Chapter Four

Verity twisted her hands, remembering the first glance of Fury as she’d gotten out of the conveyance. His big smile welcoming, he’d seemed overjoyed to meet her. Now he sat with his arms folded across his chest, his blue eyes as cold as ice chips, his lips compressed into a slash across his stony face.

Throwing herself on his mercy and praying he had a heart big enough to forgive her lies and accept her and her son offered the only chance for salvation. If he followed through on the threat to repudiate them, she had no idea what she’d do. She had no other options.

“I lied because I was desperate,” she confessed.

He didn’t say anything.

“Brody is a Dorn.” She waited for a flash of recognition.

No response.

“Kyle Dorn is his father.”

Still no reaction.

“You haven’t heard of them?” she asked incredulously .

“I know who the Dorns are.”

The Dorns were a wealthy, progressive family involved in the powerful, influential tech and movie-making industries. Media darlings, they received fawning public accolades for their donations to social justice causes. But it was behind the scenes where they wielded the most power. Their dark money swayed elections, putting into office senators, judges, attorneys general, and even a couple of presidents, to ensure they and their companies remained immune to the laws everyone else had to follow.

But back when she was a student, she hadn’t known any of that. Too busy working as a nurse’s aide while putting herself through college, she’d paid scant attention to politics. She’d pretty much accepted the Dorns’ public reputation at face value. Ignorance had left her unprepared for the future.

“You were Kyle Dorn’s wife,” Fury said.

“I was his nothing.” Her lip curled. That was how he and his family had considered her.

“Your explanation leaves a lot of gaps.” His arms remained tight across his chest.

“Kyle Dorn and I had an affair. Brody resulted. ”

“Ah.” He nodded as if he understood. Did he? Could anybody unless they had personally tangled with the Dorns?

“I was a nurse’s aide at a private hospital when Kyle Dorn came in. He’d slipped on the family yacht and broken his ankle.” He’d flirted outrageously with the female staff, including her. She knew better than to take attention seriously. He was a rich-and-famous trust-fund baby, and she was a nobody. Besides, rules forbade staff from dating patients.

In hindsight, she realized his persistent flirting stemmed from the novelty of being told no. She’d presented a challenge to be conquered. Nobody refused a Dorn. She often wondered what would have happened if she’d kept refusing—would he have given up? But then there would be no Brody.

After discharge from the hospital, Kyle had pursued her relentlessly, calling, sending flowers, showing up at her school and work. Twice named The Most Handsome Man of the Year by WLIE News, he wasn’t especially good-looking—at least Verity hadn’t thought so. But he exuded magnetism and charm in spades. Despite her determination, his flattery chipped away at her resolve, and although she’d still had reservations, she’d agreed to one date .

One date led to another and another.

“We had an affair. He insisted on keeping our relationship private to avoid publicity and being hounded by the press.” Because she had no desire to have her life disrupted by becoming a public spectacle, she didn’t question their low-key courtship. They’d avoided the tony parties, his country club, the exclusive restaurants and nightclubs frequented by wealthy elites. She felt relieved they didn’t go to places where she would have been out of place.

“Between school, studying, working full-time, and seeing Kyle, my life was very busy and hectic. I forgot to get my birth control implant recharged. I got pregnant.” She rubbed her arm where it had once been. “He said no way could a Dorn have a little bastard running around from a nobody like me. His attorney tried to threaten me into terminating the pregnancy. Nothing on Earth or in heaven or hell could have made me do that. Kyle realized I wouldn’t budge.

“He switched tactics. He and his attorney tried to buy me off. They offered me a fair amount of money to go away, never mention to anyone he had fathered my son, and give up any and all right to sue for paternity.”

“You told him to go fuck himself. ”

“I took the money. To make a better life for my son. I finished my nursing degree without having to work, saving me on child care. I put the rest of the money aside for Brody’s future education and emergencies.” The emergency had come sooner than she’d expected.

Fury rested his palms on the table and leaned forward. “Then what happened?”

“A little over a year ago, Kyle died.”

He nodded. “Skiing accident, as I recall.”

“Avalanche. Kyle and his fiancée and another couple were killed. Kyle was Nancy and Hakeem Dorn’s only child. With his death, they lost their sole heir to the Dorn dynasty.”

“They should have hedged their bets by having more children,” Fury said.

“Yeah, well, for whatever reason, they didn’t. I didn’t know Nancy and Hakeem were aware of me and Brody. I’d never met them. I’d assumed Kyle had kept his indiscretion a secret from his parents. But they did know. And they realized Brody was their sole heir.

“They sued for full custody in which I would have lost all parental rights. They played dirty, trying to get friends and neighbors to say I was an unfit mother. They subpoenaed Brody’s medical records. Every ear infection, every little scrape and cut got twisted and magnified into parental negligence. They claimed my work schedule prevented me from caring for him, that he was being raised by babysitters—never mind that Kyle had had a nanny. Brody is six. He's small for his age, and they alleged he wasn’t being fed properly.

“They had a team of investigators and the very best attorneys money could buy. I had the lawyer I could afford, and I blew through the emergency fund within months. I had nothing left to fight with.” She’d even lost her job when the Dorn investigators disrupted the hospital by dogging her coworkers.

Her stomach tightened. “I feared they were going to win and take Brody. When they got a hearing to award them visitation rights, I realized they could kidnap him, and I’d never get him back.”

She blinked away tears. “I had to get him off Earth. Without stating my hardship case, Refuge wouldn’t accept me. Their applications are supposed to be confidential, but that didn’t mean the Dorns couldn’t gain access. I assumed they’d be monitoring all possible means of escape. I didn’t know what kind of privacy safeguards Cosmic Mates had, but I figured as a single woman, I’d be only one of many leaving the planet, nothing extraordinary. But as a single mother, I would stand out.

“I didn’t disclose I had a son, to prevent the Dorns from discovering I was trying to leave Earth.” She’d gotten fake IDs for her and Brody and applied to Cosmic Mates under an alias similar to her own name, Berith Bale. After Cosmic Mates had booked her passage on the commercial spaceship, she’d bought a ticket for Brody under his fake name. Upon arrival on Refuge, she’d claimed there were errors on their documents, a few typos, and asked them to fix it. Perhaps it would have been wiser to keep their aliases, but Brody had lost so much, she didn’t want him to lose his name, too.

Fury’s face tightened, and he shook his head.

Her stomach lurched. It’s not enough. He’s going to claim misrepresentation, send us back.