Page 17 of Her Baby Daddy Mix-up

“Ashley Evans?” the police officer stated getting a snippy ‘yes’ back from her sister. “You’re under arrest for bank fraud. You have the right to remain silent…”

“What? You can’t do this to me,” Ashley shouted angrily over the rest of the cop’s words. “I’m a lawyer!”

“Then you should have known that using my computer to log into the bank’s system and look at Brianna’s bank accounts was illegal!” Grace retorted, fuming as the officers moved Ashley out of the building as onlookers gawked a bit.

Jacob stared after them, before looking back at their group with a sigh. “I’m sorry…she’s really been out of it since she learnt you were pregnant, Brianna. She…we…we wanted kids, but it just never happened and when we finally went to the doctor two years ago they told her if she wanted to carry a baby, it would likely have to be a donor egg because she wasn’t producing them, and they didn’t think meds would help any. After that…it didn’t matter what I said or did, she spends most of her nights locked in her room and just drinks. I’ve tried to get her to go see someone but…she refuses. I never imagined that she’d…I don’t know what she was hoping to find looking at your accounts.”

“It’s not your fault,” Brianna said as Carter held her closer, calming her immensely. “I just can’t deal with her right now…I blocked her just after Valentine’s Day because she kept texting me, telling me I shouldn’t be a mom and to get rid of the baby. I can’t…”

“We understand, sweetheart,” her mom assured her, squeezing her hand tightly. “Jacob, you should probably go down to the station. If the bank is going to press charges…”

“Of course, they are,” Grace said, shaking her head at their mom. “She illegally accessed someone’s information. It doesn’t matter if she used my log-in to get in or that Brianna’s our sister, it’s still illegal. She can plead insanity but no one’s going to just ignore it.”

“I’ll let you know what happens,” Jacob told them before leaving.

“That explains how she found out,” Carter said, brushing Brianna’s cheek with his knuckle, giving her a soft smile. “We should probably tell your family in case it comes out.”

“Okay,” she agreed, waiting until they were in their car on the way to their house, the others following them to say anything else. “What was all that? The permission to use your sperm?”

“I didn’t want anything to come out that would hurt or upset you, angel. If somehow the clinic was bought out and another lawyer came in and went through the files, I didn’t want it to come out and blindside us. Or if we need to use the other vials to possibly have another baby and your family learnt about it, I figured it safer to have a backup in place. So, I contacted the clinic and let them know that we wanted all of the prior communication sent to us destroyed, that thankfully we were already acquainted, friends, and worked together, but we didn’t want anyone else discovering anything about how our family came about.

“They think the fact that you work for me is how the mix-up occurred. Your contact information had the company listed, and they think instead of an incorrect barcode, the system glitch cross referenced Carter Russells International with my name, and that’s how you got my vials,” Carter told her, and she couldn’t help but be happy if it had—not now that they were fully together. “I gave them a backdated authorization form giving you full access to my vials, to cover when you had them, as well as had them change your record and show it as a sperm retrieval rather than purchase. It’s also good for the future as well. If anything happened to me and you wanted another baby, it’s yours to use however you want. I wanted to know you were covered, then and in the future, for any possibility. Plus given who I am, if the clinic was ever hacked, I didn’t want anyone spreading our private information all over the internet.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me about it any time since then?” she asked, smiling as he lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to it.

“I didn’t want you worrying about it, just that you were taking care of you and our little boy. I’ll never let anything hurt you, baby. We’ll get through this, together.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, giving him a kiss when they pulled up to the house, and she snuggled into his hold after giving his mom a hug seeing her already there.

Carter gave the group a quick run through of what Ashley had accused them of, and Brianna smiled, seeing the surprise on her parents’ faces. Grace was still fuming but her shock showed over it as well, and Brianna laughed a bit at all of it.

“I couldn’t believe she did it to begin with but to then bring it to you, accuse you of something so stupid, tell Carter it wasn’t his baby…for it all to be a huge misunderstanding not to mention your all’s private medical information and history…I swear that just makes it worse,” Grace said with a sigh.

“How did you find out it was Ashley?” Brianna asked her as Carter smiled, feeling their baby boy kicking up a storm under his hand.

“It was the only thing that made sense. She and Jacob came over last Friday for dinner. I got a call from someone trying to work on a loan closing. I logged in to my laptop and left it on the coffee table when I got up. I locked the screen to the computer to go check on the food, but it didn’t lock the bank’s system in the background. Tyler and Jacob were out looking at the new grill I got Tyler for his birthday, so Ashley was the only other person in the house. I got a visit from our regional manager and a guy from IT wanting to know why I was accessing private individuals’ accounts after hours on Tuesday. It’s a fireable offense to look at accounts unless it’s for a work-related reason, and when they told me all of the accounts were yours, I knew it had to be Ashley. I now have a reprimand in my file about taking better security measures because of her, but I wasn’t about to let her get me fired,” Grace explained, and she reached over, giving her a hug, completely understanding since Grace was the main breadwinner between her and Tyler who was a high school science teacher.

“I understand the bank wanting to press charges and your anger, Grace,” Carter said, pulling Brianna’s attention back up to him. “I’m furious, especially with everything she’s said to Brianna. I can’t imagine Ashley will be able to keep her job with this, even if the charges don’t stick.”

“Why wouldn’t they stick?” Megan asked, looking between them and Grace.

“Because technically she didn’t hack into the bank’s system, just my personal computer. It’s iffy if a judge will let it go any further, even though she did look at Brianna’s information while in it,” Grace told them. “A decent lawyer could possibly get her off on a lesser charge because of the technicality of it all if nothing else. In order to protect my job and the bank, we had to file the charges. They’ll be issuing Brianna an official breach notification, but they also have the proof that only her accounts were accessed during that time beyond the review of the loan file which I did while on the phone with the loan officer, so that’s clearly been identified as work related.”

“Well, I think losing her job might be the only thing that gets through to her right now,” Brianna said, and Carter nodded.

“I’m sure her boss has already been notified of the pending charges, so that’s probably already in the works,” he said bringing a slight gasp to their mom’s lips. “I don’t think any of us want to see her in actual jail though, so what if we see if we can’t get the DA’s office to agree not to press it if she agrees to get both psychiatric help and go to rehab?”

“I’d be okay with that,” Grace said, her anger cooling finally.

“She won’t get anywhere near me or our baby boy until then, so yes, I’d be okay with it,” Brianna assured him, smiling beneath the kiss he gave her, and she happily stayed at the house with her mom and Megan while her dad, Grace, and Carter went to see what they could do.

Nora had a table full of food before they all returned with Jacob and Tyler in tow.

“Thank you,” Jacob told Brianna, giving her a hug. “Ashley’s boss was furious. If you and Carter hadn’t been agreeable…let alone willing to pay for rehab…”

“Might hate her right now but she’s still family,” Brianna said, resting in Carter’s hold, not upset he’d agreed to pay for the rehab without talking to her about it. His eyes showed he could feel the kicks against his side as he held her, and she couldn’t imagine not having this as a possibility. “If she’d talked to us when you all learnt about having issues…”

“She said if I told anyone she’d walk out the door and as bad as she’s been…I still love her,” Jacob stated, earning a hug from her mom.

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