Baby Vs. The Bar. M.J. Rodgers
“Was he a full-term baby?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“The doctor confirmed my pregnancy at the end of August the previous year.”
“And you think you became pregnant and gave birth to your son as a result of the sperm you received at Bio-Sperm on July 5 of the month before?”
“I know it.”
“You know it? How can you know it?”
“I was only artificially inseminated once, Counselor.”
“There are other ways of becoming pregnant, Dr. Westbrook. How many times did you have intimate relations with a man during the months of June, July and August during the year when your baby was conceived?”
For the first time, Marc saw a slight stiffening in the relaxed shoulders of his witness. Remy Westbrook shifted sideways in her chair in order to face and address the judge.
“Your Honor, is that question permissible?”
The judge’s lined face looked apologetic. “Yes, Dr. Westbrook. You are instructed to answer.”
Remy Westbrook turned back to Marc, but this time he saw a tiny lick of golden flame in the center of her cinnamon eyes. Its heat gave him a small shock because of the message it conveyed.
It seemed he’d been dead wrong. Remy Westbrook was not tranquil and serene and untouched by these proceedings at all. She was blazing mad.
“None,” she answered, her tone still as mellow as ever.
“You had no intimate relations with a man during the months of June, July and August of that year? Three whole months?” he emphasized with raised eyebrows.
“None,” she repeated.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Engaging in intimate physical relations may be a nonselective, common, insignificant event to you, Counselor. I, however, take such an act seriously, am very selective and, hence, remember each and every occasion well.”
Her voice had retained its languid, liquid quality. But those cinnamon eyes now blazed with that golden, indignant flame.
Marc was struck with a sudden doubt. Could she be telling the truth? Had he entirely misread this situation—and her? Only one way to find out.
“Dr. Westbrook, in the event that irrefutable evidence is uncovered to prove that your child is the descendant of my client, Louie Demerchant, what do you intend to do about it?”
“Do about it? What do you mean ‘do about it’?”
“Do you intend to make a claim on the Demerchant estate on behalf of your child?”
“Certainly not.”
“Are you aware of how much money may be involved?”
“No, and I don’t care. I don’t want any of it.”
“You want none of a billion-dollar fortune?”
For the first time since she had entered the courtroom, Marc watched Remy Westbrook’s calm countenance ripple with a wave of surprise. She leaned forward in the witness chair. “A billion dollars?”
The courtroom rocked with excited whispers as its inhabitants responded to that staggering amount in their own shocked way. The judge rapped for order. The silence that followed was instant and absolute. No one wanted to miss anything that was going to be said.
“Yes, Dr. Westbrook,” Marc assured solemnly, his voice carrying to every corner of the courtroom in that silence. “If your son is the offspring of David Demerchant, he could be the sole beneficiary of a billion-dollar estate.”
She locked eyes with him for a moment. She had completely emerged from that quiet center, and Marc could feel the considerable will of the woman behind that cinnamon stare. Those initial interesting twitches that had begun inside him began to multiply by leaps and bounds.
And then, in the next instant, she leaned back in the chair and retreated again to that quiet inner center.
“I don’t care how much money is involved,” her liquid, languid voice said. “I want none of it.”
“Are you willing to go on record that you would refuse such a financial windfall, even if your child were David Demerchant’s?”
“I just did.”
And so she had. Which brought up some interesting new possibilities. Marc pushed on. “If your child does turn out to be David Demerchant’s, do you intend to grant Louie Demerchant visiting rights to his great-grandchild?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“If my son just happens to have Demerchant genes, those genes came to him purely by accident. It was neither David Demerchant’s intent nor was it mine to have a child together. We never even met. If he were still alive, even he would have no claim to my son, much less his grandfather.”
“You will not even let Louie Demerchant see this boy who could be his great-grandchild?”
“That’s right. I will not.”
“Your attitude seems rather extreme, does it not?”
“I do not believe it is. I paid for anonymous sperm. My contract with Bio-Sperm affords me exclusive rights to that sperm and any offspring produced from it.”
“How are you going to explain away these actions to your son when he is old enough to understand?”
“I won’t have to explain away anything. There is no real proof that my son carries Demerchant genes, and since David Demerchant is dead, obtaining such proof now is impossible.”
“So your son will never even know he might be a Demerchant?”
“He is not a Demerchant. He is a Westbrook.”
“You will not meet with Louie Demerchant to discuss this?”
“No, I will not.”
Marc smiled. Yes, the lady might just be telling the truth, after all. Binick and his attorney would have to be out of their minds to have encouraged her to make up this story.
Because, for the purposes of this suit against Bio-Sperm, her testimony wasn’t damaging at all to Marc’s case. On the contrary. He was delighted with it. Remy Westbrook was a keg of dynamite that he would soon be detonating right in Binick’s face.
Marc could already hear his closing arguments.
“Gentlemen of the jury. Even if Remy Westbrook had David’s child, Louie Demerchant will never know for certain, will he? What agony he will be forced to go through because of this uncertainty! And even if Louie Demerchant wants to believe he has this great-grandchild, the only hope of his line, he will never be permitted to see this child. Nor will this child ever carry the Demerchant name. He will not even be allowed to know who his father’s family was. What could be worse torture for a loving great-grandfather? And all because of yet another mistake that Bio-Sperm has made!”
As the rehearsal for his final statement to the jury whirled through his mind, Marc decided that if he had known of the existence of Remy Westbrook and her child, he would have talked Demerchant into asking for fifteen million instead of ten.
“Thank you, Dr. Westbrook,” he said aloud to his witness. “That’s all I have.”
“Do you wish to cross, Mr. Sato?” the judge asked.
Binick’s attorney nodded, rose and approached Remy. “Dr. Westbrook, I know you’ve had less than a week to learn of and digest these startling revelations, on top of which you have been subpoenaed and have been forced to reveal very personal