Updated Nov 20, 2025 • ~9 min read
EMILIA
It’s day three at the lake house, and I’m starting to forget why I had my guard up.
That’s dangerous.
We’ve fallen into an easy routine. Mornings with Miles, afternoons while he naps where Asher and I talk—really talk, about everything and nothing. Evenings together as a family unit that we keep insisting we’re not.
It’s domestic and comfortable and terrifying.
Right now, Miles is napping and I’m folding his tiny clothes in the living room. Asher appears with two mugs of tea.
“I made you that herbal thing you like,” he says.
I freeze. “How did you know I drink herbal tea in the afternoons?”
He looks sheepish. “I remembered. You used to drink it when we lived together. Said coffee after noon messed with your sleep.”
He remembered. After two years, he remembered my tea preference.
“Thank you,” I manage, taking the mug.
He sits on the opposite end of the couch, careful to maintain distance. We’ve been doing this dance—close but not too close, familiar but not intimate.
“I was going through the closet in my room,” he says. “Looking for extra blankets. And I found something.”
He holds up a box. I recognize it immediately—old photo albums, the kind people used to keep before everything went digital.
“My grandmother’s,” he explains. “I forgot these were here.”
He opens the first album, and I see photos of a young Asher. Maybe three or four years old, all curls and huge eyes and gap-toothed smile.
“Oh my God, you look exactly like Miles.”
“I know. That’s what made me bring them down. Look.” He points to a photo. “Same expression Miles makes when he’s concentrating.”
He’s right. The resemblance is uncanny.
“Your mom must have seen it,” I say. “Yesterday, at the cathedral. No wonder she looked shocked.”
“She called me last night. Wants to meet Miles properly. Said she’d come here if that’s easier for you.”
The idea of Cordelia Blackwood in this space makes me tense. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”
“No pressure. I told her it was up to you. She can wait.”
We flip through more photos. Young Asher with his parents, looking stiff and formal even as a child. Asher with his grandmother, who he actually looks happy with.
“She was the only one who let me just be a kid,” he says quietly. “No expectations, no grooming me for the family business. Just… love.”
“Is that why she left you this place? Not your father?”
“Probably. She knew what he was like. What my mother was like. She wanted me to have somewhere to escape.” He traces the edge of a photo. “I wish she’d met Miles. She would have loved him.”
“Tell me about her.”
So he does. Stories about summers at this lake house, learning to fish, building forts in the woods. A childhood that sounds magical compared to the rigid formality of his parents’ world.
“That’s what I want for Miles,” he says. “Freedom to just be himself. Not the Blackwood heir, not a strategic asset. Just… a kid who feeds ducks and plays with blocks.”
“That’s what I want too.”
Our eyes meet, and there’s understanding there. Despite everything between us, we want the same thing for our son.
He flips to the next page, and I see it—a photo tucked into the back of the album, different from the others.
It’s me.
From three years ago, at the lake house I didn’t know was this lake house. We’d come here for a weekend, early in our relationship. I’m laughing at something off-camera, hair windblown, wearing one of Asher’s sweatshirts.
I look happy. Young. In love.
“You brought me here,” I say slowly. “That weekend. This is that house.”
“Yeah.” His voice is rough. “I lied when I said I’d never brought anyone here. I brought you. Only you.”
My heart is pounding. “Why didn’t you tell me when we arrived?”
“Because I wasn’t sure you’d remember. And I didn’t want to make it weird.”
“It’s weird now.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He reaches for the photo, but I stop him.
“We were happy then,” I whisper. “Before your father got involved. Before the merger. We were really happy.”
“The happiest I’ve ever been.” He’s looking at me, not the photo. “That weekend, I bought you here because I wanted to share my favorite place with my favorite person. I was going to tell you I loved you. For the first time.”
My breath catches. “You did. That night by the fire.”
“You remember.”
“Of course I remember. It was the first time someone said it and I believed them.”
The air between us is charged. We’re too close now, the distance we’d maintained evaporating.
“Emilia—”
“Don’t.” I stand quickly. “Don’t say whatever you’re about to say.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re not those people anymore. We were young and naive and we didn’t know—we didn’t know it would fall apart.”
“It fell apart because I was a coward,” he says, standing too. “Not because it was doomed. Because I made the wrong choice.”
“Well, you can’t unmake it.”
“No. But I can make better choices now.”
He’s too close. I should step back, maintain boundaries. But I can’t seem to move.
“This isn’t why I came here,” I say. “I’m not here to rekindle things. I’m here for Miles.”
“I know.”
“So why do you keep looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re still in love with me.”
The words hang between us. His expression doesn’t change.
“Because I am,” he says quietly. “I never stopped, Emilia. Not for a single day in two years.”
My heart is racing. This is too much. Too fast. “You were engaged to someone else.”
“I know. And every day I looked at Sloane and thought about you. Every time she touched me, I wished she was you. Every plan we made, I imagined it was you beside me instead.” He takes a breath. “Leaving you was the worst mistake of my life. But trying to move on was the second worst, because I finally realized—you can’t move on from the person you’re supposed to be with.”
“Asher, stop.”
“Why? Because it’s too honest? Because you don’t want to hear it?”
“Because I can’t—” My voice breaks. “I can’t do this again. I can’t let myself believe you and then have you leave when things get hard. I barely survived it the first time.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“You say that now—”
“I mean it.” He steps closer. “I have a son now. A son I’m not walking away from. And he comes with you. So even if you never forgive me, even if we never have a chance at being more than co-parents, I’m still going to be here. I’m not going anywhere, Emilia.”
Tears are streaming down my face. “You hurt me.”
“I know.”
“You broke my heart.”
“I know. And I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make up for it, if you’ll let me.”
“I don’t know if I can trust you again.”
“Then I’ll earn it back. However long it takes.”
We’re inches apart now. His hand comes up to cup my face, wiping away my tears with his thumb.
“I still have the blanket,” I whisper.
“What?”
“The blanket from this house. From that weekend. You wrapped it around me by the fire, and I was so happy I wanted to remember it forever. So I took the blanket when we left. You never asked about it.”
“I knew you took it. I let you.”
A laugh escapes through my tears. “Of course you did.”
“It’s the one Miles has now, isn’t it? The one he can’t sleep without.”
I nod. “He’s been wrapped in your love his whole life. Even when you didn’t know he existed.”
Asher makes a sound that’s half-laugh, half-sob. Then he’s pulling me into his arms, and I’m letting him, and we’re both crying and holding each other like we’re trying to fuse into one person.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers into my hair. “For all of it. For being weak. For leaving. For missing his birth and his first year and all the moments I can never get back.”
“I’m sorry too,” I manage. “For not telling you. For making that choice alone. For depriving you both of each other.”
“You were protecting him. Protecting yourself. I don’t blame you for that.”
We stand there, holding each other, until my tears stop. When I pull back, Asher’s face is wet too.
“This doesn’t fix everything,” I say.
“I know.”
“I’m still scared. Still hurt.”
“I know.”
“But maybe…” I take a shaky breath. “Maybe we can try. To figure this out. Not just as co-parents but as… something more. Eventually.”
His smile is brighter than the sun on the lake. “Eventually sounds perfect.”
From upstairs, we hear Miles stirring. The moment breaks, but something’s shifted between us. A wall coming down, just slightly.
“I’ll get him,” Asher says, reluctantly releasing me.
“Okay.”
He heads for the stairs, then turns back. “Emilia? Thank you. For giving me a chance. I won’t waste it.”
“You better not.”
He grins and disappears upstairs. I hear Miles’ delighted “DADA!” and Asher’s laugh in response.
I sink onto the couch, the photo album still open to that picture of us. Young and happy and whole.
Maybe we can be that again.
Different, certainly. Scarred by what we’ve been through.
But maybe that’s okay. Maybe broken things, when put back together, are stronger than they were before.
At least, I have to believe that.
Because the alternative—walking away from what we could be—feels impossible now.
And for the first time in two years, I’m ready to hope.
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