The next week unfolded in an unnerving blend of mundane and monumental.
From the outside, nothing in Charlotte’s life looked different.
Mornings were still oatmeal and spilled juice and negotiations over which shoes were faster. Days were still a blur of meetings and emails and color-coded timelines for Aspen’s construction milestones.
Evenings were bath time, bedtime, laptop-on-the-couch time.
But under the surface, everything hummed with a new, fragile tension.
Because now there was a third axis on which her world turned.
Not just *her and Milo*.
Not just *her and the company*.
Her and Dominic.
Her and Dominic *and* Milo.
And that triad had never existed before.
***
They started with a lawyer.
Her name was Tessa Grant.
She had a small office downtown with worn wooden floors, a ficus in the corner, and a view of a brick wall that somehow made the room feel more grounded, less…lofty.
“I like her already,” Charlotte had muttered when she’d walked in alone for the intake meeting.
“Because she doesn’t have a skyline view?” Henry had asked.
“Because she doesn’t have our logo anywhere,” she’d replied. “She doesn’t care who we are.”
Tessa was in her early forties, Black, with tight curls pulled back into a low puff and a face that managed to look both utterly kind and like it could cut through bullshit in under ten seconds.
“I do a lot of high-conflict divorces,” she’d said matter-of-factly as she’d poured them both water from a glass pitcher. “But my favorite cases are the…weird ones. Unmarried parents with power imbalances. Nontraditional families trying to figure out how not to burn the whole thing down. You’d be surprised how much money complicates love.”
“I wouldn’t,” Charlotte had said dryly.
Tessa’s mouth had quirked.
“Tell me your story,” she’d said. “From your perspective. Then I’ll hear his. Then we’ll see if we can meet in the middle of your separate versions of the truth.”
Now, a week later, Charlotte sat in the same chair, hands folded tightly in her lap, as the door opened and Dominic stepped in.
He paused when he saw her, something unguarded flickering across his face.
“Hey,” he said softly.
“Hi,” she said.
Tessa rose.
“Mr. Steele,” she said, crossing the room to shake his hand. “I’m Tessa. Thanks for making the time.”
“Thank you for seeing us,” he said.
“Us,” not “her.”
That felt…new.
“Please,” Tessa said, gesturing to the chair beside Charlotte. “Sit. We’ll keep this informal today. No documents. No signatures. Just…talk.”
“Talk,” Dominic repeated. “Right.”
He sat.
Too close.
His thigh brushed hers.
A bolt of heat shot up her leg.
She shifted.
He moved his leg away an inch, as if he’d felt it too.
“Ground rules,” Tessa said, settling back into her own chair, notebook balanced on her knee. “First, nothing you say in here leaves this room. Attorney-client privilege is in effect. Second, I’m not here to take sides. I’m here to help you two frame what *you* want before you throw yourselves into a system that will happily decide for you if you can’t. Third, you’re allowed to be messy. Angry. Guilty. Confused. You’re not allowed to be cruel to each other. Clear?”
Charlotte nodded.
Dominic said, “Yes.”
“Good,” Tessa said. “I’ve heard from both of you separately. I have a sense of the…timeline.” Her lips twitched. “One night in London. Three years of silence. Surprise business partnership. Surprise child. Now you’re trying to be both co-parents and corporate allies without…sinking either relationship.”
He made it sound like a tightrope.
It was.
“You’re in a relatively rare position,” Tessa continued. “You’re both high-functioning adults with resources and power. You’re not fighting over who can afford shoes. You’re deciding who gets to be in the same room at preschool drop-off without appearing on *Page Six*.”
“That’s…accurate,” Dominic said wryly.
“So,” Tessa said, pen poised. “Let’s start simple. Why are you here? Not literally. Emotionally. What do you each want out of this?”
Dominic’s knee bounced once, a small giveaway.
“I want to know my son,” he said quietly.
The word still made Charlotte’s heart clench.
“I want to be in his life,” he went on. “Not as a…guest star who drops in twice a year with presents. As…someone he can depend on. In a way I didn’t have.”
Tessa nodded slowly.
“And you?” she asked, turning to Charlotte.
“I want him to be safe,” Charlotte said. “Happy. Loved. That’s…baseline. Beyond that…I want to…not lose myself. Or…everything I’ve worked for. I don’t want my life to implode because I finally told the truth.”
“You’re afraid of consequences,” Tessa said.
“Yes,” she said simply. “On every front. My mother. The board. The press. His reaction. *Their* reactions.”
“And yet you’re here anyway,” Tessa pointed out.
Charlotte exhaled.
“Yes,” she said. “Because the alternative—keeping this secret forever—felt…worse.”
“Secrets fester,” Tessa said. “They always do. Better to lance the wound on your terms than wait for infection.”
Her metaphors were unpleasantly accurate.
“Okay,” Tessa said, glancing between them. “You both want him to be okay. That’s a decent starting point. Next: what are you afraid of *from each other*?”
Dominic’s jaw flexed.
“I’m afraid she’ll…shut me out,” he said, flicking a glance at Charlotte. “Decide I’m too dangerous. Too messy. That having me in his life will complicate hers more than it’s worth.”
“Is that something you would do?” Tessa asked Charlotte.
“No,” she said immediately. “Not now. Not after…this. But I *have* been…gatekeeping. Because I was scared. And because, until you, there *was* no one else I trusted to put him first the way I do.”
“That’s important,” Tessa said. “You’re used to being the center of his universe. Bringing someone else into that orbit…feels like losing control.”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“And you?” Tessa turned to her again. “What are you afraid of from him?”
She didn’t have to think long.
“I’m afraid he’ll…use this,” she said. “Even unintentionally. That someday, when we’re on opposite sides of a negotiation table, he’ll say, ‘Remember who your son is connected to.’ Or that if I push back on something in our…co-parenting, he’ll…pull rank. Money. Influence.”
Dominic’s lips parted.
“I wouldn’t—” he began.
“You *could,*” she cut in. “That’s the point. You have…weight. Leverage. I live in a world where leverage is currency. It’s hard to…turn that lens off.”
Tessa’s eyes flicked to Dominic.
“Is that something you would do?” she asked.
He swallowed.
“No,” he said. “Not…willingly. Not…knowingly. Gillian—my lawyer—already chewed me out about that scenario. She said if I ever so much as hinted at tying access to Milo to a business term, she’d personally push me off a roof.”
“Good lawyer,” Tessa said.
He huffed a humorless laugh.
“And?” Tessa pressed.
“And I can’t promise I won’t…*feel* tempted,” he admitted. “In the heat of something. If we’re fighting. If I feel…cornered. But I can promise I won’t *act* on it. Not consciously. If I do…you can hold me to account. Legally.”
“How?” Charlotte asked sharply. “A clause in the parenting agreement? ‘Dom will not be an asshole on conference calls’?”
Tessa’s mouth curved.
“Not in those exact words,” she said. “But yes. We can build in clear separation. Language that says business disputes stay in business channels and parenting disputes stay in family court. If one party attempts to tie one to the other, there are consequences. Judges take that seriously. So do boards, if it gets that far.”
“Boards,” Charlotte repeated, stomach tightening.
“Which brings me to the next question,” Tessa said. “How public does this need to be? Right now, this is a secret known to…who?”
“Her mother,” Dominic said. “Her uncle. Her nanny. My sister. My grandmother. My GC. You. Gillian.”
“More than no one, less than everyone,” Tessa said. “That’s…manageable. For now.”
She tapped her pen against the notebook.
“There are three circles here,” she went on, drawing quickly. “Circle one: family. Who needs to know for emotional and practical reasons. Circle two: corporate. Boards, key executives, PR. Circle three: public. Press, social media, strangers.”
She slid the pad between them.
“Right now, you’re expanding circle one,” she said. “You will eventually have to expand circle two. Circle three…is optional. Contrary to what your parents believe, you are not obligated to feed your personal lives to the content beast.”
“Tell that to the paparazzi outside our buildings,” Charlotte muttered.
“We can manage that when it comes,” Tessa said. “For now, let’s focus on circle one. Milo. How and when to tell him.”
The air in the room changed.
“Not yet,” Charlotte said quickly. “He’s three. He only just understood the concept of…Meatball the dog dying. I can’t…drop ‘oh, by the way, the man from your dream is real’ on him now.”
“He doesn’t need the full story,” Tessa said. “Yet. He just needs…names for the people in his life.”
Dominic sat forward slightly.
“What if…” he began, careful, “what if…you don’t introduce me as…‘Dad’ right away.”
Every muscle in Charlotte’s body tensed.
“What?” she asked.
He held up his hands.
“Listen,” he said. “I’m not…backing away. Or…downgrading. I’m thinking…like him. A three-year-old. Right now, ‘Daddy’ is an abstract concept. A missing puzzle piece. Shoving me into that space overnight could…blow his mind in ways we can’t predict.”
“And your suggestion?” Tessa prompted.
“I meet him as…Dom,” he said. “A…friend. Of yours. Of his. Someone who…comes around sometimes. Plays. Is…safe.”
Charlotte’s chest ached.
“And when he inevitably asks, ‘Is Dom my daddy?’” she said. “What then? Do I lie? Again?”
“We don’t lie,” Dominic said. “We…gently frame. ‘Dom is someone who cares about you very much. He’s…part of our family in a special way. When you’re bigger, we’ll explain more.’ Kids are more patient than we think. If they feel secure, they don’t need all the labels at once.”
“It’s…not a terrible idea,” Tessa said.
Charlotte shot her a look.
“Traitor,” she muttered.
Tessa smiled.
“Children care more about consistency than titles,” she said. “If he meets Dom as ‘Dom’ and associates him with play, kindness, stability, we can build from there. When the time comes to say ‘He’s also your father,’ it will land on existing trust, not on shock.”
“You’d be…okay with that?” Dominic asked her quietly. “Me…being ‘Dom’ for a while?”
She thought of Milo’s face that morning, sticky with jam, asking, *Can I have a daddy later?*
She thought of the weight of the word. The way it would change everything.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “If it’s…temporary. Not a way to…avoid.”
“It’s not,” he said. “I want that word. Eventually. I just don’t want to…grab it like a trophy. I want to…earn it.”
Those words hit somewhere behind her ribs and lodged there.
Tessa nodded.
“Good,” she said. “We have a…first-step plan. Now we talk logistics.”
They covered practicalities.
No posting identifying photos of Milo on their public social media accounts. No bringing him to high-profile industry events. A shared, private email thread for updates—photos, milestones, illnesses—that didn’t run through corporate servers.
Schedules would come later.
For now, the question was simpler and far more complicated.
How, exactly, was she going to introduce her son to the man whose eyes he had?
***
They picked a park.
Not the one closest to her building; too many stroller moms who followed gossip columns like weather reports.
Not the one in the shadow of the Reid Manhattan; too symbolic.
A small one in the West Village instead, with a slightly shabby playground, a community garden, and a coffee stand that sold overpriced cold brew.
Saturday afternoon.
Late enough that naps were over, early enough that the bar crowd hadn’t yet spilled onto the sidewalks.
“I’ll get there early,” Dominic had texted. “So it’s him walking in on me, not me appearing out of nowhere.”
She’d stared at that for a long second, struck by the way he was already thinking like a parent.
About perception.
About control.
About how to make a new thing feel less scary.
“Okay,” she’d replied.
Now, as she walked down the leafy side street, Milo’s small hand in hers, she felt like she was walking into a wave that might knock her flat.
“Are we almost there?” Milo asked, hopping on every third crack.
“Almost,” she said.
“Is Lina coming?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “It’s…just us today.”
He frowned.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because,” she said, buying time, “we’re meeting…a friend of mine.”
“What friend?” he demanded.
“His name is Dom,” she said.
“Dom,” he repeated. “Like…dom-ino?”
“Without the -ino,” she said. “Just Dom.”
“Is he big?” Milo asked.
Yes.
“In some ways,” she said evasively.
“Bigger than Grandma’s car?” he asked.
No one was bigger than Grandma’s car.
“We’ll see,” she said.
He spotted the playground first.
“Swings!” he squealed, tugging on her arm. “Mommy, hurry!”
She let him pull her forward, heart racing.
The small park opened up ahead: a rectangle of green, a cluster of bench-sitting adults, a blur of kids on the climbing structure.
And, leaning against the low fence near the gate, hands in the pockets of his navy jacket, was Dominic.
He wore jeans.
Jeans.
She’d never seen him in denim. It made him look less like a CEO and more like the man she’d slept with in London. Less sculpted. More…approachable. Dangerous in a different way.
He saw them.
His face changed.
She watched the exact moment he spotted Milo.
His whole body stilled.
His eyes—his and not his—locked onto the small, bouncing boy at her side.
In that instant, the world seemed to go quiet.
Cars still went by.
Dogs still barked.
A siren wailed faintly in the distance.
None of it penetrated the bubble around the three of them.
Milo, oblivious to the crackling air, pointed at the slide. “Mommy, look! It’s tall!”
“I see,” she said, throat dry.
Dominic straightened as they reached the gate.
“Hi,” he said.
It was to her, but his eyes never left Milo.
“Hi,” she managed.
Milo stared up at him curiously.
“Who’s that?” he asked, not bothering to whisper.
“This is my friend,” she said. Her voice sounded weird to her own ears. “This is Dom.”
“Hi, Dom,” Milo said, testing the name. “I’m Milo. This is my dino.” He held up the plastic Tyrannosaurus, who bore the scars of many battles.
Dominic’s mouth trembled.
“Hi, Milo,” he said, crouching slowly so their eyes were level. “Nice to meet you. And your dino.”
“You look like me,” Milo announced.
Charlotte’s heart stopped.
Dominic’s gaze darted to hers for a fraction of a second.
Then he smiled at the boy.
“You think so?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Milo said solemnly. “You have my eyes.”
“Lucky me,” Dominic said, voice thick.
Milo beamed.
“Wanna see the swings?” he demanded.
“I’d love to,” Dominic said. “If it’s okay with your mom.”
He looked up at her then, giving her absolute power in that moment.
She swallowed.
“Sure,” she said. “Let’s all go.”
“Race!” Milo shouted, and took off toward the swings with the wild, loose-limbed sprint of a toddler who still trusted the world not to let him fall.
“Careful,” she called automatically.
Dominic straightened.
They walked side by side, not touching.
“You okay?” he asked under his breath.
“No,” she said. “You?”
“Not even slightly,” he said.
They reached the swings.
Milo had already scrambled onto one, legs too short to pump properly yet.
“Push me!” he ordered.
Charlotte moved behind him.
“I’ve got him,” Dominic said quietly.
She hesitated.
Then stepped aside.
His hands—those large, capable hands—closed gently around the chains.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready!” Milo crowed.
Dominic pushed.
Not too hard.
Just enough.
The swing moved.
Milo squealed.
“Higher!” he demanded.
“Bossy,” Dominic murmured, obliging.
“He gets it from you,” she shot back.
He huffed a laugh.
They fell into a rhythm.
Push.
Giggle.
Push.
“Again!”
Charlotte watched them, something molten and painful and beautiful unspooling inside her.
He was…good.
Careful but not overprotective. Attentive.
When a bigger kid barreled too close, Dominic stepped subtly into his path, redirecting him with a calm, “Hey, bud, watch your space, okay?” in a tone that brooked no argument but held no heat.
Milo, fearless now, tilted his head back, hair flying, eyes closed.
“I’m flying!” he shrieked.
“You are,” Dominic said softly. “You really are.”
After fifteen minutes, Milo decided swings were over.
“Climb,” he announced, sliding off and sprinting toward the jungle gym.
Dominic looked at Charlotte.
“Is it…weird,” he asked, “that I keep wanting to…grab him?”
She blinked.
“How do you mean?” she asked.
“Pick him up,” he said. “Toss him. Grab him before he trips. Hug him. All of it. My hands feel…itchy.”
Warmth squeezed her heart.
“That’s not weird,” she said quietly. “That’s…instinct.”
He exhaled.
“I don’t want to…overstep,” he said. “Or freak him out. Or…you.”
“You’re doing fine,” she said. “Really.”
They wandered toward the climbing structure.
Milo scrambled up the low platform, then the next one, then froze at the top of a small ladder.
“It’s high,” he said nervously.
“It’s okay,” Charlotte said. “I’m right here.”
“Me too,” Dominic added.
Milo looked down between them.
“Catch me?” he asked.
“Yes,” Dominic said immediately.
Charlotte’s fingers twitched.
He bent his knees slightly, arms out.
“You can jump to me,” he said. “Or you can climb down. You decide.”
Milo chewed his lip.
Then, with the wild trust of the very young, he leaped.
Dominic caught him cleanly, arms absorbing the shock.
For a heartbeat, Milo’s whole weight rested against his chest.
The boy giggled.
“Again!” he shouted.
Dominic laughed, a sound Charlotte had never heard from him. Loose. Uncalculated.
“As many times as you want,” he said.
***
They stayed almost two hours.
They fed ducks stale bread from a paper bag Dominic had produced like some kind of Boy Scout. They watched a magician in the park do card tricks. They ate ice cream from a cart, Milo smearing chocolate on both of them.
At one point, Milo climbed onto the bench between them, their knees forming a small corral, and proceeded to “drive” his dino along both their thighs, making ridiculous roaring noises.
Charlotte’s jeans bore tooth marks by the end.
Dominic’s did too.
“You’re sticky,” Milo informed him, poking a dried smear of ice cream on his knee.
“So are you,” Dominic said.
“Mommy says I’m ‘a mess,’” Milo confided.
“Your mommy isn’t wrong,” Dominic replied. “But it’s a good mess.”
Milo grinned, then yawned.
The sun had shifted.
Shadows stretched longer across the grass.
“Time to go,” Charlotte said gently. “We have to get home.”
“Already?” Milo whined.
“Already,” she said. “Say thank you to Dom.”
“Thank you, Dom,” he said obediently. Then, without warning, he leaned over and flung his arms around Dominic’s neck.
Dominic froze.
Then, slowly, he hugged him back.
“Thank you for…today,” he said, voice muffled slightly.
Milo pulled back.
“See you…later?” he asked.
“If your mom says it’s okay,” Dominic said. “I’d…like that.”
“‘Kay,” Milo said. “Bye.”
He jumped down and grabbed Charlotte’s hand.
As they walked away, she glanced back.
Dominic stood by the bench, hands hanging uselessly at his sides, watching them go.
His expression was…raw.
She lifted her free hand in a small wave.
He nodded, just once.
Then he turned and walked in the opposite direction.
***
That night, after Milo was asleep, she texted him.
> He had fun today.
The reply came almost instantly.
> Me too.
Then, after a beat:
> Thank you. For trusting me.
She stared at the screen.
Then, without overthinking it, she typed:
> Don’t make me regret it.
His answer was simple.
> I won’t.
She wanted to believe him.
Which, perhaps, was the riskiest part of all.
***