Chapter 23

ETHAN’S POV

 

 

Here I am standing inside the bedroom with the key still closed in my fist while facing Isabella blazing eyes, I can see her chest rising and falling as she barely control her fury. The argument has left both of us angry and tired. Her last demand ... that I open the door so she can go to the children ... hangs in the air between us.

 

Lila’s small voice calls out to her again from down the hall, follows by Liam’s more serious tone asking where Mommy went. The sound of their voice cuts through my last resolve.

 

I look at Isabella, then at the door, then back at her. Without another word, I step past her, unlock the door, and pull it open. I walk out into the hallway and close the door behind me, though I do not lock it this time. I still need the barrier. I need a moment to breathe before I do something worse and she needs to calm down.

 

I lean against the wall just outside the bedroom, listening to the muffled sounds of her moving inside the room. My pulse is still running too fast. The weight of what I just did sits heavy in my chest. I took the children, forced her to confront me and then I go ahead to lock my kids mother in a room while they call for her.

 

Her footsteps approach the door from the inside as she turns handle. Isabella pulls the open and steps into the hallway. She did not even bother to look at me. She walks straight past me towards the guest room where the twins are waiting.

 

 

ISABELLA’S POV

 

 

The moment I open the door, I don’t bother wasting time on him. I move quickly down the hallway, my heart is still pounding from the fight.

 

When I push open the guest room door, both children look up at once.

 

“Mommy!” Lila scrambles off the bed and runs to me, with her arms raised. I lift her immediately, holding her tight against my chest. She smells like the mild soap I used on her that morning and the faint scent of her bear. Liam stays seated on the edge of the bed, his hands on his lap, watching me with those serious eyes that are so much like his father’s it still startles me.

 

“You were loud,” Liam says matter-of-factly. “Are you mad?”

 

I sit on the bed beside him, keeping Lila in my arms. “I was upset,” I tell him honestly, keeping my voice steady. “But I’m here now. You’re safe.”

 

Lila pats my cheek with her small hand. “Stay with us.”

 

“I’m staying,” I promise.

 

I glance toward the doorway and Ethan is standing there, thankfully he knows not to enter, he just keeps watching us. His expression is unreadable, but the earlier cold authority is gone. He looks unsettled. Good. He should be.

 

I turn my attention fully back to the twins, deliberately shutting him out for the moment. I listen to the kids, answering questions, offering the comfort they need after the strange and abrupt change in their day.

 

After a while, their energy begins to fade. It’s late. The disruption has tired them. I help them settle under the covers, promising I will be right here. Lila falls asleep first, still holding her bear. Liam takes longer, but eventually his eyes close as well.

 

Only then do I stand and walk back to the doorway where Ethan is still waiting.

 

 

ETHAN’S POV

 

 

She comes out of the guest room quietly and closes the door most of the way behind her. When she looks at me, the fury is still there, but it’s colder now, and more controlled.

 

“They’re unsettled,” she says. “They don’t understand any of this. You put them through a completely unnecessary shock today.”

 

I don’t argue with her. There is nothing I can say that will make the way I handled this look justified.

 

“I want them home,” she continues. “In their own beds. Following their own routine.”

 

“It’s late,” I answer. “Moving them again tonight will only make it worse. They can stay here. There’s space and they’re already half-asleep.”

 

Her eyes narrow. “And me?”

 

“You can stay too.” The words come out firmer than I intend. “I’m not sending them anywhere without you, and I’m not having you drive across the city this late after everything that just happened.”

 

She stares at me for a long moment. I can see the calculation behind her eyes, weighing of the children’s immediate comfort against her own need to get away from me.

 

“Fine,” she says at last. “One night. Because it’s already late and they’re tired. But this is not an arrangement. This is not you deciding anything. Tomorrow we talk about a real plan, and it will not involve you issuing orders.”

 

I nod at her. “Tomorrow.”

 

She turns her back towards the guest room. “I’ll sleep in there with them.”

 

I don’t stop her. I watch her disappear inside and close the door softly behind her. The hallway feels too quiet afterward. I walk to the living room and stand at the windows for a long time, looking out at the city without really seeing anything.

 

I got what I wanted in the most damaging way possible. The children are here. She is here. And the cost of how I achieved it is already visible in every line of her body and every careful word she speaks.

 

 

ISABELLA’S POV

 

 

I lie in the large guest bed with Lila curled against one side and Liam on the other. Both of them sleeping deeply, exhausted by the day’s upheaval. I stare at the ceiling, listening to their soft breathing, and try to quiet the anger that is still burning under my ribs.

 

He locked me in a room.

 

The memory of it makes my hands tighten in the sheets. I understand why he did it ... the argument had escalated, I was determined to leave with the children, and he reacted. But understanding does not equal acceptance. He used force. He made a unilateral decision that affected all of us. And now I am under his roof again, not by choice, but because the alternative would have been worse for Liam and Lila tonight.

 

I turn my head and look at my son’s face in the low light. He looks so much like Ethan that it still catches me off guard. Lila’s features are softer, more like mine, but there are traces of him there too. These children are the living proof of everything that happened between us, the good, the destructive, and the unfinished.

 

Tomorrow we will have to start dealing with the practical reality. Custody. Schedules. Boundaries. Trust that currently does not exist. I am not ready for any of it, but readiness is no longer a luxury I have.

 

I close my eyes and force myself to rest, one arm around each of my children. Whatever comes next, I will face it as their mother first. Everything else, including the man on the other side of this penthouse, comes second.

 

 

ETHAN’S POV

 

 

I could not sleep.

 

I sit in the living room until well past midnight, then move to my study and try to work. The numbers on the screen mean nothing. My mind keeps returning to the guest room down the hall, to the woman who is currently protecting my children from me as much as she is protecting them for me.

 

I made mistakes today. Several of them. Taking the children from school without warning. Confronting her with the truth in the most aggressive way possible. Locking the door when the argument became physical. Each decision made sense in the moment. Together, they form a pattern she has every reason to distrust.

 

I pour a glass of water and stand at the window again. Somewhere in this city is the life she built without me ... a house, a routine, and the version of motherhood I was never allowed to see. I forced my way back into that life today. Now I have to decide whether I am capable of staying in it without destroying what she has already created.

 

For the first time since the DNA results arrived, I feel the full size of the responsibility I claimed so aggressively.