Page 69 of Broken Destiny

The difference shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did.

A memory surfaced when Tatiana and I had been in the Bahamas.

“Children?” Tatiana had frowned. “Do we have to have them?”

“Don’t you want children?” I had asked, surprised that the topic had never come up before.

“I do… but not right now. I’m only thirty,” she had said, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Probably in a couple of years. Is that okay?”

At the time, it had felt reasonable. Practical.

Acceptable.

Now, standing there and watching Jiya with Lucas and Emma, that same conversation carried a different weight.

Her sudden return into my life had complicated everything inside my head. Looking at her with her children stirred doubts about my future, about the woman I had chosen to marry, about the life I thought I wanted.

I had moved on.

I had buried the past and built something new with my fiancée.

And yet here I was, right back at square one, watching the woman I had once imagined as my wife and the mother of my children.

Just then, Jiya turned her head and caught me looking in her direction.

The children were sprawled across her lap, their small bodies pinning her down, making it impossible for her to stand. Without thinking, I pushed open the backyard door and stepped outside.

“Need some help?” I asked softly.

Her nostrils flared, and her eyes widened at the sight of me standing there in her backyard. I could almost hear the words she wanted to shout at me, but the children were half-asleep against her, their heads resting on her shoulders. She swallowed whatever reaction threatened to escape and gave a small nod instead.

I bent and lifted Lucas into my arms, feeling the weight of his body settle against my chest. He had been six the last time I held him like this. Now he was ten, taller, heavier, growing up far too quickly without me there to witness it. Jiya gathered Emma, cradling her, and together we walked back into the house, the dogs padding behind us.

She led the way upstairs silently, and I followed her down the hallway.

She gestured toward Lucas’s room, and I stepped inside. I carefully removed his shoes, eased him further onto the mattress, and pulled the blanket up around him. As I watched his peaceful face relax into sleep, memories rose inside me from another lifetime of nights when I had done this same routine in her apartment.

I had always loved this little boy.I loved him the way I loved my nieces and nephews with a fierce protectiveness that I couldn’t let go of.

Something softened painfully inside me, and I closed my eyes, drawing in a slow breath before exhaling.

Once, I had seen a future where this boy would have been my son.

I had wondered why Lucas had been so upset with me at the fair. Was it because he felt abandoned? Did he believe I had hurt his mother in some way?

I straightened and stepped out of his room, moving quietly down the hall.

When I entered Emma’s room, I saw Jiya placing her gently into bed, smoothing the blanket over her small body.

We left the room together without speaking and made our way downstairs, my footsteps following closely behind hers.

The moment we entered the family room, she spun around to face me.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded. “How dare you come here—uninvited?”She stepped closer, her hands sliced through the air in wide, sweeping gestures. “Did it not occur to you to call first? Or do you just show up wherever you feel like, whenever it suits you?”

Her gaze hardened as she folded her arms.

“This is my home, Caleb. Not your office. Not your meeting room.”