Page 170 of Ruthless Claim

There’s a long pause and I wonder if Claire has realized I’m trying to trap her. But then her relieved voice comes through the phone like a woman who has been waiting for exactly this.

“That’s wonderful, Cillian.” She sounds almost breathless and grateful, like I’ve just offered her something she’d been hoping for but was too decent to ask for directly. “Thank you so much for doing this for Finn.”

I want to put my fist through the window.

For Finn. Like she gives a damn about Finn.

Like any of this has ever been about Finn and not about what she can extract from me. I keep my breathing steady.

I can feel Valentina’s gaze on me and I can feel her touch my forearm, providing me some steadying comfort.

“Of course,” I say smoothly into the phone. “How’s Thursday?”

“Thursday is perfect.”

We settle on a coffee shop in Midtown. Her suggestion, actually, which almost makes me laugh.

Of course she wants a coffee shop. It’s somewhere she clearly feels safe, where she can play the reasonable co-parent, the gracious wronged woman, the mother just trying to do right by her son.

Fine. Let her feel safe.

When I hang up Valentina is quiet for a second. “She didn’t hesitate,” she murmurs, her hand still on me.

“No,” I say swallowing heavily. “She didn’t.”

Because why would she? She’s been running this play for weeks and it’s been working. I’ve been guilty and off-balance and second-guessing myself at every turn, exactly the way she needed me to be. Of course she didn’t hesitate. I was calling to give her more money.

The coffee shop smells like burnt milk and someone’s too-sweet pastry when we get there on Thursday.

We’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes already and I’m getting impatient, glancing at my watch to check the time. The folder is on the table in front of me. Valentina hasn’t touched her coffee. Neither have I.

We’re waiting for Claire.

She walks in eight minutes late and I see the moment she spots Valentina.

She sees her, and something ugly flickers across her face—surprise curdling into irritation—then it’s gone, buried under a smooth, polite act.

Then I see Finn behind her and my stomach drops.

He’s bouncing a little on his heels the way kids do when they have boundless energy.

When he spots me across the room his whole face lights up. He waves wildly, practically launching himself onto his toes.

“Hi Dad!”

Something sharp lances straight through my chest.

Beside me I feel Valentina go very still.

Somehow, I manage to contort my lips into a smile, but it feels like a grimace. “Hey, buddy.”

I know he’s not mine. And I’m truly relieved, but part of me also feels…devastated.

Finn is a good kid and he doesn’t deserve this.

He has no idea his mother has been using him as a prop in a con, no idea that the man he just called Dad has been dreading this meeting for days. He just lit up because he saw me.

Kids shouldn’t be involved in adult matters.