Chapter 4 - THE PASSING SEASONSWinter melted into the raw, gray slush of a Boston March. Spring arrived with heavy rains that turned the schoolyard mud to soup and brought blooming daffodils through the damp earth of the public parks.
In those four months, Julian Carter didn't just walk out of their lives.
He stayed.
It started with small things. A delivery of brand-new winter boots left at the diner for the twins when their old ones fell apart. A tutoring session on Tuesday afternoons when Julian’s driver would drop him off at their small apartment with groceries and math workbooks. By April, Julian was as much a part of their routine as the morning school bell.
For Rebecca, the wall around her heart—built from years of poverty, struggle, and abandonment—began to crumble, grain by grain.
She learned that beneath the billionaire exterior was a man who had grown up in an orphanage, a man who built an empire because he was terrified of ever being helpless again. She learned how he looked at her when he thought she wasn't watching—not with hunger, but with a deep, protective reverence.
One Saturday in late April, they were sitting on a blanket in the Boston Public Gardens, watching Ava and Norah chase ducks near the pond.
Julian turned to Rebecca, holding a paper coffee cup between his hands.
"I bought a house," he said quietly.
Rebecca blinked, turning her head. "A house? In the city?"
"In Brookline," Julian corrected, looking straight ahead at the girls. "It has a big backyard. Oak trees. A swing set. And two bedrooms upstairs that would look wonderful painted yellow and pink."
Rebecca’s heart skipped a beat. She felt the air catch in her throat. "Julian... what are you saying?"
Julian turned, setting the coffee cup down on the grass, and took her work-roughened hand in his. His thumb brushed softly over her knuckles.
"I’m saying I love you, Rebecca," he said, his voice dropping to a low, trembling intensity. "And I love those girls as if I had held them the day they were born. Marry me. Let me give you a home where you never have to work a double shift again. Let me be their dad—not just for a Christmas party, but forever."
Rebecca stared at him, tears blurring her vision until the Boston skyline dissolved into a shimmering watercolor.
She opened her mouth to answer.
May you like
Before the word could form, a sharp, cold voice sliced through the spring air behind them.
"Well, well, well. Look what we have here. Playing happy family with another man’s kids."
