Her Swedish Billionaire’s Baby

“Are you willing to…compensate…her for giving you full custody.”

Bjorn was silent for a while, staring out the window. Then he turned to look at Demerle.

“Yes I am,” he said.

*****

“Oh my God you’ll never guess what happened!”, Amy burst into the apartment scaring Samara half to death when she was trying to research pregnancy on the internet.

“God Amy, don’t do that!” she screamed, heart going a mile a minute.
Amy ignored the screaming, “You won’t guess whose in town.”

“I..who?” Samara gave up and asked.

“Bjorn Fredriksen!” Amy screamed. Samara winced taking a step back.

“What do you mean he’s here?”

“I mean he’s here!” Amy said.

“Okay…I got that. How do you even know?”

“I was having lunch with my dad at Nobu and he told me about it. He said he ran into Bjorn at the country club; they discussed golf and stock prices and surprise surprise. Me! Apparently I’m suddenly interesting to Bjorn. Hmm, I wonder why. Could it be because of who I’m friends with?”

“But…I didn’t tell him about you,”, Samara protested.

“Oh yeah coz a guy like Bjorn doesn’t have the resources to check up on you? You think you were going to tell him you’re having his baby and he wouldn’t do a background check on you?”

Samara shrugged, “I didn’t…really think. Not about any of this I guess.”

“Yep. You sure didn’t,” Amy said.

“Hey!”

“What? I’m just being real…telling it like it is. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”

Samara snorted in derision, “Whatever girl. Do you think he’s here for me?”

The last part was said quietly, like she didn’t even want to put that out there in the universe in case it wasn’t true.

“I think he’s definitely going to deal with you and your situation. That’s what these rich types do. They deal with stuff. Usually not personally but I guess…”

“I like the way you say ‘these rich types’ like you aren’t one of them.”

“Hey, you asked me a question I gave you an answer. Now what are you going to do with it?”

The next day she opened her door to find a process server requesting her presence for a paternity test.

*****

Alison was against playing along, but she agreed to come along, just so ‘this Bjorn guy’ as she called him didn’t think that Samara was completely alone, with no one to defend her.

An unfamiliar white gentleman was waiting for them. He introduced himself as Kennedy Demerle, Bjorn’s lawyer and he was here to see that everything was done on the up and up. He inquired if Samara had a lawyer of her own.

She answered in the negative and looked away as the lawyer’s expression made her feel like quite the fool. She wanted to ask him where Bjorn was and why he hadn’t just asked her to do the test instead of making it seem like some sort of criminal endeavor. Instead she led the way into the clinic, walking ahead of her sister and the lawyer. She wondered where Bjorn’s DNA was supposed to come from but when the doctor asked for it, Demerle had it ready in form of a piece of hair.

*****

Bel Air DNA Diagnostic Center

Eyeing the papers, he didn’t want to look but he felt himself bend down to pick them up anyways. Snorting as he skimmed over the intro and moved to the next page. Numbers etched into three different columns, having no clue what they meant but on top of the columns read. Mother, Child and Alleged father.

Some of the numbers matched up between the child and father columns which began to panic him. He chewed on his bottom lip still standing in the empty dust and cigarette smelling room. Finally getting to the bottom it wrote out.

The alleged father, Bjorn Fredriksen is not excluded as the Biological father of the child above. The probability of paternity is resulted in 99.999%.

Bjorn called Demerle to let him know he was ready to begin the process of obtaining custody.

*****

“We filed a motion to serve notice by publication three weeks ago, after Mr. Fredriksen learned of the news,” Kennedy Demerle said as she stepped away from Judge Rees’s bench. It was hard to remember that she was half blind, sometimes, because she moved around the courtroom like she owned it. Samara admired that. Not that she would ever admit it aloud—Demerle was also a bit of a toolbox, sometimes—but she wished a little that, if she ever lost her vision, she’d keep her moved like Jagger.

She considers mentioning that to Alison, but Alison was sitting all straight-backed and nervous next to her, no sign of levity anywhere on her face.

Okay then.

“Since that time,” Demerle continued, his hands resting lightly on the sides of the podium, “there has been no contact between Mr. Fredriksen and Ms. Khaled. A paternity test carried out has proved that the child is his however.” He paused for a moment, then shook his head. “Due to the unsavory circumstances surrounding Ms. Khaled and therefore her suitability to bring up my client’s child and also due to my client’s superior circumstances, we ask that the defendant grant full custody to my client.”

“Thank you,” Judge Rees said. Her eyes stay on the affidavit of publication, though, and Samara felt her heart rate jump up past normal. There’s no real reason to be nervous, no verifiable excuse for the fact that she felt a little like she might throw up all over her own shoes. But reason had leapt out the car window around the time they’d pulled into the parking lot in front of the Union County Courthouse. Suddenly, with the big limestone building looming over them and Alison’s Honda Civic humming like a washing machine instead of a car, Samara had realized exactly how much rode on this one stupid motion hearing.

Well, not stupid. The hearing stood in the way of her kid actually becoming her kid, so, you know, not stupid.

Judge Rees kept looking at the stupid affidavit. Samara shifted, uneasy, and her elbow knocked Alison’s. Not on purpose, but because the seats were narrow and the armrests were even worse. Alison glanced over, the worry etched on her face like the relief on a statue, and Samara wet her lips.

She wanted to say a thousand things right in that second. She wanted Bjorn to explain to her what he meant by ‘unsavory circumstances’. She wanted him to stop treating her like a criminal. She wanted to say something that would stop her sister from blowing her fuse like she seemed on the verge of doing. But instead, all she could do was open her lips and breathe.

Alison breathed too, and somehow, their hands found each other. Just for a second, a squeeze instead of a hold, and Samara convinced herself that her heart calmed from the touch.

It’s a lie, sure, but a comforting one.

Finally, miraculously, the judge glanced up from the paperwork. “Miss Drew?” she asked.

Their lawyer rose from her chair, unbuttoning her jacket as she moved. Only she could pull off the blood red skirt with the cropped jacket. Well, she and maybe Amy. Samara decided she should ask her friend if she owned that outfit.

“Your honor?” Drew asked after a couple seconds.

The judge removed her glasses. “Do you wish to present evidence or argument on the defendant’s motion to award sole custody?”