Chapter Five: The Terms
Thursday came faster than Sebastian expected and slower than he could stand.
In the forty-eight hours between the restaurant and the moment he stood outside Elena’s building with his hand raised to buzz apartment 4C, Sebastian had not slept more than three hours total.
He had sat in his penthouse in the dark. In the particular silence of a man whose mind refuses to stop running the same calculations over and over, arriving at the same impossible number every time.
Four years.
Forty-eight months.
Roughly fourteen hundred days of birthdays and fevers and first words and scraped knees and bedtime stories and all the ten thousand ordinary moments that constitute a childhood.
Fourteen hundred days that belonged to him and had been lived without him.
He pressed the buzzer.
There was a long pause. Long enough that he wondered if she had changed her mind. If she was standing on the other side of the door, deciding whether to let him in. Whether the risk was still too great.
Then the intercom crackled.
“Second floor landing,” Elena’s voice said. Flat. Careful. “I’ll meet you there.”
She was waiting at the top of the stairs when he came up.
She had the door to the apartment pulled almost closed behind her. He understood immediately — she wanted to talk to him alone first. Wanted to establish the terms before she let him across the threshold into the space where her children lived.
Their children.
“Before you come in,” she said, “we need to agree on some things.”
“Okay.”
“They don’t know who you are. I told them you’re a friend from a long time ago who’s going to visit. Nothing more. You don’t tell them anything about being their father. Until we have talked. Until we have a plan. Until I am satisfied that you are serious and stable enough to handle that conversation without damaging them.”
She held his gaze.
“Are we agreed?”
“Yes.”
She studied him.
“You hired a family lawyer.”
“Yes. Amanda Reyes.”
She called me yesterday. She said you’re filing for a paternity acknowledgement and want to discuss a custody arrangement. I told her to make first contact before filing anything. I didn’t want you blindsided.”
Elena was quiet for a moment.
He could see her recalibrating. Adjusting for the fact that he had handled it with more consideration than she had expected.
“The paternity test,” she said.
“I’ve arranged it for Monday. Non-invasive. Private lab. Results in seventy-two hours. My lawyer will share them with yours simultaneously.”
He paused.
“I know they’re mine, Elena. The test is for the legal record. Not for me.”
Something moved across her face. Something she controlled immediately.
“One hour,” she said. “If it goes well, maybe a little longer. If any of them get upset or uncomfortable, you leave immediately. No argument.”
“Understood.”
She opened the door.
