Chapter 180

[ 1,160 words ]

Gail’s POV

I took the photograph from across the path.

I did not plan to. I had my phone in my hand because Sam had texted, asking where Aiden was; she had been tracking his location through the family app and had seen the park and was approximately forty seconds from calling Katia. I had typed back, ’Don’t call her; let them have this,’ and then I had looked up and seen my brother sitting completely still on a park bench with a sleeping five-year-old on his arm, and I had raised my phone before I had decided to.

The photograph was not artistic. It was just true. Julian in his Sunday clothes, one arm pinned gently under Aiden’s head, looking at the pond with an expression I had never seen on his face in years of knowing him.

I crossed the path and sat on the other end of the bench.

He did not look at me. He kept his eyes on the pond.

We sat like that for a few minutes. The park moved around us. Aiden breathed slowly against Julian’s arm.

Then Julian said, very quietly: “Gail p>

“Yes,” I said.

“I don’t know if I’m right,” he paused. Still looking at the pond. “I feel like Aiden is mine p>

I did not say anything immediately.

“I know it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “I know how it sounds. But how can this boy look exactly like me? How can he have my hands and my—how can he just look like this and not be mine p>

I looked at Aiden asleep. At the line, his face turned sideways against Julian’s arm.

I had been asking myself the same question for years.

“Why don’t you do a DNA test?” I said.

Julian shook his head. Slowly. “Katia will never forgive me. If I go behind her back and test her son without telling her—” He stopped. “I don’t want to do something stupid and spoil what we have p>

“What you have,” I said.

He did not answer that immediately.

“Julian,” I said carefully. “You are married to her sister p>

“I know,” he said.

“I’m not judging you. I’m just—I need you to hear yourself say it p>

He was quiet for a moment. Aiden stirred slightly, resettled, and went still again. Julian adjusted his arm almost without thinking — a small, instinctive accommodation.

“Delia is a good woman,” Julian said. “She is. But she is not for me. She has never been for me.” He paused. “I married her because Grandma insisted and the arrangement made sense and I thought—” He stopped. “I don’t know what I thought. I think I thought it would make things simpler, and instead it made everything worse p>

I waited.

“Do you know where I was on my wedding night?” he said.

I looked at him.

“I saw a photograph,” he said. “Of Katia. In France. I thought she was with a man.” He looked at the pond. “I left. On my wedding night. I left everything and got on a plane and flew to France because I thought she was with someone and I couldn’t—” He stopped again. “A normal man would have been home. Trying to make his marriage work. Instead, I was on a plane to France because the thought of Katia with another man was p>

“Julian,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “I know how it sounds p>

I did not tell him it was wrong. I did not tell him it was right either. I just sat with it.

“I have always done this,” he said. “Made sure no man gets to play the hero in her life but me. Made sure no one gets close enough. Victor Hale—” He said the name like something that tasted bad. “Victor puts his hands on her, and I destroyed my office. I have never in my life destroyed anything in anger.” He paused. “She makes me irrational. She has made me irrational since the day she walked into my boardroom p>

Aiden was completely still. His breathing was the most peaceful sound in the park.

“It’s not fair to Delia,” Julian said. “I know that. I’m not pretending otherwise. She deserved someone who looked at her the way I—” He did not finish that sentence. “But I can’t give her what I don’t have p>

“What do you have?” I asked. Quietly.

He looked at Aiden.

“Everything I want is here,” he said. “On this bench. In this park. And somewhere in the city managing a lawsuit and a magazine interview and whatever else she has going on today.” He almost smiled. “She probably has six things going on today p>

“At least six,” I said.

He looked at Aiden again. At the small face tipped sideways on his arm.

“Even if I find out I’m wrong,” he said. “Even if the suspicion is wrong and he is not mine, I still want to be in his life. I want to be in both their lives.” He said it simply, without drama, the way he said things when he had finished deciding them. “I don’t care if he’s mine biologically or not. I want them. Both of them p>

I looked at my brother.

I had watched Julian Windsor be many things in years. Decisive. Cold when he needed to be. Occasionally impossible. A man who had learned very early that the world responded to strength and had built himself accordingly.

I had never watched him be this honest.

“Okay,” I said.

He looked at me. “Okay p>

“Okay,” I said. “I’m not going to tell you it’s simple. It’s not simple. Delia is involved and the family is involved, and there are a hundred things that have to happen before any of this can be what you want it to be.” I paused. “But okay. I hear you p>

He nodded.

He looked back at the pond.

Aiden slept on.

After a while Julian stood, carefully, with the unhurried air of a man making sure he did not disturb the thing he was holding. He gathered Aiden against his chest — the boy’s head on his shoulder, still completely asleep — and I stood too, and we walked back toward the estate in the late afternoon light.

I walked beside them.

I looked at my brother carrying a sleeping child who looked exactly like him and thought about all the ways this could go wrong and all the ways it might not and the fact that Julian Windsor – who had never once in his life admitted to wanting something he could not immediately have – had just sat on a park bench and told me he wanted them.

He loved Katia. Not Delia. Katia.

And I had absolutely no idea how he was going to find his way out of the situation he was in.

But I had the photograph on my phone.

And I was going to send it to Katia.

When the time was right.

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