My Ex Husband Treated My Son Without Knowing He Was His Chapter 07

My Ex Husband Treated My Son Without Knowing He Was His Chapter 07

By the time I got home, Liam was already asleep.

I walked into his room and sat down on the edge of the bed.

His little dinosaur plushie wasn’t there.

“Maria, where’s Liam’s dinosaur?”

“Ms. Sterling, he couldn’t find it when he came back from preschool this afternoon. Probably

dropped it somewhere. Liam cried for a good while”

He didn’t drop it at preschool.

He dropped it in the parking lot of Northshire Memorial Hospital.

And Nathan Hayes picked it up.

He went to Northshire Memorial. He just followed us there.

A green dinosaur plushie proved nothing.

But Nathan wasn’t stupid.

He was already piecing it together.

I opened my laptop and sent an email to my lawyer

[Adam, I need a consult. Absent a paternity test, does the biological father have any legal standing

to assert visitation rights or custody? Please advise at your earliest convenience.]

After hitting send, I did one more thing.

I pulled up the state vital records portal and confirmed Liam’s birth certificate details.

[Mother: Evelyn Sterling.]

[Child: Liam Sterling.]

[Father: Blank.]

As long as that field stayed empty, no one could establish a legal connection between Liam and

Nathan through normal channels.

Not unless I consented to a paternity test.

Or unless a court ordered one.

And a court order required preliminary evidence-statements from involved parties, witness

testimony, or biological material.

Nathan had none of that.

A dinosaur plushie wasn’t evidence.

I shut the laptop.

But I knew it was only a matter of time.

Friday. The signing day.

Apex Health Group headquarters.

Elaine and I arrived fifteen minutes early.

Marcus was already in the conference room with legal. Claire was there too.

The contract sat on the table. Article 17 had been struck.

Everything was in order.

I was putting pen to paper when the door swung open.

Nathan walked in.

White dress shirt. Black slacks. He didn’t look like a doctor. He looked like Apex brass.

Claire stood up.

“Nathan. What brings you here?”

“Dad asked me to look over the contract.”

He walked to the table, picked up the document, and flipped through it.

Then he landed on the signature page.

Evelyn Sterling.

His eyes lifted from the paper and found my face.

I wasn’t wearing a mask.

Full makeup. Hair up in a neat bun. A tailored suit.

Nothing like the woman in the ER holding her feverish kid.

But still, exactly the same person.

“Ms. Sterling,” he said.

“Dr. Hayes.”

Claire watched us. The smile on her face cooled down.

“Contract’s fine,” Nathan said, setting it back down.

We finished signing.

During the photo op, he stood beside me.

“Closer,” the photographer said.

He shifted half a step toward me.

I didn’t move.

The second the shutter clicked, I turned and walked out.

In the elevator lobby, Elaine kept her voice low. “He knows it’s you. Completely.”

“He knew a while ago.”

“His eyes… I don’t know how to describe it. Not like he was looking at an ex-wife. More like he was

looking at something he lost.”

“People aren’t things. Lost is lost.”

The elevator doors opened to the ground floor.

We stepped into the lobby and I heard footsteps pounding behind me.

“Evelyn.”

Nathan had followed me out.

Elaine glanced at me. I nodded. She walked on ahead.

The lobby was crowded with people coming and going.

He stood in front of me.

“I knew it was you that night in the ER.”

“Yeah.”

“You said the kid’s father wasn’t in the picture. What did you mean by that?”

“Exactly what I said.”

“He’s not in the picture? Or you made sure he wasn’t?”

I met his eyes.

“Nathan. What exactly are you asking? Just say it.”

His throat moved.

“Is the kid mine?”

A draft cut through the lobby.

I held his gaze and said it one word at a time.

“No.”

Then I turned and walked away.

He didn’t follow.

But I knew he didn’t believe me.