Updated Nov 23, 2025 • ~9 min read
The DNA test had been done.
Three days had passed since the media circus, and life had settled into a strange new normal. Photographers still camped outside the gates, but security kept them at bay. The gossip continued online, but Nicole’s team managed the narrative. And Lily, blessedly oblivious to it all, continued being six months old.
I’d just finished changing her after lunch when it happened.
“There we go,” I said, snapping her onesie closed. “All clean. You’re such a good girl during diaper changes, you know that?”
She stared up at me with those brown eyes, her little mouth working around her fist.
I lifted her up, making exaggerated faces the way Macy had shown me. “Who’s the cutest baby in the whole world? Is it you? I think it’s you!”
And then she did it.
She smiled.
Not gas. Not a grimace. A real, genuine, light-up-her-whole-face smile directed right at me.
My heart stopped, then exploded into a thousand pieces.
“Oh my God,” I breathed. “Did you just—can you do that again?”
I made another silly face, and she smiled even bigger this time, her little tongue poking out.
“Damon!” I shouted, not caring if I was being too loud. “Damon, come here!”
I heard his footsteps pounding up the stairs—he must have been in his study—and then he burst into the nursery, slightly out of breath.
“What’s wrong? Is she okay?”
“She smiled!” I was grinning like an idiot. “A real smile. Not gas, a real one. Look!”
I bounced Lily gently, making faces, and she rewarded me with another brilliant smile.
The expression on Damon’s face transformed. All the tension, all the stress, all the weight he’d been carrying—it melted away as he watched Lily smile.
“She’s never done that before,” he said, moving closer. “Not like that.”
“Do you want to hold her? See if she’ll do it for you?”
He took Lily carefully, cradling her close, and tried his own silly faces. She stared at him seriously for a moment, and I worried she wouldn’t repeat the performance.
Then her face split into that gorgeous smile again, accompanied by a happy gurgle.
Damon laughed—actually laughed, the sound rich and genuine and so different from the bitter, hollow sounds I’d heard from him lately.
“There’s my girl,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “There she is.”
He lifted her up, making airplane sounds as he swooped her gently through the air. She shrieked with delight, smiling and kicking her little legs.
I watched them, my chest tight with something I couldn’t name. This—this moment of pure joy, of connection, of love—this was what mattered. Not DNA tests or paternity questions or media circuses.
This.
“She loves you,” I said softly.
Damon brought Lily back down, settling her against his shoulder, and looked at me. “She loves you too. That smile—she gave it to you first.”
“I think she’s just happy in general. Macy said first smiles usually happen around six months.”
“Or she knows she’s surrounded by people who adore her.” His eyes were still on mine, something shifting in his expression. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being here. For caring about her. For—” He paused. “For making this bearable.”
The weight of those words settled over us. For a moment, it was just the three of us in the soft afternoon light, a little family that wasn’t really a family but felt like one anyway.
“I should get back to work,” Damon said, but he didn’t move. “Conference call in ten minutes.”
“Right. Of course.”
He handed Lily back to me, his fingers brushing mine in the transfer. The contact sent electricity up my arm.
“Dinner tonight?” he asked. “The three of us? I feel like we should celebrate her first smile.”
I smiled. “I’d like that.”
“Seven?”
“Seven.”
He left, and I was alone with Lily, who was already starting to drift off for her afternoon nap.
I placed her in the crib gently, watching her tiny chest rise and fall. She looked so peaceful, so content. Like she had no idea her whole life hung in the balance, waiting for a lab somewhere to determine who her father was.
My phone buzzed. A text from Macy: I heard the squealing! Did our girl hit a milestone?
I texted back: First real smile! It was perfect.
Macy’s response was immediate: That’s huge! Take lots of photos. These moments matter.
These moments matter.
I looked at Lily, sleeping soundly, and pulled out my phone’s camera. I snapped a few photos—her peaceful face, her little hands curled into fists, the way her mouth made a tiny O as she slept.
Then, on impulse, I opened the photo gallery and scrolled back through the past few days.
There were so many. Lily eating. Lily playing. Lily and me. Lily and Damon. A few accidental selfies where Lily had grabbed my phone and triggered the camera.
And one from yesterday—Damon holding Lily while showing her something in a book, both of them caught in profile, sunlight streaming through the window behind them.
I stared at that photo, my chest aching.
This was what I wanted. Not the money or the mansion or the society lifestyle. Just this—moments of connection, of family, of love.
But I couldn’t have it. Not really. Because in four to seven days, those test results would come back and change everything.
If Lily was Damon’s, I’d eventually have to step back, let him take over fully, maybe move out once the legal requirements of Ophelia’s will were satisfied.
If Lily wasn’t Damon’s, he might not want anything to do with her. Might not want anything to do with me, the sister of the woman who’d betrayed him so completely.
And if Evan Gibbons was her father, there would be custody battles and legal nightmares and a whole future I couldn’t even imagine.
No matter what, these moments—right here, right now—were temporary.
I needed to remember that.
Needed to guard my heart, like Beatrice kept warning.
But as I watched Lily sleep, as I thought about Damon’s laugh and his grateful eyes and the way he’d said “thank you” like I’d given him something precious…
I knew it was already too late.
My heart wasn’t guarded. It was completely, hopelessly exposed.
And when those test results came back, it was going to shatter.
Again.
Dinner at seven turned into an unexpectedly perfect evening.
Damon ordered Thai food from some upscale restaurant, and we ate in the family room with Lily on a playmat between us, gurgling and playing with colorful blocks.
“She’s going to be spoiled,” I observed, watching Damon stack blocks for her to knock down over and over again.
“Good,” he said without hesitation. “She deserves to be spoiled. After everything—” He cut himself off.
After everything her mother did. After everything that’s happened. After the uncertain future she faces.
I understood what he wasn’t saying.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, emboldened by the casual atmosphere and maybe the glass of wine I’d had.
“Sure.”
“What was it like? Your marriage. To Ophelia.”
Damon’s hands stilled on the blocks. For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer.
“It was… comfortable,” he finally said. “We worked well together. Hosted well. Presented well. On paper, it was perfect.”
“But?”
“But it wasn’t passionate. Wasn’t consuming.” He glanced at me. “I thought that was okay. I thought mature love was supposed to be calm and rational. That the fireworks stuff was for teenagers and romance novels.”
My heart was pounding. “And now?”
“Now I realize I married someone I liked, not someone I loved. Not really. Not the way—” He stopped, shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter now.”
“Not the way what?” I pushed.
His blue eyes met mine, and the intensity there stole my breath.
“Not the way love is supposed to feel,” he said quietly. “Consuming. Terrifying. The kind of love that makes you irrational and reckless and willing to burn down your whole life just to be near them.”
The words hung between us, heavy with meaning I was afraid to interpret.
“Have you ever felt that?” I whispered. “That kind of love?”
He held my gaze for one moment, two, three. Then Lily squealed, demanding attention, and the moment broke.
“We should probably get her ready for bed,” he said, not answering the question.
But as we went through the bedtime routine together—bath, bottle, songs—I couldn’t stop thinking about his words.
Consuming. Terrifying. Willing to burn down your whole life.
That’s exactly how I’d felt about him. For years.
Was it possible—even remotely possible—that he felt the same?
After Lily was down, we stood in the hallway outside the nursery, just like we had that first night.
“Thank you for dinner,” I said.
“Thank you for celebrating with us. Her first smile—that’s something I’ll never forget.”
“Me neither.”
We stood there, too close and not close enough, the air between us charged with everything we weren’t saying.
“Keira—” Damon started.
“Don’t,” I interrupted, terrified of what he might say. Or worse, what he might not say. “Whatever this is, whatever we’re doing—it has to wait. Until the results. Until we know.”
“And if the results don’t matter?” His voice was rough. “If I’m already—”
My phone buzzed urgently. Then his. Both at the same time.
We pulled them out, and my stomach dropped at the message from Tyler Dawson.
“The lab fast-tracked the results,” Damon read aloud, his voice hollow. “They’ll be available tomorrow morning at nine a.m.”
Tomorrow.
Not four to seven days. Tomorrow.
I looked up at Damon, and saw my own panic reflected in his eyes.
“I guess we’re about to find out,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I guess we are.”
Neither of us moved. Because once we had those results, everything would change.
And we weren’t ready.
I wasn’t sure we’d ever be ready.
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