Sofia informed me that rabbits did not like broccoli.
Leo climbed onto my knee without asking who I was.
And through all of it, Evelyn watched.
Not smiling exactly.
But not afraid either.
When the children went upstairs with Daniel for their nap, the house became painfully quiet.
I remained on the floor.
Evelyn sat on the sofa.
“You can get up.”
“I know.”
I didn’t.
She smiled then.
A real smile.
Small, but familiar.
“They liked you.”
My chest tightened.
“I liked them.”
“I noticed.”
I finally stood.
There was a framed photograph on a bookshelf beside me.
Newborn twins.
Evelyn holding them in a hospital bed.
Nobody beside her.
“You were alone?”
“My friend Natalie was there.”
I looked at the photograph.
“I should have been.”
“Yes.”
No cruelty.
No comfort.
Just truth.
I turned toward her.
“I can’t fix that.”
“No.”
“I can’t give them back those years.”
“No.”
“But if they’re mine, I’d like to be part of what comes next.”
Evelyn’s eyes became glassy.
She looked away.
“Daniel and I talked last night.”
My stomach tightened.
“And?”
“We think we should do a DNA test.”
I nodded immediately.
“Whenever you want.”
“Daniel already arranged it through the family clinic.”
“Good.”
She looked at me.
“You’re not going to argue?”
“About what?”
“Custody. Names. Their routine.”
“No.”
Her eyes searched my face.
“I want to know them, Evelyn. I don’t want to take them from anybody.”
For several seconds she said nothing.
Then she whispered, “That’s what I needed to hear.”
A week later, I was back in Chicago when the email arrived.
Marcus was in my office.
I opened it twice before I could understand the words.
Probability of paternity: greater than 99.99 percent.
I sat down.
Marcus read my expression.
“They’re yours?”
I couldn’t answer immediately.
My children.
My daughter.
My son.
Three years ago, I had believed my marriage ended because Evelyn had stopped loving my world.
Now I understood the harder truth.
She had left because I had stopped making room for hers.
My phone rang.
Evelyn.
I answered.
Neither of us spoke at first.
Finally she said, “You saw it?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“What happens now, Adrian?”
I looked through the glass walls of my office at the empire I’d spent half my life building.
For the first time, the question didn’t sound like a challenge.
It sounded like a choice.
And I finally understood that becoming Sofia and Leo’s father would require much more than discovering they carried my blood.
It would require deciding what parts of my old life I was willing to leave behind.
-END OF PART 2, –PRESS NEX PART IN BOTTOM OF PAGE TO READ NEXT PART
