The Don’s Double Standard: She Vanished with His Child Chapter 04

She got it.

“My name’s Talia. I’m three!”

Thank God.

I exhaled.

Dante stared at the little face in front of him, a face that looked so much like his own. I could see it happening in real time, the realization dawning behind his eyes.

Before my daughter’s answer snuffed it out.

Whatever he’d been about to say died in his throat. He just knelt there, silent.

Talia was born premature. I was on my own through the whole pregnancy, barely eating, barely sleeping, and it showed. She was smaller than other kids her age, always a little fragile.

Besides, with kids that young, who can really tell a small four-year-old from a three-year-old?

After I left Dante, I blocked him on everything. He didn’t come looking for me either. A quiet, mutual erasure.

We were like two threads that had tangled for a moment. Pulled tight, they always snapped back apart.

Five years in the same city. I’d be lying if I said I never thought about it.

Some random Tuesday, some random corner. Would I look up and see his car?

It never happened.

We’d always been heading in different directions, moving at different speeds, toward different lives.

Same city, same sky. Might as well have been different planets.

That night at home, Talia pulled at my sleeve, her little face scrunched up in confusion.

“Mommy, I’m four. Why did I have to say I’m three? That’s lying.”

Yeah.

Why teach a child to lie?

Maybe because I didn’t want to open a door I couldn’t close.

A few weeks after that last night with Dante, I found out I was pregnant.

I thought about ending the pregnancy.

But when I was actually on the table, feet in the stirrups, I couldn’t go through with it.

Part of it was stubbornness, I’ll admit that.

I told myself that even if I couldn’t have him, I could keep this, something that was half him, half mine.

And why was I always the one paying the price? Why should I put my body through that for a man who threw me away?

So I had her. Alone.

But the moment they put her in my arms, this tiny, warm, screaming thing, every doubt vanished.

She was mine.

Half of me lived in her.

She didn’t belong to anyone else.

She deserved to be here.

…

After I got Talia down for the night, my phone rang. It was the HR director, telling me not to bother coming back in.

I frowned. “Whose call is this?”

A pause on the other end. They didn’t answer.

I didn’t push it. One day earlier or later. What difference did it make?

I didn’t bother job hunting. Instead, I shifted my focus entirely to Little Dove Studio, a small children’s clothing line I’d already been running out of my apartment. Talia had appointed herself the house model before I even asked.

Between Talia’s face and the video editing I’d taught myself through way too many late nights, we had slowly built a little following.

Custom orders trickled in, the occasional ad deal came through, and it was enough. Enough to live on, even enough to save a little.

I thought quitting meant I was done with Dante for good.

Until.

Someone hammered on my door hard enough to rattle the frame.

I opened it, and there was Dante, jaw set, fury coming off him in waves.

He shoved a document in my face, the results of a DNA test.

“Clara. Explain this.”