"Rosaly?" Desmond called out to the little girl as he knocked on the door to her room. She had not locked it but he wanted to be certain that she was willing to see him.
"I'm coming in, okay?' He spoke. She didn't speak, so he gently pushed the door open and poked his head in. She was on the floor, pulling at a doll's hair and crying. She neither seemed to notice nor acknowledge his presence. His heart broke seeing her like this and he wanted nothing more than to rip Angela into shreds. The heartless woman.
Entering the room, he quietly sat next to her for a while until she finally realized he was there and turned to look at him.
"Do you want to talk about it with Daddy?"
She rubbed her fists across her eyes to wipe her tears, threw her doll aside and held out her small arms to be hugged. "I don't want Zaria to be your girlfriend." She cried against Desmond's chest once he held her.
He knew without needing to ask that Angela must have lied to her about what would happen if Zaria became his girlfriend.
"Why is that?" He asked nonetheless.
"Because you will not love me anymore." She sniffled. "Daddy, I love you very much."
"And I love you too. I will love you forever." He hugged her small body, his heart melting. Who would have ever guessed that he would have this kind of conversation with a little girl someday? When she calmed down and stopped crying, he looked at her seriously. "If you don't want Zaria to be my girlfriend, she doesn't have to be."
"Really?" The girl was pleasantly surprised. .
He gazed at her dotingly. "Yes. She can be my fiancée instead."
Rosaly was happy about it but she wondered aloud with a finger against her chin, "What's a fiancée?"
He thought of the simplest way to explain it. "It means that Zaria will soon become my wife and you will see her every day."
Not only would he love her forever, but she would also play with her best friend any time she wanted. Her eyes lit up at the news
Overjoyed, she wanted to hurry and tell Zaria the good news.
He stopped her before she could leave the room. "Hold on. You can't tell her yet. Before she becomes my fiancée, I have to ask her and it should be a surprise." He stuck out a pinky. "Secret?"
"Secret." She excitedly crossed her pinky with his and grabbed his hand to run out of the room.
"Let's go back to Zaria." He let her lead the way downstairs. Zaria met them halfway through the living room, worry written all over her face.
"Is everything okay?" She asked.
"Zaria!" Rosaly jumped into her arms and she was relieved. This meant they had talked about it.
"Do the two of you want to watch a movie?" Desmond suggested.
Rosaly immediately jumped on the opportunity. "I want to watch Frozen!"
Desmond groaned like he wanted to die.
"What's wrong with Frozen?" Zaria asked, laughing at him.
"She made me watch it with her three times on the night she arrived." He lamented, which only made her laugh harder.
"At least she wants to do something with you." She dragged him along to watch Frozen with Rosaly for the forth time. She didn't enjoy animated movies but oddly, she enjoyed the entire one and a half hours and even sang "into the unknown" with Rosaly on repeat. The little girl surprisingly knew the song word for word and could hit high notes with amazing ease. Desmond had been dreading the movie but he ended up recording them to listen to it later.
He should thank Alyssa and Nathaniel no matter how much he hated them. If they had not dug into his past and found Rosaly, he wouldn't be having these precious moments with her and Zaria.
Dinner was ready soon and interrupted the duo from having makeup done to resemble disney princesses. They hurried to the dining room, dragging him along, and sat next to each other. They were more like best friends from different generations than a girl and her future stepmother.
"What would you like to eat?" He asked, and was yet to get her answer when the housekeeper brought him an envelope.
"Why would you bring my mail this late?" His brows furrowed as he received it.
"It wasn't there when we checked for mail earlier," She answered. "It must have been delivered later."
He ripped the top of the envelope and opened the letter, scrunching up his brows when he read the content.
"It's a summon from the court." He said to Zaria.
She was puzzled. "What? Why would the court send you a summon at such a time? Wait. Why would they even send you a summon to begin with?"
He shot a meaningful glance in the direction of his daughter who was staring starry-eyed at the colorful pasta salad. "Angela is suing me."
Following his line of sight, Zaria understood that Angela was suing him regarding Rosaly, but she still couldn't completely figure it out. "Custody?"
When he shook his head, she was relieved. He passed the letter over to her, and when she read it, she snorted.
"Are you kidding me? Why does she need to sue you for child support?"
"Because she probably lost…" He stopped himself from saying something that wasn't good reaching Rosaly's ears and clenched his fists.
"Daddy, do you like shrimp?" Asked Rosaly, and he had to force a smile.
"I don't. Do you?"
She probably did, but she hesitantly shook her head. Zaria served her some with a smile, and she dug in cheerfully.
The entire dinner felt awkward with him trying to understand why the hell Angela thought it was necessary to sue him for such a thing as child support. They were already co-parenting and he would naturally be willing to take care of his daughter's needs. There had to be a reason why she felt it was necessary to involve the court without talking to him about it and it had nothing to do with wanting money from him.
When dinner was finally over, he couldn't wait to speak to Zaria. They let Rosaly play in her room before bedtime and went to his study.
"Just when everything is going great, she throws yet another ticking time bomb at us." He lamented.
She slumped onto the bean bag at the corner. "Do you think so? We both know it's all because of the forces working behind her., right? She has been a pawn all along and is still a pawn for someone else."
"She is, alright, but she wouldn't do this kind of thing if money was the only benefit there was in it for her. She knows that I will not fall for it." He dismissed the possibility, and she was even more suspicious.
"Can you guess what she wants?" She asked.
"Revenge." He breathed.
She was about to dispell his thought by pointing out that there was no way Angela could revenge by suing him unless the entire situation was leaked, but it sunk in before she voiced it out. "You are not the only one who has received this letter."
"Probably not."
They were not wrong. When they woke up in the morning, the internet was filled with gossip about Desmond's messed up personal life. One of the top articles had mentioned that he had always been a womanizer and that he had been engaged with Natalie Sparks despite being in a relationship with Angela Aguilar, and it was also revealed that they had a daughter together. The summon from the court was proof of the fact that they had a daughter he rejected from birth.
As a side note, the article had dragged Zaria into the mess and called her out for dating her engaged boss despite knowing that he was a scumbag, and accused her of threatening to break up with Desmond and destroy the company's reputation if he ever had anything to do with his daughter.
"This is just crazy." Zaria nearly slammed her phone against the wall. "Why?" Does she enjoy destroying her own reputation just to drag you into the mud?"
"She does't care." He cracked his knuckles furiously. He raked his fingers through his hair in anger.. Merely a few hours after the gossip popped up, Angela posted a video with an explanation.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l