The children gathered close to me.

“Ready?” I asked softly.

They nodded.

Together, we walked toward the house.

When the door opened, everything seemed to freeze. There he was. Dominic. Older now, a little heavier, but still handsome in that polished, carefully maintained way he’d always been.

Beside him stood a blonde woman in a red dress, wearing the kind of smile a woman wears when she believes an engagement ring is coming.

His new girlfriend.

But Dominic’s confidence vanished the moment he saw the children.

His eyes moved from one small face to the next, then back again. All the color left his face. I watched realization slowly break through as his gaze locked onto Logan, then Mason, then Chloe, then Lily.

The resemblance was impossible to deny.