Chapter 10 - The Threshold
Ethan didn't move from the nursery doorway as Grace walked past him down the hall.
He heard the front door open downstairs. He heard Declan’s low, calm voice exchanging a brief word with the housekeeper, and then Grace’s soft steps descending the stairs to meet him.
The front door clicked shut.
The house was instantly, suffocatingly quiet again.
Ethan walked over to the rocking chair Grace had just vacated. He reached out and touched the small blue cashmere blanket lying across the armrest. The wool was soft, warm from her body, knitted with an impossible level of patience and care.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, expecting another corporate notice or a frantic text from Vanessa.
Instead, it was an email from the firm’s human resources director—now reporting directly to the new executive board.
Subject: Transition of Personal Effects and Medical Proxy.
Ethan opened it with a numb finger.
Attached was a formal legal document regarding the upcoming birth of the child. It designated Grace Calloway-Pierce as the sole legal decision-maker, but at the very bottom, in a standard administrative rider signed by Declan Pierce on behalf of the holding board, was a single handwritten addendum initialed by Grace herself:
The biological father retains standard visitation rights upon completion of court-mandated financial restitution and ethical counseling.
Visitation rights. Not custody. Not partnership. Visitation—like an uncle visiting on holidays, or a divorced parent checking in by appointment.
May you like
Ethan dropped his phone onto the nursery floor. It landed softly on the thick rug, the screen glowing blankly against the dark wool.
He walked over to the tall sash window, pushing it open a few inches to let in the cool autumn air of the New York night. Down on 74th Street, a black town car was idling by the curb. He watched as Declan Pierce opened the rear door, offering his hand to Grace as she stepped gracefully into the backseat. Declan folded her coat over her shoulders, slid in beside her, and the car pulled smoothly away into the evening traffic, disappearing down the avenue toward the lights of the city they now owned together.
