Responses
Welcome to the Harlequin World, where (to quote Mr. Spock) "logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad." For the most part, I read these to amuse myself by picking holes in the characters and plot, with an occasional warm fuzzy when something good comes along.
I kmow it’s Harlequin and therefore thinking details should be correct is foolish, but he did have rights in terms of Eric even after divorce. It’s a legal vs biological thing, but it boils down to the fact that he was almost certainly on the birth certificate. In the same vein the ex-wife fucking abandoning the kid would mean he was the first person social services would contact.
Don’t ask me why I’m harping on logic in one of these stories because I don’t know.