Updated Oct 23, 2025 • ~11 min read
LINA’S POV
One year later.
I woke up to the sound of Celeste babbling in her crib and Seb singing off-key in the kitchen.
This was home. This specific combination of chaos and love and terrible morning concerts.
“Mama!” Celeste called when I entered her room. She was standing, holding the crib rail, bouncing with excitement.
“Good morning, baby girl.” I lifted her up, breathing in that perfect baby smell. “Did you sleep well?”
“Dada!” she responded, which was her answer to everything these days.
In the kitchen, Seb had made breakfast. Actual breakfast, not just coffee and burned toast.
“Who are you and what have you done with my husband?” I asked.
“Very funny. I can cook.”
“Since when?”
“Since my mother sent me twelve angry texts about feeding our daughter properly.” He plated eggs and fruit. “Plus, I’ve been watching cooking videos. I’m practically a chef now.”
“You made eggs and cut up a banana.”
“A beautifully plated banana.”
I kissed him, tasting coffee on his lips. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You love me.”
“Unfortunately.”
Celeste banged her hands on the high chair tray. “Dada dada dada!”
“See?” Seb said, feeding her a piece of banana. “She knows quality parenting when she sees it.”
“She literally only knows three words and Dada is one of them.”
“Exactly. I’m winning.”
After breakfast, my phone buzzed. Stella.
Coffee this afternoon? I have news!
“Stella wants to meet,” I told Seb. “Can you handle Celeste for a few hours?”
“Can I handle my own daughter? I think I’ll manage.”
“Last time I left you alone, you called me in a panic because she had a weird rash.”
“It looked serious!”
“It was applesauce. On her face.”
“In my defense, everything looks serious when it’s on your baby.”
SEB’S POV
Alone with Celeste, I realized Lina had a point.
Parenting solo was different than co-parenting. More stressful. But also more rewarding.
“Okay, baby girl,” I said, setting her down in the play area. “Let’s show Mama we’ve got this.”
Celeste immediately crawled toward the one thing she wasn’t supposed to have—the TV remote.
“No, Celeste. That’s not a toy.”
She looked at me. Smiled. Kept crawling toward it.
“This is why your mother is better at this than me.”
I redirected her with blocks. She played for exactly three minutes before getting bored. Then she wanted to be held. Then she wanted to be put down. Then she cried because I put her down.
“You’re impossible,” I told her. “You know that?”
“Dada!” She grinned, showing her four teeth.
My heart melted. Every time.
By the time Lina got home, I was exhausted. Celeste was covered in food from lunch. The living room looked like a toy explosion. But we were both alive and mostly happy.
“How did it go?” Lina asked.
“Great. Perfect. I’m never doing that alone again.”
She laughed, taking Celeste from me. “You survived.”
“Barely. How’s Stella?”
“Engaged! She wanted to tell me in person. She’s so happy, Lina. It’s disgusting.”
“Good for her. When’s the wedding?”
“Next spring. And she wants Celeste as a flower girl.”
“She can’t walk yet.”
“She will by next spring. Probably. Maybe. We’ll figure it out.”
I pulled both of them into my arms. “We always do.”
LINA’S POV
That weekend, Jasper came for his monthly visit.
He’d been dating Veronica seriously for six months now. They were talking about moving in together.
“Look at you,” I teased. “All domestic.”
“Don’t start. I’m still getting used to the idea of being a functional adult.” He scooped up Celeste when she toddled toward him. “Hey, princess. Miss me?”
“Unca!” Celeste had recently decided Jasper was “Unca” which was close enough to Uncle.
“That’s new,” Jasper said, delighted. “When did she learn that?”
“Last week. She’s adding words daily.” I smiled watching them together. “You’re good with her.”
“She’s easy to be good with.” He settled her on his lap. “How’s everything going? The adoption still final? No more legal drama?”
“Knock on wood, we’re drama-free. Seb’s green card is permanent now. The adoption’s been final for a year. We’re just… normal.”
“Normal is good.”
“Normal is amazing.”
Later, after Jasper left, Seb found me staring at Celeste’s baby book.
“Feeling nostalgic?” he asked.
“A little. She’s growing so fast. One day she was this tiny premie who fit in my hands, and now she’s walking and talking and being a person.”
“A very opinionated person.”
“She gets that from you.”
“She gets that from both of us.” He sat next to me. “But yeah, it’s going fast. Too fast.”
“Do you ever think about having another one?”
He looked at me, surprised. “Another baby?”
“Eventually. When things are more settled. When Celeste is older.” I closed the baby book. “I always imagined having more than one kid. If you want to, I mean. No pressure.”
“I want to,” he said immediately. “But Lina, are you sure? After everything with Celeste—the pregnancy, the premature birth, the NICU—”
“Was terrifying. But also the best thing that ever happened to me. To us.” I took his hand. “I’m not saying tomorrow. But someday. Another little person who’s half you, half me.”
“Well, technically Celeste is half Jasper—”
“You know what I mean.”
He kissed me. “I know what you mean. And yes. Someday. Another baby. But first, let’s make sure this one survives toddlerhood.”
“Deal.”
SEB’S POV
Two years after the adoption.
Celeste was two and a half, talking in full sentences, and had decided she was in charge of the entire household.
“No, Dada. Wrong cup,” she informed me at breakfast.
“This is your cup.”
“Want pink cup.”
“The pink cup is in the dishwasher.”
“Want. Pink. Cup.”
Lina laughed from the doorway. “Just give her the pink cup.”
“It’s dirty.”
“Then wash it. It’s easier than arguing with a toddler.”
“When did she become so bossy?”
“She’s two. They’re all bossy. And she gets it from you.”
“She gets it from you!”
“Dada and Mama fighting,” Celeste announced to no one. “Time out for both.”
Lina and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“She’s not wrong,” Lina said.
Later that week, we had our appointment with the fertility specialist.
We’d been trying for six months with no success. After Celeste’s pregnancy complications, my doctor wanted to make sure everything was okay before we kept trying.
“Everything looks good,” Dr. Coleman said, reviewing my charts. “No reason you can’t conceive naturally. Sometimes it just takes time.”
“How much time?” Lina asked.
“Could be months. Could be tomorrow. Stress doesn’t help, though. So try to relax.”
“Relax. Right. Super easy with a toddler and two full-time jobs.”
On the drive home, Lina was quiet.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“That maybe we should stop trying so hard. Let it happen naturally. If it happens.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then we have Celeste. And that’s more than enough.” She squeezed my hand. “We got lucky once. If we don’t get lucky again, I’m not going to spend years being sad about it.”
“Very pragmatic.”
“One of us has to be.”
💋 This scene continues with an exclusive bonus chapter on Patreon! Want to see them reconnecting and trying for baby #2? The uncut, steamy version is available now at patreon.com/hauda – along with early access to all new stories, extended epilogues, and more explicit content.
Three months later, Lina threw up for the third morning in a row.
“Should I get a test?” I asked.
“No. I have a stomach bug.”
“You said that yesterday.”
“It’s a persistent stomach bug.”
“Lina—”
“Fine. Get the test. But I’m not pregnant. It’s too soon after we stopped trying.”
She was pregnant.
LINA’S POV
Baby number two—a boy this time—arrived exactly on his due date.
No NICU stay. No drama. Just a regular, boring, perfect delivery that had me crying with relief.
“He’s so big,” I said, holding all eight pounds of him.
“He’s average,” the nurse corrected. “You’re just used to premies.”
“He’s perfect,” Seb said, tears streaming down his face. “Another perfect baby.”
We named him Marco. After Seb’s father.
Celeste was unimpressed. “Baby too small. Want big baby.”
“He’ll get bigger,” I promised.
“Want big now.”
“You were small once too.”
“No. Always big.”
Being a mother of two was chaos. Beautiful, exhausting chaos. But we managed. We figured it out. Like always.
SEB’S POV
Five years after that first coffee shop meeting.
Celeste was in kindergarten. Marco was two. Lina’s design business had taken off. I’d been promoted to senior management. We were living the life we’d accidentally built together.
“Do you ever think about how this started?” Lina asked one night, after both kids were asleep.
“The coffee shop? All the time.”
“Would you do it again? Knowing everything that would happen?”
I thought about it. The legal battles. The deportation scare. The custody drama. The forged emails. All of it.
“Without hesitation,” I said. “Because it led to this. To you. To them. To everything.”
“Even the parts that almost destroyed us?”
“Especially those parts. They proved we could survive anything.”
She curled into my side. “We got lucky.”
“No. We got stubborn. There’s a difference.”
“True. We’re both incredibly stubborn.”
“It’s our best quality.”
“I thought my best quality was my excellent taste in husbands.”
“That too.”
We lay there in the quiet apartment, listening to the city sounds outside and the baby monitor inside.
“Seb?” Lina said softly.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For proposing that day. For asking me to marry you even though it was crazy and reckless and probably illegal.”
“Thank you for saying yes. Three times.”
“Best decision I ever made.”
“All three times?”
“All three times.”
I kissed her. “I love you.”
“I love you too. My fake husband who became real.”
“Your only husband. Let’s not do a fourth wedding.”
“Deal. But if we renew our vows for our fiftieth anniversary—”
“We’re doing it at the courthouse. Full circle.”
“With a coffee shop reception.”
“Obviously.”
We fell asleep tangled together, like we had been since that first night we’d stopped pretending the marriage was fake.
And in the morning, we’d wake up to chaos. To kids fighting over cereal. To Celeste informing us we were doing parenting wrong. To Marco destroying something he shouldn’t touch. To life in all its messy, beautiful, imperfect glory.
This was home.
Not because of the apartment or the city or even the country.
But because we were together.
Our vows had been fake. Our baby’s conception had been unexpected. Our marriage had started as a lie.
But somehow, impossibly, we’d built something real.
A family. A life. A love that had survived courts and countries and our own worst mistakes.
And in the end, that’s what mattered.
Not how we started.
But where we ended up.
Together.
Home at last.
EPILOGUE
Ten years later
“Mom, this is so embarrassing,” Celeste groaned, now fifteen and mortified by everything.
“It’s our story,” I said, closing the scrapbook. “You asked how Dad and I met.”
“I asked for the short version. Not a novel.”
“The short version is: we made a deal that became real.”
“That’s so weird.”
“Your whole family is weird,” Marco added helpfully. Twelve years old and already a troublemaker.
Seb came in from the kitchen. “Are you telling them the story again?”
“They asked.”
“No, Celeste asked. I was just sitting here minding my own business,” Marco protested.
“You both need to know,” Seb said, sitting next to me. “How your mom and I met. How we fought for our family. How we almost lost everything.”
“But you didn’t lose everything,” Celeste said. “Obviously. Because we’re here.”
“Because we’re here,” I agreed. “Because we chose each other. Every single day.”
“Even when it was hard?” Marco asked.
“Especially when it was hard.”
“That’s gross,” Celeste said. “But also kind of romantic.”
“Wait until you’re older,” Seb said. “Then you’ll understand.”
“I’m never falling in love. It sounds like too much drama.”
Marco and I laughed.
“What?” Celeste demanded.
“You’re definitely your mother’s daughter,” Seb said. “That’s exactly what she said. Right before she married me. Three times.”
“Three times?!” Marco’s eyes went wide. “Why did you get married three times?”
“Because your father is an overachiever,” I said.
“Because your mother is worth it,” Seb corrected.
“Gross,” both kids said in unison.
But they were smiling. And later that night, I caught Celeste looking through the scrapbook again. Reading our story. Seeing how we’d started and where we’d ended up.
“It’s a good story,” she admitted.
“The best,” I said. “Because it’s ours.”
And it was.
Messy. Complicated. Unconventional. But ours.
From a fake marriage to real love.
From strangers to family.
From a coffee shop deal to a lifetime together.
Home at last.
Finally.
Completely.
Forever.
THE END
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