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My heart pounds as I pack up my overnight bag and toss it into my car. I follow Sara toward the office, and as I navigate there, the pounding picks up the pace until it’s a thunderous roar as I pull into the old, familiar parking lot.

I need to get this right. I need to walk out of this place with a signed set of papers…only I don’t have the papers, and I doubt Cam does, either, considering his wife stood on my front porch and rage ripped them to shreds.

I think back to her words on the porch. I didn’t pass out, exactly, but everything went black for a second and I thought I was going to. I held onto the doorframe until I gulped in enough air to remain standing, and she didn’t bother asking if I was okay.

Instead, she said, “Half that baby is his, and as much as I hate that fact, hate him, hate you , it’s the truth. You can’t just make him sign away those rights.”

“Have you spoken to him?” I asked her. “He told me to take care of it. He doesn’t want anything to do with this baby. He wanted to keep it a secret so he could win his precious award, and I quit Lakeshore so I didn’t have to see him every single day and work with someone who was such an asshole to me.”

She gave me a look like she didn’t believe me. “He would never. He loves children, and he’d never hurt one…especially not one of his own.”

“You don’t know him as well as you think you do,” I told her.

“Listen, little girl. Neither do you.” She spun on her heel and headed back toward her car. She opened her driver’s side door and tossed out her final words. “We’ll be suing for full custody. Better to allow that child to grow up in a loving family than to a single mother in this joke of a town.” Then she got in her car and drove away.

My first thought was that the courts often side with the mother. But Christine might be right. Certainly a judge would look at our situations and choose the successful, established doctor with a wife and four kids to raise the baby over a single, unemployed mother.

But I won’t be unemployed for long since Ellie is taking me on at Prince Charming Public Relations. And I won’t be single for long, either, since Tristan has proposed to me.

Even now as I drive toward Lakeshore Pediatrics, the thought that he only proposed to me because he wants to save me pops back into my mind.

Well, if he wants to save me, maybe he needs to save me a little faster. If Cam and his wife truly plan to sue me for full custody, they’ll have a harder time if I’m married—especially to someone who is far wealthier than Cameron Foster.

I pull into the familiar parking lot I’ve pulled into hundreds of times, but this time is so very different. I look around the lot. Cam’s car is here. Paul’s is not.

Perfect.

Sara and I head inside together, and she squeezes my arm in solidarity before I head down the hallway toward Cam’s office. I take a deep breath just outside the door, and then I move into the doorway.

His eyes flick up to mine before they move down to my swollen stomach.

“Nurse Taylor,” he mutters, and I can’t tell if it’s animosity, hope, or fear in his hushed tone.

“We need to talk.”

He sighs and pushes aside some papers on his desk, taking his glasses off and rubbing the bridge of his nose before he nods once. “Come in. Close the door.”

I do as I’m told.

In the old days, close the door was a sure signal I was about to get banged.

I’m not sure what it means today, and I’m terrified to find out.

I slide into the seat across from his desk.

“How’ve you been?” he asks.

“As if you suddenly care,” I mutter. “Can you please explain why your wife showed up on my doorstep threatening to sue me for full custody?”

He presses his lips together. “She found the papers your lawyer sent. Went a little ballistic.”

“Have you, uh…have you had babies with other women?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I’ve been accused of fathering other children, yes. Whether it was true remains to be seen, and whether those women had their children or not is none of my concern. I was planning to sign and send the papers, but she took them and punched the address listed as yours on the paperwork into her GPS and took off. She thought you were being an asshole by asking me to give up my rights. She never asked me what I wanted.” He rubs the bridge of his nose again, and for a moment, I think how stressed he looks.

Things must be a little strained at home.

Or maybe he’s used enough women in this city that he isn’t getting his needs met the way he’s used to.

“And what do you want, Dr. Foster?”

His eyes lift to mine, and he looks confused for a moment, like nobody’s ever actually asked him that and he’s never really considered it before. I get the vivid sense he’s tied to his wife the same way Tristan was tied to his, but while Tristan actively sought a way out, Cam doesn’t bother. Instead, he cheats on her and gets his kicks where he wants but still goes home to her.

It doesn’t make sense. If that’s what you want to do, just break up.

But there’s kids involved. That must be why he stays. If she’s so adamant about him getting custody of my baby, I can only imagine how she’d be about her own children if it came down to it.

“What I want doesn’t matter. I have a reputation to uphold, responsibilities to tend to, and a job to perform. Have your lawyer send over the papers via email. I will send them back via Docusign so Christine cannot intercept them again.” He gives me a semi-tender look that I’m not used to seeing from him.

For the briefest flash of a second, I think I understand him a little better than I did before.

But then he opens his big dumb mouth again. “I don’t want to take your child away from you. I don’t want anything to do with you or the child, so I’m glad to sign over my rights.”

“What about Christine?” I ask dryly, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else.

“Let me worry about her,” he says firmly. “Is there anything else?”

I draw in a deep breath. “Yes. My phone is dead and I need hard proof you’re not going to fuck me over. Look up Richard Redmond in Nevada and get in touch now asking him to email you the papers.”

He gives me a surprised look, and then in a shocking twist, he actually does what I ask. He taps a few buttons on his computer, and he makes a phone call. He puts it on speaker so I can hear, too. It goes to voicemail. “You’ve reached the office of attorney Richard Redmond. Please leave a detailed message with contact information.”

“This is Cameron Foster. I was served some legal papers from your office not so long ago regarding paternity of Tessa Taylor’s unborn child. Please send the papers again via email as well as to my office address.” He rattles off his contact details along with a callback number, and then he hangs up.

He glances at me. “Good enough for you?”

I shrug and stand. “It’ll do. Have a nice life.” I turn to walk out of his office, but his quiet voice halts me.

“Is it true that you’re marrying that Higgins kid?” he asks.

I turn back to face him, and I snag my bottom lip between my teeth. Baby girl chooses that moment to kick me in the ribs, and I wince as I rest a hand over my belly. “That’s none of your business.”

He clears his throat, and he pushes to a stand behind his desk. “I know it’s not my place, particularly after I cut ties and didn’t offer you anything to help with raising the child, but I just want to make sure you’re both taken care of. I may be an asshole, and I may not deserve to know the answer, but I’d like to know.”

“You can stop calling her the child ,” I snap. “It’s a girl, and fuck off with your fake concern. We’ll be fine.” I spin on my heel and storm out of his office with my head held high.

Paul still isn’t in, and maybe it’s for the best. I want to get back home anyway.

I hug Sara goodbye, and then I head out to my car, the weight of the world suddenly lifted from my shoulders.