He Chose His First Love. I Own His Empire. novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Hearing

The family courtroom had pale wood benches and a flag in the corner and no windows at all.

Dalton sat at the petitioner's table in a gray suit.

His jaw was swollen yellow and purple on the left side, and he kept his face turned slightly away from the gallery.

Odile's lawyer sat beside me, with a folder.

Odile sat behind us in her chair, and Benton stood at the very back by the door, because the judge had told him he could stay if he said nothing.

"Mr. Aldrich's petition asks for sole custody of the child at birth," the judge said. She was a short woman with reading glasses on a chain, and she had not smiled since we came in. "Counsel, proceed."

Dalton's lawyer stood.

"Your Honor, Mrs. Aldrich left the marital home on the night of her anniversary. She has since moved into a cottage with an unrelated man. We have a physician's report on her fitness, and we ask that the court take this seriously."

"Whose physician?" the judge asked.

"A doctor who saw her at a prenatal appointment, Your Honor."

"Examined her?"

"Observed her, Your Honor. In the waiting room."

The judge looked over her glasses for a moment.

"Go on," she said, in a dry voice.

I answered what I was asked.

I said I was a pastry cook, that I had a mother in care, and that I had left because my husband had put another woman's ring on in front of his family.

The judge listened to all of it without writing anything down.

"Mr. Aldrich," she said at last. "Your wife says you intend to take the baby at birth and send the other woman away. Do you wish to answer that?"

Dalton stood.

"That's a fantasy, Your Honor. Her family's spite."

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