Page 45 of Perfect Composition

“Never,” he hisses.

“Then I swear this. If you make me give up this baby, it will be the only time I get pregnant. I swear I will never have another baby. Ever.”

I take great satisfaction as the blood drains from my father’s face.

My whole body shakes as the long-ago memory is plucked from my head. Austyn’s squeezes my fingers so tightly, there’s pain. “Gramps really said those things to you?” Her voice is filled with tears.

“Baby, I never meant for you to know any of that. Those were words he said because he was furious I’d been careless.”

“Are you sure about that, Paige?” This comes from Carys.

“Of course I am. He’s my father—Austyn’s grandfather. He’s loved her from the moment he first held her. You have no idea the things he’s done for her. So much more than her biological father ever has.”

“Like what?” Ward challenges.

“In the early days, he helped simply by giving me a place to raise her. I grew up well-to-do. I’m sure you know that.” I nod at the stack of files still towering next to Carys’s elbow. At her chin tip, I continue. “But he could have cut me off, made it impossible for me to finish my education. Instead, I was able to get my degree and go on to one of the best medical schools for audiology in the world.”

“What made you choose audiology?” David asks.

I smile before pulling a hand away from Austyn’s to run it over the shell of her ear. “This one. She had a number of ear infections as an infant. I was in my early years of med school, debating if I wanted to go into obstetrics, and became fascinated by the entire process of audiology. Now I just embarrass her by offering people earplugs at her shows.”

Austyn squirms as the tension in the room lessens slightly when Angie giggles. David smiles before ducking his head back into the file.

“Why obstetrics?” Carys asks.

“As an homage to my mother. She passed away due to an infection she contracted when she was pregnant with me. Overall, I think I made the right choice as my specialty is working with young children.”

Carys makes a noncommittal sound before querying, “David?”

“Investigation, yes. Same firm as the one in our files, but the data’s incomplete. They had his social security number, knew he was writing and being paid for his early compositions, but didn’t provide the information about his permanent residence? That was either shoddy work or…”

“Deliberately incomplete,” Carys finishes grimly.

David nods in concurrence.

“What are you trying to say?” Austyn cries out.

David closes the file and hands it over to Carys. “What your mother gave to me was an investigation conducted by your grandfather’s investigation firm looking for your father. Either the information was incomplete at the onset—which was then passed along to your grandfather—or your mother was never given all the information.”

“That’s all the information I have,” I whisper faintly. My eyes scan the room. “I swear it.”

“Paige…” Carys begins.

“No. You don’t understand. My father searched for Bea—Beckett, damnit. My father did that so he could stop paying his parents!” I shout.

Carys pushes to her feet and leans toward me. “Excuse me? Payment for what?”

“They knew. The lawyers wrote them, and after the first one, they sent the letters back. They knew she was their grandchild, and they had not…one…thing to do with her. But oh, once he started hitting the tabloids, they started blackmailing me about her parentage. And my father paid.”

“You can’t be…”

I shoot a file filed with copies of canceled checks across the table. “Every single month. My family paid for my decision to have my daughter and to keep her parentage quiet. Beckett’s fame made things quite difficult. Then they died in an explosion at the trailer park where they lived—a gas explosion.”

Ward whistles aloud. Carys shoots him a filthy look. “Hush.”

“Carys, it sounds to me like…”

“I know!” she snaps. She sits back into her chair, dragging the file with her. She flips through pages of canceled checks. Finally, she closes her eyes, pain dashing across her face. “Paige, Austyn, I don’t know how to tell you what you need to know.”