Epilogue—Christa
THE FIRST THING TATE notices is my stomach. I know because his gaze drops before he can stop it. For one second, neither of us speaks. Then Simon rests his hand at the small of my back.
We’re standing in the lobby of the Harcourt Foundation building six months after I signed my divorce settlement, four months after the judge made it final, and approximately thirty seconds after I walked out of an elevator laughing at something Simon said about a donor who believes eighteenth-century French furniture should be polished with mayonnaise.
I’m twenty weeks pregnant, and Tate has chosen this exact moment to come through the revolving doors. His face changes before he remembers other people can see him. I almost admire the effort.
“Tate,” I say with a nod.
His attention lifts to my face. “Christa.”
Simon doesn’t remove his hand. Tate knows exactly who he is, and that particular indignity has aged beautifully.
I haven’t seen Tate since the settlement meeting.
I’ve heard about him, mostly because high society is apparently incapable of allowing a spectacular downfall to remain private.
Bernard’s board made Tate’s removal permanent.
The trustees upheld his disqualification after his appeal window expired.
Two of the company restructurings were abandoned because they depended on the succession path everyone assumed Tate would inherit, and a third had to be rewritten around divided family interests.
Celeste now sits on one of the boards Tate lost. I sent flowers, and she sent me a picture of them on the conference table.
Tate’s own money is still his. Nobody stripped him of his bank accounts or left him sleeping under a bridge, which would’ve been excessive even by my current standards.
He simply lost everything he believed proved he mattered more than everyone else.
Control. Status. His father’s confidence.
His mother’s unquestioning defense. Celeste. Me.
Charla managed to lose him too, though I don’t think either of them considers that a victory.
Tate’s attention drops again. My coat is open because the afternoon is warmer than predicted, and there’s no hiding anything beneath the cream knit dress Simon talked me into buying last week.
My son is currently positioned high enough to make sitting through foundation meetings an adventure and low enough to use my bladder for recreation.
Tate stares for two beats too long.
Simon shifts slightly beside me. I touch his wrist with two fingers and glance up. “I’m fine.”
“I know.” He drags his thumb once against my back.
Tate hears him, and he presses his mouth into a line. That’s almost as enjoyable as the first look at my stomach.
“How far along?” he asks.
There are questions people ask because they’re polite. That isn’t one of them. I could refuse to answer. Instead, I smile. “Twenty weeks.”
He does the math. His face doesn’t fall dramatically.
Tate has never been theatrical when the humiliation is real.
His expression simply empties while his brain walks backward through five months, past the finalized divorce, the settlement, the paternity test, and the night I stopped being civilized.
Then farther. To Simon, the house, and the timing.
I don’t help him, and Simon doesn’t either.
Tate looks at Simon. “That fast.”
Simon turns his head slightly. “Excuse me?”
Tate looks back at me. “You got pregnant that fast.”
I should probably feel guilty about the pleasure that gives me. I don’t. “Yes.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it. The specialist eventually confirmed his azoospermia wasn’t temporary. I know because Judith told Celeste, who told me after first asking whether I wanted to hear it. I did.
Tate pursued more testing. There were possibilities involving retrieval and assisted reproduction, but natural conception was, according to Celeste, “Not something the doctor suggested he build a plan around.”
I didn’t ask for more detail. I didn’t need to know more and didn’t care to anyway. The man who blamed me for nearly three years now knows my body did exactly what it was supposed to do, just not with him because he can’t.
Tate looks at my stomach again. “Is it...”
He stops, and I raise my eyebrows.
Simon freezes beside me.
Tate tries again. “Do you know what you’re having?”
There are dozens of ways I could answer, but I pick the worst one for him. It just happens to also be true. “A boy.”
His eyes close for only a second.
Still worth it.
The Meade trust required a male heir. Tate destroyed his marriage, humiliated me, let my sister wear my identity, lied to his parents, and tried to manipulate a succession structure because Charla was supposedly carrying his son.
Now Charla has another man’s son, Tate can’t produce one naturally, and I’m standing in front of him pregnant with Simon Nichols’s boy. Sometimes life is vulgar. I appreciate that about it.
Simon clears his throat softly, probably because he knows me well enough to recognize the exact expression on my face. I glance at him, and his mouth twitches.
Tate sees that too. “Congratulations,” he says, and the word sounds painful.
That makes me smile a bit more. “Thank you.”
His gaze darts between us. “Are you two...” He lets the sentence trail off.
Simon doesn’t answer for me. He simply looks down at me, leaving the choice where it belongs.
“Yes,” I say.
Tate’s jaw shifts. “Married?”
“Not yet.”
Simon looks down at me with entirely too much satisfaction. “She keeps rejecting my proposal.”
“I rejected one proposal.”
“You rejected three versions of one proposal.” He slides his hand from my back to my hip.
“They all occurred within forty-eight hours.”
“Still three.”
Tate stares at us while I forget him for half a second because Simon is enjoying himself far too much. “You asked me while I was vomiting,” I remind him.
“You’d just told me you were pregnant.” Simon’s mouth curves.
“I was on the bathroom floor.”
“You said yes emotionally.”
I stare at him. “I said, ‘Are you insane?’”
Simon considers that. “Warmly.”
A laugh slips out of me, and Tate looks away.
I should probably stop, but I don’t.
Simon kisses my temple, then finally acknowledges Tate again. “Good to see you.”
It’s such a viciously polite lie that I turn my face into Simon’s shoulder before I laugh. Tate hears me anyway.
His expression hardens. “You think this is funny.”
I straighten. Six months ago, that question would’ve launched an argument. Now it barely deserves one. “Some of it.”
“Still?” He looks aghast.
“Yes.” I don’t soften the answer. “You blamed me for something that wasn’t mine to carry. You used my sister to prove you were fertile. You told me I couldn’t give you a child.” I rest one hand over the curve of my stomach. “I’m allowed to enjoy being wrong about that.”
Tate’s face gets red.
Simon stays beside me without stepping in. He knows this belongs to me.
Tate looks toward the bank of elevators. “I apologized.”
“You did.”
“What else do you want?”
“Nothing.”
That stops him.
I mean it. I don’t want another apology or restitution. I don’t even want him miserable on my behalf forever. The fact that he currently is has simply been a pleasant side effect. “I wanted consequences.” I shrug. “You got them. I’m satisfied.”
His laugh is quiet and bitter. “You really are.”
“Very.”
He studies me for a long moment, then his shoulders lower. Maybe he finally believes me. Maybe he’s finally understood that my life isn’t organized around whether Tate Meade suffers.
That was the revenge.
This is the rest.
The elevator behind us chimes. A woman from the foundation steps out, sees Simon, then me, then Tate, and immediately pretends she hasn’t noticed anything interesting. She’s terrible at it.
Tate glances toward her and seems to remember where we are. His voice drops. “How’s Charla?”
That surprises me. I haven’t spoken to my sister since shortly before she reported to serve her sentence.
Her criminal case moved faster than I expected.
She pleaded guilty to identity theft and fraud after the lender produced enough documentation to make a trial spectacularly unattractive.
Her pregnancy and lack of criminal history helped, but the judge still gave her four months in county jail, followed by probation and restitution.
She served every day.
Dad refused to pay for a better outcome, hire someone to make the case disappear, or rescue her from the consequences.
He did make one concession after she got out, and even Charla understands it wasn’t really for her but for Nickie, Evan’s son.
My nephew was born twelve days ago. I haven’t met him and probably never will, but I saw his picture on Dad’s phone. He’s adorable.
Dad sold Charla’s condo while she was incarcerated.
Once she was released, he bought her a modest two-bedroom house in a neighborhood where nobody cares which designer handbag she used to carry.
He also bought her a four-year-old sedan.
Charla complained about both until Dad informed her that his other option was nothing.
She stopped complaining. Mostly.
He’s agreed to pay the property taxes, utilities, groceries, childcare, and the tuition for a dental assisting program for two years. At the end of that period, the support stops. Charla has to finish the program, find work, and support herself and her son.
Dad told me he isn’t punishing a baby for having Charla as a mother, but he’s also not financing Charla’s old life ever again.
I think the distinction is healthy.
Tate studies me. “She’s okay?”
“She had the baby twelve days ago. They’re both healthy.”
His expression shifts. “A boy?”
I nod. “Seven pounds, nine ounces. Lots of dark hair.”
Tate looks toward the glass doors for a second. I’m not sure what he’s thinking, and for once, I don’t care enough to figure it out.
“He looks like Evan,” I say politely.
Simon coughs into his fist.
Tate looks back at me.
I smile pleasantly.
“You’re enjoying this again,” he says.
“A little.”