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Three days later…
I stare down at the summons in my hand from the court, ordering both Venus and I to submit to a blood-drawn DNA test to establish paternity.
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“No. I don’t want to embarrass her or make her feel ganged up on. I want to handle this as civil as possible in the hope that it stays between me and her.”
“You don’t want her to be embarrassed? Beckham, this woman is a conniving liar. She deserves to be and should be embarrassed by this.”
“Alt, I know you’ve never cared for Venus, but she’ll feel ambushed and that will start a war.”
“Fine,” he says, backing away with his hands raised. “I’ll be here if you need backup.”
“Thanks,” I say, leaving his office and pulling out my phone to send a text to Venus.
Me: Hey, are you around? Was hoping I could stop by and talk to you if possible? I’d like to see you.
I hate that I know she’ll drop anything if I tell her I want to see her, but I can’t let her get suspicious that I’m about to serve her with papers or she’ll call her lawyer or worse, her father.
I walk out to my car and before I can even unlock it, she responds.
Venus: Hey, yeah, I just got home. Come on by. Can’t wait to see you.
She signs off with a kissing face emoji. I slide behind the wheel and head over to her house in the Gold Coast.
“Hey.” Her voice is flirty and airy; clearly, she assumes I’m here to talk about us. “You look handsome.” She bats her eyelashes at me and reaches out to run her hand down my arm.
“Venus,” I say warmly but it feels forced because it is. “I won’t take up much of your time,” I say, stepping inside as she closes the door behind me.
“I was just over at this designer baby boutique, working with a stylist to design the baby’s nursery and figure out the color scheme of the wardrobe once she’s here.”
“You hired a stylist for baby clothes?”
“Not just the clothes, the crib and the decor. I really want to go for a neutral palette, like nudes and whites.”
What the fuck? For a baby?
I don’t have time to get into how weird and frankly depressing that sounds to dress a baby in nudes so I just smile and then get on with it.
“Venus, this isn’t a social call and you’re not going to like what I'm about to say, but at this point in our relationship or whatever the hell this is, I don’t really give a fuck.” I pull the court order from inside my jacket and hold it out to her. “This is a summons for both of us to submit to a DNA test to determine paternity.”
The fake smile on her face falls instantly. If she could show emotion through her Botox, I’m sure her eyebrows would be scowling at me right now.
“Are you serious?”
“Read it.”
She flips it open, scanning the paper before hauling off and hitting me in the chest.
“You bastard!”
I catch her fists and hold her in place, walking her backward till we reach a chair in the elaborate entryway of her house.
“Sit down and calm down. This isn’t good for the baby.” She obeys, her bottom lip pooching out like she’s about to start crying, but I’m not falling for her little dramatic displays anymore. For years she pulled that shit on me to get her way.
“This is how this is going to play out, Venus. You have two options here. You can fight this, get your father and lawyer involved, but that is a summons and you have exactly three days to respond to it and submit your DNA. Or you can tell me the truth because I find it strange that if you honestly believed that I’m the father of your child, you’d be angry at me for showing up with this suit. In fact, if it were me and someone wanted proof, I’d laugh when they showed up with a summons like this because I’d know that when those results came back, they would be the one looking like a fool and not me.”
