The results of the test carried out on May 20th by The Royal Harley Street Clinic on the DNA of your son, Cai Remy Simpson, and Mr Alexi Gustavo Galanti show a 99.98 percentage probability that he is the father of your child.
As a result of this information, Mr Galanti has asked me to inform you that he has arranged for you to fly out to Monaco on his private jet on May 23rd for a meeting with him, myself and the rest of his legal team at Vill
a Galanti so we can outline how he plans to proceed.
I enclose details of the travel arrangements and your overnight stay at the villa.
A car will collect you at your home address at ten that morning.
Salutations distinguées,
Etienne Severo, avocat
I READ THE email from Alexi’s lawyer which had arrived while I’d been busy packing Cai’s lunch box and trying to cajole him into putting on his shoes that morning.
I hadn’t had time to panic about it then, but I had lots of time to panic about it now as I read it for the five-thousandth time.
I hadn’t done any work this morning. My fear at the curt demand choked me. Alexi expected me to drop everything and come to Monaco to find out how he planned to proceed in two days’ time. And to stay overnight at Villa Galanti. He’d given me virtually no time to arrange leave or childcare, and there had been little mention of Cai. While I was grateful he hadn’t asked me to bring Cai, the impersonal nature of the solicitor’s letter, and the laying down of battle lines contained within it, disturbed me.
I had expected Alexi’s high-handed, dictatorial approach. Of course he mistrusted me. I’d kept his son’s existence from him, and what evidence did he have I would ever have told him but for a chance encounter? But in the last few days I had hoped that, once Cai’s parenthood was established, he would contact me personally—that his first priority would be getting to know the innocent four-year-old child at the centre of this situation.
I read the email again, scanning it for any evidence of warmth or empathy towards his son. Even if I didn’t deserve any sympathy, surely Cai did? But the words remained as cold and compassionless as when I’d first read them.
A prickle of anger burned under my breastbone, which made an unfortunate bedfellow for the panic which had consumed me all morning.
Part of me wanted to refuse his demand. I didn’t want to go to the Galanti mansion—there were so many memories there waiting to hijack me—and demanding I go alone and stay the night at the villa could only be a ploy to unsettle and unnerve me.
I closed the email app on my phone as the anger fizzled out.
Whatever Alexi’s agenda was, and however scared I was about the outcome of this ‘meeting’, I couldn’t keep running away from the confrontation I had avoided for so long. I had hoped Alexi would be reasonable. Clearly that wasn’t going to happen, but I owed it to my son to hear what his father had to say.
I could feel Alexi’s anger with me in the lawyer’s words. And I had to face that in order to move forward now.
Because I’d seen how confused, how emotional, Alexi had been when I’d revealed Cai’s identity to him nearly a week ago. Even though he’d tried exceptionally hard to hide it, I had blindsided him.
And I had to accept he had a right to be angry with me.
I dialled Jessie’s number. My cousin picked up on the first ring.
‘Hey, Belle,’ she said, her warm voice already helping to release the pressure which had been strangling me ever since my fateful meeting with Alexi—a pressure which had become unbearable ever since his lawyer’s email had arrived.
‘Hi, Jess. I need to go to Monaco day after tomorrow and stay overnight... Could you look after Cai while I’m gone? I know it’s super-short notice and I—’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Jessie interrupted. ‘You know I love to look after him. What time do you need me there?’
I rattled off the details.
Cai hadn’t done anything wrong, even if I had. Cai’s welfare always came first—and if Alexi’s ‘plans’ for me and our son turned out to be not in Cai’s best interests I would tell him so.
I didn’t like the implication in the lawyer’s email that Alexi planned to tell me how he was going to handle this situation and I would just be expected to follow his orders. But it shouldn’t surprise me.
Alexi had always been pushy and, well, frankly domineering and determined to get his own way. He’d been like that ever since I’d first known him as a teenager on the rare occasions when he’d deigned to notice the housekeeper’s infatuated daughter, so it was no surprise he was even more of a dictator now.
I had toyed with the idea of hiring a lawyer to accompany me to Villa Galanti but had decided against it. Why make this even more confrontational than it already was? I would not be signing anything at this meeting, and he couldn’t force me to do so, because I was now the opposite of that infatuated teenager.
So I would go to Monaco, to his meeting, listen politely to what he had to say, deal with his anger, his enmity and his legal team and then, once I returned to the UK, I would hire my own lawyer to thrash out the child custody arrangements.
The anxiety thrummed under my breastbone again.