not sure we could.
I haven’t looked away from her. I can’t. Because if I do, I might break the spell. And I need the spell. I need a moment longer where everything still feelsalmostlike it did ten seconds ago—before she said it.
Ivy. Our daughter.
Ours.
I swallow hard. My throat is dry. “Say that again.”
Her eyes don’t waver. She’s standing firm, arms loose at her sides, no anger in her face. Just…restraint. “Ivy is your daughter,” she says. “All of yours. The way Mila and Alex are all of yours.”
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out at first. Victor’s staring at the floor, jaw tight. Nikolai hasn’t moved. I’m not sure he’s breathing. I look back to Saffron. “How do you know?”
She reaches into her back pocket—slowly, deliberately—and pulls out something flat and glossy. A photograph. She crosses the space between us, not all the way to the center, but close enough, and sets it down on the side table by the leather chair I usually claim.
“I found that today,” she says. “It was stuffed behind some folders. I wasn’t looking for it. I was trying to find art supplies for the kids.”
I pick up the photo with a hand I didn’t realize was shaking.
St. Carthan’s. Nikolai’s graduation day. I don’t say anything. My fingers grip the edges of the photo like it might fly away. I set it back down.
And I say, quiet, but clear, “What does this prove?”
She takes a breath for bravery. “I went to a party with my friends. Halloween. We were nineteen. I’d just started birth control. Didn’t know it needed more than a week to be effective. I thought…I thought I was safe. I’d never done anything like itbefore. I was…I don’t know. Looking to feel something. I’d just gotten dumped.”
