“I tried,” I said. “I was going to tell you the night your father called me into his study. I had been waiting for the right moment. I thought, maybe if he knew about the baby, he would fight for me. He would tell his father no.”
I shook my head.
“But your father did not give me the chance. He handed me a check and told me to disappear. And you sat there, Julian. You sat there and said nothing. You did not ask where I would go. You did not ask if I was okay. You just let me leave.”
“I did not know what to say,” he said quietly.
“You could have said anything,” I said. “You could have said you still loved me. You could have said you would fight for us. You could have said you were sorry. But you said nothing. So I took the money and I left. And when I found out I was pregnant, I decided you did not deserve to know.”
“That was not your decision to make,” he said, a flash of anger crossing his face.
“You are absolutely right,” I said. “It was not my decision. It was yours. You made the decision when you chose your father’s approval over your wife. When you chose silence over love. When you chose Victoria Ashford over the mother of your children.”
He flinched.
“I did not know they existed,” he said.
“Would it have mattered?” I asked. “If you had known, would you have chosen differently? Would you have told your father no? Would you have loved me enough to walk away from all of this?”
He did not answer, which was answer enough.
I stood up.
“You should go, Julian,” I said. “You have a new wife waiting for you. A life that does not include me or the children. That is what you wanted. That is what you have.”
“Can I meet them?” he asked. “The children. Can I spend time with them?”
I thought about it.
About Ethan, who took apart everything to understand how it worked.
About Oliver, who could charm anyone with a smile.
About Lucas, who saw too much and spoke too little.
About Sophia, who led her brothers like a tiny general.
About the life we had built without him.
“Maybe,” I said. “If you can prove you want to be their father, not just avoid a scandal. If you can show up consistently, not just when it is convenient. If you can love them for who they are, not who you want them to be.”
I looked at him directly.
“But if you disappoint them the way you disappointed me, Julian, I will use every resource I have to make sure you never see them again. Do you understand?”