Updated Nov 20, 2025 • ~12 min read
EMILIA
Miles sleeps for exactly seventy-three minutes on Asher’s chest. I know because I watch the clock the entire time, unable to look away from the sight of them together.
Asher hasn’t moved. True to his word, he’s been completely still, one hand supporting Miles’ back, the other holding the elephant. His tuxedo jacket is off now, bow tie undone and hanging loose, sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
He looks nothing like the polished society heir from the cathedral. He looks like a father.
And that terrifies me more than anything.
Because I can handle Asher the businessman, Asher the ex-boyfriend, even Asher the man who broke my heart. Those versions of him I can protect myself against.
But Asher the father? Asher looking at our son like Miles hung the moon? That version might actually crack through every defense I’ve built.
When Miles finally stirs, stretching and blinking awake, Asher’s face does something that makes my chest ache.
“Hey, buddy,” he whispers. “Good nap?”
Miles yawns, looks up at Asher like he’s trying to remember who this is, then apparently decides he’s acceptable. He pats Asher’s cheek. “Dada awake.”
Asher’s eyes fill with tears. Again. He’s cried more in the past two hours than I ever saw him cry in our entire relationship.
“Yeah, Dada’s awake,” he manages.
Miles wiggles free, climbing down to toddle to his toy box. Crisis averted. He’s awake and not traumatized by waking up on a stranger. Small mercies.
I stand, stretching muscles stiff from sitting too long. “I need to start dinner. He eats at five-thirty or everything falls apart.”
“What does he eat?”
“Tonight? Probably mac and cheese shaped like dinosaurs, peas if I’m lucky, and apple slices.”
“Can I help?”
The question surprises me. “You cook?”
“I mean, no. Not really. But I can follow instructions. Or cut apples. I successfully cut apples earlier.” He’s trying so hard, this man who probably has personal chefs and meal delivery services.
“Sure. You can cut apples.”
We move into the kitchen, falling into an awkward dance of shared space. I pull out the box of mac and cheese while Asher washes his hands at the sink.
“This feels domestic,” he says quietly.
“It’s just dinner.”
“It’s more than that. It’s—” He pauses, searching for words. “I’m making dinner with you. For our son. That’s not nothing, Emilia.”
“I know.” I fill a pot with water, set it to boil. “But don’t make it bigger than it is. You’re cutting apples, not proposing.”
The word “proposing” hangs in the air, awful and awkward. He was supposed to be married right now. Instead he’s in my sister’s kitchen.
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “That was—I didn’t mean to bring up—”
“It’s fine.” He starts cutting an apple with more care than the task requires. “For what it’s worth, calling off that wedding is the best decision I’ve made in two years.”
“Your family must be furious.”
“Undoubtedly. I’ve had forty-seven missed calls from my father since the cathedral. I’m sure there’s a strongly-worded lecture waiting when I finally answer.”
“You should probably answer.” I add the pasta to the boiling water. “He’s your father.”
“He’s the reason I left you in the first place.”
The words land like a bomb. We’ve been dancing around it, but there it is.
“He didn’t force you,” I say carefully. “You made a choice.”
“Did I?” Asher sets down the knife, turns to face me. “Or did I just cave to pressure like I’ve been doing my entire life?”
“I don’t know, Asher. You tell me.”
ASHER
She deserves the truth. All of it.
“My father called me into his office,” I say, the memory still bitter. “Two weeks before I left you. The merger with the Covington family was falling apart. They didn’t trust that I’d stay loyal to the deal. They wanted… insurance.”
“So he told you to marry Sloane.”
“Not told. Heavily implied. Said that if I wanted to be CEO someday, if I wanted to prove I was serious about the family legacy, I needed to make the right choice. The smart choice.”
“And I wasn’t the smart choice.” Her voice is flat.
“You were the only choice that mattered. But I couldn’t see it then. All I could see was my father’s disappointment, the expectations of everyone who’d invested in me being the Blackwood heir, the weight of this legacy I’d been carrying since birth.” I move closer to her. “I convinced myself I was setting you free. That you deserved better than being trapped in my world. But the truth is, I was just weak.”
“You were a coward,” she says, echoing her earlier words. “You loved me—or said you did—but you loved your father’s approval more.”
“No.” The word comes out fierce. “I loved you more. That’s what made it so hard. I was terrified of how much I loved you. How you made me want to walk away from all of it—the company, my family’s plans, everything—just to build a life with you. That terrified me.”
She stares at me. “So you left me because you loved me too much? That’s the most ridiculous—”
“I know how it sounds. But Emilia, I’d never felt that way about anyone. Like I’d burn down the world just to make you happy. Like nothing else mattered. It was intense and consuming and I didn’t know how to handle it. So when my father gave me an out, when he framed it as the responsible choice, I took it. And I’ve regretted it every day since.”
EMILIA
I want to stay angry. Want to hold onto my righteous fury. But the raw honesty in his voice is making it hard.
“You still hurt me,” I say quietly. “You still chose your father over me. Over us.”
“I know.”
“And then I found out I was pregnant. The day after you left. The day after my entire world fell apart.” My eyes burn. “I took three tests because I couldn’t believe it. And I sat on the bathroom floor and tried to figure out what to do.”
“You could have called me.”
“And said what?” I turn to face him fully. “Hey, I know you just dumped me to marry someone else, but surprise! I’m pregnant. That totally wouldn’t have looked like I was trying to trap you.”
“I would have—”
“What? Canceled the merger? Told your father no? You couldn’t even do that for our relationship. Why would a baby change anything?”
The words are harsh, but they need to be said. We can’t move forward without excavating all this pain.
“You’re right,” he says softly. “I don’t know what I would have done. I’d like to think I would have stepped up. That knowing about Miles would have given me the strength to tell my father to fuck off. But I honestly don’t know.”
At least he’s honest.
“So I made the choice for both of us,” I continue. “I decided I’d rather raise him alone than watch you resent us for ruining your precious merger. I got a new job, moved in with Cora, and built a life without you.”
“Was it hard?”
“What do you think?” I laugh bitterly. “I was pregnant, alone, terrified. My sister helped, but she has her own life. I worked until I was eight months pregnant, saved every penny. Went to every doctor’s appointment alone. Delivered him alone.”
“Cora was there—”
“She was. And I’m grateful. But it wasn’t the same as—” My voice breaks. “It wasn’t how it was supposed to be. We were supposed to do it together, Asher. We’d talked about it. Remember? That night we stayed up planning our future? You said you wanted kids. Three, maybe four. You said you’d be at every appointment, every milestone. You said you’d be the dad yours never was.”
His face crumbles. “I remember.”
“So when I was in labor, and Cora was holding my hand, all I could think about was you. How you were supposed to be there. How you were supposed to be the one telling me I could do it. And you weren’t. Because you chose not to be.”
I’m crying now, two years of repressed pain pouring out. The pasta is boiling over but I can’t make myself care.
Asher crosses to me, and I don’t stop him when he pulls me into his arms. I should. I should push him away and remind him he doesn’t get to comfort me after causing the hurt.
But God, I’m so tired of being strong alone.
I sob into his chest—still wearing his dress shirt from his almost-wedding—and let it all out. The loneliness, the fear, the anger, the grief for what we lost.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into my hair. “I’m so fucking sorry, Emilia. For all of it. You’re right. I should have been there. I should have fought for you. For us. And I’ll spend the rest of my life wishing I could go back and make different choices.”
“You can’t.”
“I know.” His arms tighten around me. “But I can start making better choices now. I can be the father Miles deserves. The man you deserved two years ago and didn’t get.”
“Mama sad?” Miles’ voice cuts through the moment.
We break apart to find him standing in the kitchen doorway, lower lip trembling, elephant clutched to his chest.
“Mama’s okay, baby.” I swipe at my tears, force a smile. “Come here.”
He runs to me, and I scoop him up. He pats my wet cheeks with his little hands.
“No cry, Mama.”
“I’m okay. These are just… grown-up tears. Sometimes adults need to cry too.”
“Dada make Mama cry?” Miles turns an accusatory look at Asher.
“Yeah, buddy,” Asher says, his voice rough. “Dada made Mama cry. And Dada is very sorry.”
Miles considers this. Then he holds out his elephant to me. “Eph help.”
The simple gesture breaks me all over again. This beautiful, empathetic little boy, offering his most precious possession to make me feel better.
“Thank you, sweet boy.” I kiss his curly head. “Eph definitely helps.”
The pot is definitely boiling over now. I set Miles down and rush to rescue dinner, grateful for something to do with my hands.
“Dada stay dinner?” Miles asks.
Asher looks at me, the question in his eyes.
I should say no. Should enforce boundaries, keep distance. But Miles is looking at his father with such hope.
“Yeah,” I hear myself say. “Dada can stay for dinner.”
ASHER
Dinner with my son is chaos.
Miles throws pasta. He rejects the peas after eating exactly two. He demands more apples, then won’t eat them. He drops his cup three times and thinks it’s hilarious.
And it’s the best meal of my life.
“He’s always like this?” I ask as Emilia wipes mac and cheese out of Miles’ hair for the third time.
“This is a good night. Last week he decided to wear his dinner instead of eating it.”
“Wore it?”
“Mashed potatoes. Head to toe. I have photos.”
“I want to see them. All of them. Every photo you have.”
She pauses, studying me. “That’s… a lot of photos.”
“I’ve missed two years. I want to see everything.”
After dinner—after the chaos of cleanup, during which Miles “helps” by throwing napkins in the trash and mostly missing—Emilia pulls out her phone.
“Okay,” she says. “But I’m warning you. There are hundreds. Maybe thousands.”
She sits on the couch, and I sit beside her. Close enough to see the screen, not so close that I’m crowding her. Miles is on the floor, playing with blocks.
She opens her photo app, and my breath catches.
Photo after photo of Miles. Newborn Miles, tiny and red-faced. Miles at one month, two months, three. First smile. First bath. First everything.
Emilia pregnant, her belly round, her hand cradling it. My son, safe inside her, while I was God knows where doing God knows what worthless task.
Miles learning to crawl. Miles covered in birthday cake. Miles taking his first steps, arms outstretched toward the camera—toward Emilia.
Every photo is a moment I missed. A memory I wasn’t there to make.
“This one’s my favorite,” Emilia says softly, stopping on a photo. It’s Miles asleep on her chest, both of them in a rocking chair. She looks exhausted but radiantly happy. “Three weeks old. He’d been crying for hours. I was losing my mind. Finally got him to sleep, and Cora snapped this. I look like death, but—”
“You look beautiful,” I say, my voice rough. “You both do.”
She swipes to the next photo. And the next. A whole life, documented in pixels and love. A life I should have been part of.
“I can send you these,” she offers. “If you want. I know it’s not the same as being there, but—”
“Yes. Please. I want every single one.”
She nods, makes a note. We keep scrolling in silence, Miles playing contentedly at our feet.
“I promise,” I say quietly, “from this day forward, I’ll be in the photos. Not just looking at them after the fact. Actually there, actually present.”
“That’s a big promise.”
“It’s one I intend to keep.”
She looks at me, searching for something. “We’ll see.”
It’s not trust. Not yet. But it’s not outright rejection either.
It’s a start.
And I’ll take it.
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