I keep glancing back through the airport crowds, searching for something, someone, I tell myself isn't coming. My eyes scan every face, every suit, every dark-haired man, even though I know it's pointless.
Adrian doesn't even know we're already here. The message I sent was deliberate, final. He's probably at his office, busy.
"Elena," Henri calls my name for the third time, patient but concerned. "Ma chérie, you have Gatsby's carrier."
I look down, startled to find I'm about to walk through security with the wrong twin. Catrice is still sitting in her carrier by Henri's feet while I'm holding Gatsby, about to take him through twice.
"I'm sorry," I mumble, switching the carriers with shaking hands. "I don't know where my mind is."
"You're distracted," Henri says gently, no accusation in his tone. He takes Gatsby's carrier from me, balancing both twins with ease. "It's understandable."
"It's just happening so fast," I say, forcing a smile that feels like it might crack my face. "Yesterday I was in New York, and now... leaving everything behind."
"Not everything," Henri corrects softly, kissing my temple with infinite tenderness. "You're bringing the most important things with you. The rest is just geography."
He continues talking as we move through security, his melodious voice painting pictures of our future. I nod mechanically, making appropriate sounds, but my heart pounds erratically against my ribs.
Each step feels heavier than the last, like I'm walking through quicksand. I turned off my phone an hour ago to avoid temptation, but I can't stop imagining Adrian reading my message.
"The local village has an excellent school," Henri continues, oblivious to my internal spiral. "Small classes, individual attention. The twins will grow up bilingual, cultured. They'll have every opportunity."
"That sounds wonderful," I manage, though the words taste like sawdust.
We're on the escalator to the international terminal now, past security, past the point where you can change your mind and run back. The twins are quiet in their carriers, Gatsby sleeping, Catrice staring at the bright lights.
That's when Adrian's voice explodes through the airport speakers.
"Elena! Please stop. Don't move. I'll find you wherever you are."
The sound system crackles with feedback, his voice raw and desperate, nothing like the controlled CEO tone I know so well. Everyone around us stops, craning their necks, looking for the source of this drama.
A few people pull out phones, probably hoping to capture whatever romantic gesture or public breakdown is about to happen.
"Adrian," I whisper his name without meaning to, my body moving instinctively toward the balcony edge. And there he is—three floors down in the main terminal, fighting through security.
Two TSA agents are trying to restrain him, but he's not fighting them, just pushing forward with desperate determination, his expensive suit rumpled, his hair completely disheveled.
"I was an idiot!" His voice carries across the terminal, echoing off the high ceilings. "I'm unworthy of you and our children. You have every right to leave me, every reason to hate me forever."
"Sir, you need to calm down," one of the security guards says, loud enough for the mic to pick up.
"I'll calm down when my family isn't about to disappear forever," Adrian shoots back, then raises his voice again. "Elena, I'm begging you—don't go. Don't take them. I love you and the twins more than life itself."
My hands fly to my mouth, tears already streaming down my face.
This is Adrian Blackwood, the man who never shows emotion in public, who once fired someone for crying in a board meeting, bearing his soul in front of hundreds of strangers.
"If keeping you means hanging onto the plane's wing until I'm crushed, I'll do it," he continues, his voice cracking. "If it means following you to France and standing outside your door every day until you forgive me, I'll do that too.”
Security is actively holding Adrian back now, but even they seem reluctant to drag away a man so clearly destroyed.
“Just please, please don't leave. Give me one more chance to prove I can be the man you deserve, the father they deserve."
A drunk businessman near me, waiting for his own flight, suddenly shouts, "Girl, forgive him, whatever he did! Or I'll forgive him myself!"
"Harold!" His mortified wife smacks the back of his head. "You're embarrassing yourself!" "For God's sake, stop embarrassing yourself." his wife mutters, dragging him toward their gate.
But others are nodding, murmuring agreement.
I turn to Henri, tears streaming down my face, my heart tearing in two. I try to find words, apologies, explanations, something, but he stops me with a gentle hand on my cheek.
"No need," he says with sad grace, his gray-green eyes understanding everything without my having to say it. "I can see it in your face, Elena. I saw it the moment you heard his voice."
"Henri, I'm so sorry," I manage through my tears. "You saved me when I was drowning. You gave me strength when I had none. You made me believe I could be loved again."
Henri shakes his head with a bittersweet smile, adjusting Gatsby's carrier one more time.
"No, Elena. You saved yourself. You pulled yourself from the wreckage, found work, raised these babies alone. You're a hero, and these twins are lucky to have a mother like you."
"I never meant to hurt you," I whisper.
"I know," he says simply. "We don't choose who we love, Elena. We only choose what we do about it."
"Thank you," I whisper, the words completely inadequate for everything he's given me. "Thank you for everything."
Henri kisses my forehead one last time, then gently pushes me toward the escalator. "Go, before security actually arrests him."
I run carefully, with both carriers, probably looking insane, back through security, showing my boarding pass to confused agents who wave me through.
Down the escalator, my heels clicking frantically, the carriers bumping against my legs. The moment the security guards see me coming, they release Adrian.
He staggers forward, and then I'm in his arms. He kisses my tear-stained face, my forehead, my mouth, then kisses each twin's tiny head through their carriers.
"I swear everything will be different now," he breathes against my hair when he stands, pulling me close again. "I will never disappoint you again. I'll go to therapy, couple's counseling, whatever it takes. I’ll be there."
"Adrian…"
"I know I don't deserve another chance," he continues, his hands framing my face. “But I love you, Elena. I've loved you since the moment we met, even when I was too stupid to show it properly."
The airport crowd, fully invested in this public drama now, breaks into applause. Someone whistles. Harold shouts, "I TOLD YOU!" before his wife drags him away for good.
Adrian takes both carriers, then my hand, lacing our fingers together with his free hand. "Let's go home," he says simply.
As he leads us toward the exit, past the cheering strangers and back into our complicated, messy, imperfect life, I realize that maybe that's enough.
Maybe home isn't a place but a choice—to try again, to forgive, to believe that broken things can be rebuilt stronger.
The automatic doors open to the New York streets, and we walk through them together—a family, complicated and scarred, but still standing.
Still hoping. Still ours.