Page 156 of Broken Destiny

Her phone buzzed.

“Sorry, honey, I have to leave now.”

“Is everything okay?”

She nodded.

“It’s quite late. Where are you going?” I asked.

“Just a plan with the girls,” Tatiana said, getting out of bed and hurrying to the bathroom. “Enjoying my last few days as a spinster.”

“All right.” I sighed. “Have a great time.”

Tatiana came out minutes later wearing a short, revealing purple dress.

“I’ll make it up to you tomorrow,” she said, smiling seductively. “I promise.”

I plastered a smile on my face while my mind kept working through the reasons for Jiya’s return to the city.

“Caleb.”Emma tugged gently at my shorts, pulling me back to the present.“Can we bwuild sandcastle?”

I looked down at her.

She stood there in a colourful swimsuit and a brown fisherman’s hat, her cheeks flushed from the sun.

How could something so beautiful come from a person I believed was so wicked?

Swallowing the bitterness rising inside me, I forced a smile and nodded. “Of course, we can.”

We walked over to the blanket where Geeta was sitting, and together we began building it. Lucas took the role of architect, carefully shaping towers.

Emma left Mia tucked safely beside Geeta on the blanket while she ran back and forth between the shoreline and the sandcastle.

Geeta snapped photo after photo on her phone, laughing as the children argued over whose design was better.

For a while, I allowed myself to forget everything else.

We spent the day running along the water, chasing waves, and digging in the sand until our hands were coated in grit. The children’s laughter filled the air, and I found myself laughing with them—really laughing—for the first time in weeks.

Later, we sat at a small beachside stand and shared hot dogs, cold colas, and a funnel cake dusted generously with powdered sugar.

“Slowly, guys,” I said, wiping their sticky faces with napkins, smearing away whipped cream and strawberry jam from their cheeks. “No one is taking it away from you.”

They giggled, their mouths full, completely unconcerned.

I watched them quietly, committing every detail to memory—the way Emma swung her legs under the table, the way Lucas wiped his hands on his shorts when he thought no one was looking.

I was going to miss them terribly.

I had wanted to spend one last stretch of time with them before everything changed, but I never got the chance to do that back in Cowichan Bay. This day felt like a gift, a small pocket of happinessbefore the inevitable goodbye. I held onto each moment, knowing it wouldn’t come again.

As the afternoon sun dipped lower in the sky, a thought took hold in my mind.

I couldn’t picture my life with Tatiana like this.

She hadn’t changed from the day I met her. She was elegant and perfectly suited for the world I lived in, but when I had watched her around children, there had always been distance in her eyes, as if she were observing rather than participating.

Jiya had been different.