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I feel her move and turn to see her holding the com and pursing her lips. It continues to vibrate in her fingers, and her gaze shifts over to lock with mine. “Maybe you should just answer it.”
“I do not want to.”
“If she’s going to keep calling you every day forever, maybe you should just talk to her and get it over and done with.”
But I don’t want to think about Nkina. I don’t want to talk to her, hear her voice, or see her face, and certainly not now, in this moment, with Ana lying beside me wearing nothing but the necklace I gifted her, looking so thoroughly mated that it threatens to take my breath away.
Nkina is my past, and that is where she needs to remain. I was young and entirely stupid when I joined with her, thinking that I needed nothing more by my side than a pretty face and a willing partnership. She’d been pleasant enough most of our time together, when she got what she wanted, but when she left without a word while I’d been across the sphere on business, emptying every credit from our shared account and shipping herself across the galaxy with hundreds of thousands of credits worth of our belongings,leaving behind our six-month-old son, it became very clear to me what sort of female she truly was. And so, I do not care to speak to her. She is useless baggage that serves no purpose but to weigh my thoughts down when she forces her presence into my mind.
I don’t say anything, and the buzzing stops.
Beside me, Ana sighs, turning on her side and propping her head up with a palm to her temple. The position accentuates the dips and curves of her soft body, making the swell of her hips and thighs look even more prominent. I lift my hand towards her as I remain on my back, brushing my knuckles back and forth over the gentle swell of her stomach.
“Are you sure avoidance is the best way to go about this?” she asks quietly.
“I do not take lightly to being used,” I reply, feeling that familiar emptiness settling over my features. “Nor do I particularly enjoy adultery or being lied to. That female abandoned her infant to chase a new lover across the stars, never once inquiring after Asili’s well-being in all these five years. There is nothing she can tell me now that I could possibly care to hear.”
Ana’s fingers make their way over to rest lightly at my hip. “Seriously, just say the word and I’ll find her and slap her for you. I swear, I’ll do it.”
My lips draw into a small, reluctant smile, and she smiles back at me, though her eyebrows remained drawn in worry. And when the com vibrates again, just once in the signal of a message, she bites her lip and picks the device up, and I let her.
“It’s from her… How about I look at the message for you? If it’s not important, I’ll just delete it and you’ll never have to see it.”
Again, I don’t respond, which Ana takes as consent, and she flicks open the message and begins scrolling.
And then all the color drains from her face and she sits bolt upright, grabbing at a pillow and hugging it before her as if to comfort herself.
“Do I need to know?” I ask quietly.
She doesn’t immediately respond, her eyes darting at speed across the device. When she eventually looks up at me, she is doing that thing again, the one where every conceivable emotion known to humankind is flashing across her face too quickly for me to interpret.
“It’s…my god, Vahadr, she says she’s going to…” She takes a deep breath and holds the device out to me. “Maybe you should read it…”
“Just tell me.”
“I…” She looks down at her lap, and I think her fingers are shaking. “She says she wants full custody of Asili, and all child support payments that she’s entitled to once she has him.”
Which I already know, her lawyers told me so much when they contacted me days ago.
“If you won’t come to an agreement with her, she’ll take it to the Supreme Galactic Court, and…she says, ‘Who in their right mind wouldn’t side with an infant’s mother? You’ve kept him locked away from me, never allowing me to see him, and I won’t stand for you abusing him any longer. I want my son back.’”
Ana drops her hands to her lap, and why does guilt flicker through her eyes as she looks back over at me?
“Then she goes on for a while about how cruel you are for keeping her separated from Asili, and how she is still mentally recovering from the beatings you used to give her.”
I don’t even have the energy to frown. “I never hit her, nor has she ever once tried to contact her son. She is trying to create a written trail to back up her claims in court.”
“I know.” Ana’s voice is a strangled whisper, and her gaze slips away from mine once more. “I believe you.”
I turn to stare out the window, watching the sky fade to orange behind the trees.
“Can she do that?” Ana asks after several moments of silence tick by. “Can she take this to the Supreme Galactic? Can she really take him away from you?”
“It’s possible,” I tell the sky. “I am high profile enough for the court’s interest, and I do not have sufficient connections there to be entirely certain of a ruling in my favor.”
I hear Ana take a deep, shuddering breath.
“Nkina isn’t Asili’s mother.”
