Chapter 34 Spencer
THIRTY-FOUR
SPENCER
Gina slides the printed copy of the certified letter across my desk like she’s handing over a loaded weapon.
“There,” she says. “It’s done.”
I skim it. The legalese. The threat. The cold detachment of it all.
It’s brutal.
It’s written in a way meant to intimidate, to set the tone. It’s meant to let Rhea know who’s in charge in this battle.
But it’s too much. I know it the second I finish the first paragraph.
“Jesus, Gina. What did you tell Willoughby, anyway?”
She doesn’t flinch. “I told him this woman already had your heart in her hands and this was going to be a tough one.”
Then she looks me over like I’m a car with a cracked windshield. “And by the way? You look like shit.”
I rub my jaw. “Yeah. Well, I feel like shit.”
I stand up and start pacing. “Number one—I really cared about this woman. Number two—she didn’t strike me as the dishonest type. And number three—if I am the father…”
I stop, hands on hips, staring out the window, though I’m not seeing anything.
“I have no idea what to do.”
Gina doesn’t say a word. She waits.
“Yes – the angry part of me wants to go full boar. Big guns. Get everything I can—custody, rights, control. But the other part, that has me wanting to punch a hole in every wall of this goddamn house, is the idea that… if it’s true…”
I swallow hard.
“I could have been there. I could have held her. Picked out her name. Seen her first steps. Heard her first word. I’ve missed so much.”
Finally, Gina speaks. Her voice is calm. Measured.
“Spencer… do you really believe that if Rhea knew this was your baby—and knew what your net worth was—she’d just choose to keep it to herself and scrape by? To raise her daughter alone, without asking for a dime?”
I turn to her, jaw tight. I don’t answer.
She exhales slowly. “Here’s what I think happened: I think your little French fairytale last weekend left her believing you’d do almost anything for her.
Including believe this fatherless baby was yours, on her word alone.
You made her feel safe—so safe she thought she could finesse the whole thing without a shred of evidence. ”
Gina could be right.
Still, as hurt and angry as I am about the whole thing, in my heart I think Rhea is more capable of stubbornness born of righteousness than she is of outright deception for personal gain.
She’s not the kind of person who tries to take something that isn’t hers.
Or is that just me, being pulled in under her spell, as Gina suspects?
Time will tell.
I try to work that night—emails, investor reports, a pending acquisition I’m supposed to review—but my brain won’t stay still.
At 11:04 p.m., her name flashes across my screen.
Rhea Sinclair – New Message
I’ll comply with the test.
I just wanted you to know—that’s not the part I’m afraid of.
I don’t open it. I read the preview and delete the message.
When I go to bed, sleep doesn’t come. Instead, I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling. Unable to escape thoughts of her, of them.
Esme, “Yummy, sant!” as she proudly hands me the fabric croissant toy I’d sent.
Rhea, “Our Friday night specialty is frozen pizza. Lucky for you, we always keep a spare in case someone seeks shelter from the rain.”
Rhea: “Oh my God, Spencer… I’ve had the wrong number. I had the last digit as a 7, not a 1.”
Esme, pulling me by the hand to the reading chair, “Books.”
Rhea, voice thick with memory, whispering, “It’s not all on him… It’s just complicated.”
They’re everywhere.
In my mind.
In the air I breathe.
And then, there’s Henri.
A memory—faint but true—flashes through my chest like an echo.
"Love doesn’t always come with receipts," he once told me, slicing bread in that sun-drenched kitchen of his. "Sometimes it just shows up. And sometimes, it hides. But worst of all, sometimes, you let it get away before you even realize it was real."
And then that day, looking at Rhea and saying to me, ““Pas étonnant que ton c?ur ait été si brisé par son absence.”
No wonder your heart was broken by her absence.
I picture her. Rhea.
Sitting alone in some sterile clinic exam room with Esme in her lap. Filling out paperwork with a clipboard balanced on her knee. Keeping her voice cheerful so Esme doesn’t pick up on the tension. Holding her little hand as a stranger swabs the inside of her cheek like it’s just a routine errand.
The thought makes my stomach turn.
I hate that she put me - us - in this position. I hate that it came to this.
But I hate even more the possibility of meeting my daughter through a chain-of-custody protocol and sterile cotton swabs.
It’s unbearable.
Finally, sometime after 2:00 am, I doze off. But then, an hour later I jolt upright in bed. My heart is racing. The silence in the house feels completely wrong.
No sound. No warning. Just a sharp, gut-deep certainty that something’s not right. I get up. Pace the room.
I try to shake it off, but it lingers, like a pressure system I can’t explain.
Maybe it's straight up guilt or panic. Or maybe it’s something else entirely.