[Adrian’s POV]

The days after the test results feel different.

Not better, exactly—life with a newborn doesn’t really get easier—but lighter. There’s a buoyancy to my movements now, a ease in my chest where tension used to live like a permanent resident. The weight I’ve been carrying since Lisette taunted me outside that coffee shop has finally lifted, and in its place is a clarity I didn’t know I was missing. Colors seem brighter. Sounds seem clearer. Even the exhaustion of new parenthood feels more manageable when it’s not layered over a foundation of existential dread.

Maggie is mine. My daughter. My blood.

The words echo in my mind like a prayer, like a song I can’t stop singing. Every time I look at her—at the curve of her cheek, the tiny fingers that wrap around mine, the way she stretches and yawns with her whole body—I feel a surge of connection that now has scientific confirmation behind it. Not that I needed the confirmation. But having it, knowing for certain, has loosened something that was wound too tight for too long.

But more importantly, she’s ours. The three of us created this family, and the DNA results don’t change that fundamental truth. Cassian is as much her father as I am—his name will be on her birth certificate alongside mine, his face will be one of the first she learns to recognize, his voice will comfort her in the dark. Biology gave me a connection to her; love gave us all something far more precious.

I find myself watching him with Maggie, moved by the tenderness he shows her. The evening light filters through the nursery curtains, painting everything in shades of amber and rose, and in this golden hour, Cassian transforms. The analytical, controlled man I’ve come to know gives way to someone softer, more vulnerable. He sings to her—badly, off-key, songs he half-remembers from his own childhood—and she stares up at him with rapt attention, as if his voice is the most important sound in the world. Which, to her, it might be.

“You’re good with her,” I tell him one evening, finding him in the rocking chair with Maggie asleep on his chest. The scene is so peaceful it makes my heart ache—this man who was once a stranger, now so central to everything I love. His hand rests on her back, rising and falling with her tiny breaths, and the expression on his face is one of pure contentment.

“She’s easy to be good with.” He doesn’t look up, his hand moving in slow circles on her back. The motion is hypnotic, rhythmic, the gesture of a man who has fully embraced his role. “She doesn’t care about my spreadsheets or my organizational systems. She just wants to be held.”

“Cassian.” I wait until he meets my eyes. The weight of what I want to say presses against my chest, demanding release. “Thank you. For being okay with the results. For not letting it change things.”

“I meant what I said. The test doesn’t change how I feel about her.” He pauses, something flickering in his expression—not doubt, but depth. The processing of emotions that don’t come easily to a man who prefers logic to feeling. “If anything, it clarifies my commitment. I’m not her father because biology demanded it. I’m her father because I chose to be. Because I want to be. That’s not a consolation prize—it’s the whole point of what we’re building.”

“I know. But I also know it could have gone differently. You could have felt… lesser. Like you had less claim to her.”

“I could have. If I were a different person, with different values, in a different relationship.” His expression softens, the analytical mask giving way to something raw and real. “But I’m me. And I’m with you and Sophie. And this is our family, biology be damned.”

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