Within minutes, the children had decided he was safe enough to include in the tower.
Julian followed their rules without question.
He did not try to hug them. He did not ask them to call him anything. He simply built when they handed him blocks and smiled whenever one of them laughed.
I stood near the window and watched.
There was no sudden forgiveness inside me. No magical healing. But there was something else, something quieter.
Recognition.
My children had inherited more than his eyes and chin. They had inherited the part of him that knew how to kneel beside a child and let the child set the pace.
That did not excuse him.
But it reminded me why I had loved him.
After a while, Grace placed a sticker on his sleeve.
He looked down at the small purple star.
“Very nice,” he said.
“She likes stars,” I told him.
His gaze lifted to me.
“How much do you know about them?”
“Everything they’ve shown me.”
“I want to learn.”
“Then you’ll need patience.”
“I have some.”
“You’ll need more than some.”
His mouth curved faintly.
“I’ll work on it.”
The moment was almost peaceful, which made the sudden knock at the door feel intrusive.
Rachel opened it.
Charles stood on the other side, accompanied by Margaret and a man I recognized as the Whitmore family attorney. Vanessa was not with them.
Charles held a folder.
“We need to discuss the boys,” he said.
I looked at Julian.
He rose from the floor.
“Where is Vanessa?”
Charles’s expression hardened.
“She left.”
“Left the estate?”
“She said she needed air.”
Margaret clasped her hands together. “She went to the old conservatory. I sent someone to find her, but she wasn’t there.”
Julian looked unsettled.
Charles handed the folder to his attorney, who extended it toward me.
“These are the medical records Vanessa provided during the pregnancy,” the attorney said. “The family office received copies when the trust arrangements were prepared.”
I didn’t take them.
“What do they have to do with me?”
“Everything,” Charles replied. “Because your children’s test results raise a question about the boys.”
Julian’s face went pale.
“Have the boys been tested?”
“Not yet.”
“Then don’t talk about them as if they’re evidence.”
The sharpness in his voice surprised me. Charles did too.
For the first time that day, Julian stood between his father and someone else.
