I gave birth to Carissa alone. I raised her alone.
Five hundred thousand dollars.
I couldn't scrape together five thousand.
After leaving the clinic, I waited in the underground parking garage beneath his building for four hours.
At 1:17 a.m., a Maybach rolled into the garage.
I saw him.
I ran out and planted myself in front of the car.
The tinted window lowered a crack.
"Oswald, I'm not here to make trouble."
My voice was steady.
"Give me five hundred thousand. I'll sign an NDA and disappear from this city. We'll never see each other again."
A low, derisive laugh drifted through the gap in the window.
"Five hundred thousand?"
The door swung open. He stepped out, leaned against it, and looked me over the way someone appraises something they've already decided is worthless.
"You'd even sell your own child. You pop out some bastard who could be anyone's and then show up demanding my money?"
"A single mother stalking a married man in an underground garage. What exactly do you think you're worth?"
"That child is yours."
"Interesting."
He let out a short laugh.
"How long are you planning to keep up this act?"
Footsteps echoed from the far end of the garage.