Olivia left at half past midnight, which for her counted as a reasonable hour.
I did not sleep well. Not because I was anxious, exactly. More because there is a particular quality to the night before something irreversible, a specific kind of stillness, like the air before a storm that has already decided it is coming.
I had submitted the DNA results through my lawyer six days ago.
I want to be clear about that. I did not wait for Adrian to come to me with swabs and medical contacts and the whole careful machinery of a man trying to establish something I already knew. I did it myself. On my terms. Through legal channels, properly documented, timed to land on Daniel’s desk the morning after the board meeting, because if there was going to be a moment when Adrian Blackwood found out the t
