My billionaire ex-husband blamed me for our childless marriage and walked away—eight years later, he entered a restaurant and saw me sitting with twins who had his unmistakable eyes.

Chapter 19

We told the twins the next morning.

Dominic came over early — he’d barely slept, he admitted, he’d spent half the night just looking at the ring box — and we sat the children down at the kitchen table with pancakes, because Zara had made it clear that no major announcement should occur without appropriate carbohydrates.

“I have something to tell you,” I said.

Eli looked up, alarmed. “Are we moving?”

“No.”

“Are you sick?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

Dominic and I exchanged a look.

“Dominic and I are going to get married,” I said. “Again. We were married before, a long time ago, before you were born. And now we’ve decided to do it again.”

Zara’s fork clattered onto her plate.

“YOU’RE GETTING MARRIED?”

“Yes.”

She looked at Dominic. “Is this true?”

“It’s true,” he said.

“And you’re going to live with us?”

“That’s the plan.”

“And you’re going to be here all the time?”

“All the time.”

Zara processed this for exactly one second.

Then she launched herself across the table.

I caught her mid-air — she was getting big, but I still caught her — and she wrapped her arms around my neck and then around Dominic’s, and Eli watched the chaos with the careful expression he wore when he was deciding how to feel about something.

“Eli?” I said gently.

He looked at Dominic.

“Are you going to stay this time?”

The question landed like a stone in still water.

Dominic didn’t rush to answer. He knelt down beside Eli’s chair so they were at eye level.

“I can’t promise I’ll never make mistakes,” he said. “I told you that before, and I meant it. I’ll probably disappoint you sometimes. I’ll probably be late sometimes. I’ll probably burn more pancakes.”

Eli almost smiled.

“But I can promise you this,” Dominic said. “I will never leave. Not again. Not ever. I’m not going anywhere, Eli. I’m staying.”

Eli studied him for a long moment.

Then he nodded. “Okay.”

Just that. “Okay.”

But it was the most beautiful word I had ever heard.

Eli slid off his chair and walked over to Dominic, and Dominic opened his arms, and my son — my careful, guarded, watchful son — let himself be held.

Zara was already crying.

“I’m not crying,” she announced, through tears. “I’m just — emotionally hydrated.”

Dominic laughed. “I’m going to remember that phrase.”

“Good. It’s copyrighted.”

The engagement lasted four months.

Not because we wanted to wait — because there was a wedding to plan, and because Dominic had made a list.

“I want it small,” he said. “No press. No coverage. No corporate event.”

“You’re Dominic Hayward. There’s going to be coverage whether you want it or not.”

“Then we’ll do it somewhere they can’t find us.”

We did it at Jade’s lake house.

Two hours outside the city, a wooden deck overlooking the water, string lights, and forty of the people we loved most in the world. Jade stood beside me. Zara carried the rings with such seriousness you’d have thought she was transporting national treasure. Eli had written a reading and had been practicing it in his room for weeks.

The morning of the wedding, I stood in front of the mirror in the guest room, wearing a simple white dress, and I thought about the last time I had done this.

The first wedding had been a production. Three hundred guests. A venue that cost more than our first apartment. Dominic’s mother crying. Dominic’s father making a toast about legacy and empire and all the things a Hayward marriage was supposed to represent.

This wedding was different.

This wedding was about two people who had learned, the hard way, what actually mattered.

Jade came in and found me staring at myself.

“Hey.” She came up behind me. “You okay?”

“I’m thinking about the last time.”

“Don’t.” She met my eyes in the mirror. “That was a different Imani. That was a girl who was marrying a man she didn’t really know yet — and who didn’t really know himself. You’re not her anymore.”

“I know.”

“This is different.”

“I know.”

“You’re not settling for a second chance, Imani.” Jade put her hands on my shoulders. “You’re choosing a new one. That’s not the same thing.”

I looked at my sister in the mirror — the woman who had taken me in when I was pregnant and terrified, who had held my hand through labor, who had helped me raise my children, who had never once made me feel like a burden.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you too.” She grinned. “Now let’s go marry that idiot before he burns the lake house down trying to look useful.”