Elara's POV
I felt like a rope in a tug-of-war, fraying more with every pull.
Both men wanted time with the kids now. Michael insisted on taking them Saturday afternoon—"Just a few hours, let me get to know them"—and I agreed because I didn't know how to say no. Because part of me still felt guilty for the five years he'd missed, even if I wasn't sure they were his to miss.
He took them to an expensive indoor playground in Manhattan, the kind with climbing walls and ball pits and a café that served twelve-dollar smoothies. When they came home, the kids were loaded down with shopping bags—new toys, new clothes, a giant stuffed elephant that Lily could barely carry.
"Michael bought us EVERYTHING," Oliver announced, dumping his haul on the living room floor.
But beneath the excitement, I saw the cracks. The kids were overstimulated, cranky, crashing from a sugar high I hadn't authorized. Lily burst into tears over nothing. Ethan retreated to his room without a word.
And Oliver—
"I don't think Michael likes me very much," Oliver said quietly while I was tucking him in.
My heart clenched. "What makes you say that, baby?"
"He kept telling me to stop running. And when I got tired and wanted to sit down, he said we hadn't even been there that long." Oliver picked at his blanket, not meeting my eyes. "And when Lily cried because she was scared of the big slide, he said she was being silly. That it was just a slide."
"What else happened?"
"He bought us lots of stuff, but he didn't really want to play with me. He just watched from the bench and looked at his phone." Oliver's voice got smaller. "And at lunch he ordered us grown-up food. I didn't like it, but he said I should try new things. Ethan ate his because Ethan always does what people say, but me and Lily were still hungry after."
I smoothed his hair, searching for the right words. "Sometimes grown-ups who haven't been around kids much don't know how to play the way you want. It doesn't mean he doesn't like you."
"Aiden plays with me."
The words hung in the air, simple and devastating.
"I know, baby. I know."
I kissed his forehead and promised him everything was okay, but my mind was churning. Michael had tried—I knew he had. The expensive playground, the gifts, the effort to spend time with them.
But trying wasn't the same as connecting. He'd treated them like small adults, expecting them to keep up with his pace, to entertain themselves, to be grateful for the things he bought instead of the attention he didn't know how to give.
It wasn't malice. It was inexperience. The disconnect of a man who'd lived alone for years, who didn't understand that children needed presence more than presents. Who didn't realize that sitting on the floor building block towers mattered more than a hundred-dollar stuffed elephant.
I didn't sleep well that night.
Sunday afternoon, Aiden stopped by unannounced. He was carrying a Tupperware container and looking almost shy—an expression I'd never seen on him before.
"My mom's recipe," he said, holding out the container. "Chocolate chip cookies. I thought the kids might like them."
He baked for them. This billionaire CEO spent his Sunday morning baking cookies from his mother's recipe for three children who might not even be his.
"AIDEN!" Lily came running from the living room and wrapped herself around his leg like a koala. "Can you stay for dinner? Please please please?"
He looked at me, asking permission with his eyes. I nodded, not trusting my voice.
I watched them through dinner—Aiden helping Ethan cut his chicken into the specific shapes he preferred, making Lily laugh with silly voices, patiently rebuilding Oliver's block tower every time it fell. When Oliver got frustrated and knocked the whole thing over on purpose, Aiden didn't lecture him about behavior. He just said, "Sometimes we need to knock things down before we can build them better."
No flashy gestures. No expensive gifts. Just presence. Attention. Care.
The contrast with Michael's afternoon couldn't be sharper.
After dinner, Aiden read them a story—all three kids piled onto the couch beside him, fighting over who got to sit closest. He did different voices for each character, dramatic pauses that made them shriek with anticipation, and when Oliver fell asleep halfway through, he carried him to bed without missing a beat.
"Thank you," I said at the door, after the kids were all tucked in. "For today. For the cookies. For..." I gestured vaguely, unable to articulate everything I meant.
"You don't have to thank me." His eyes were soft in the hallway light. "I wanted to be here."
That was the difference, I realized. Michael wanted to be their father. Aiden just wanted to be with them.
That night, after he left and the apartment was quiet, I sat on my fire escape and stared at nothing. The city hummed below me, millions of lives unfolding, and here I was—paralyzed by a choice I didn't know how to make.
The autumn air was cold, but I didn't go inside. I needed the discomfort. Needed something to feel besides the tangled mess of emotions in my chest.
Michael was offering me everything I'd once wanted. The life we'd planned. The family we'd dreamed of. He was willing to divorce Sienna, to fight for me, to make up for five lost years. He was trying so hard to be what I needed, what the kids needed.
But trying wasn't the same as being.
He'd bought them everything they pointed at and nothing they actually needed. He'd taken them somewhere exciting and then expected them to entertain themselves. He'd dismissed their fears and frustrations because he didn't understand that four-year-olds weren't just small adults—they were entirely different creatures with entirely different needs.
It wasn't his fault. He'd never been around children. Never learned the patience, the flexibility, the willingness to enter their world instead of expecting them to rise to his.
But my kids deserved someone who understood them. Who saw them.
And Aiden—
Aiden felt like home in a way I couldn't explain. Unknown, unexpected, but somehow exactly right. The way he looked at my kids like they were already his. The way he looked at me like I was something worth waiting for. The way he didn't try to be a father—he just was one, naturally, instinctively, like he'd been waiting his whole life for these three chaotic children to crash into his world.
I didn't know what I wanted. Didn't know which future to choose. The familiar comfort of the past, or the terrifying possibility of something new.
My phone buzzed on the windowsill. Michael's name lit up the screen.
I told Sienna I want a divorce. For you. For us.
I stared at the message until the screen went dark. Read it again. Stared some more.
He'd actually done it. Left his wife for me. Blown up his life on the chance that I might choose him.
The guilt was immediate and crushing. Sienna didn't know what she'd done to me—as far as she knew, I'd disappeared for no reason and she'd simply fallen in love with the man I left behind. And now Michael was leaving her, because of me. Because I'd walked back into his life and turned everything upside down.
But beneath the guilt was something else. Something that felt uncomfortably like disappointment.
Because even now, with this grand gesture glowing on my phone screen, I wasn't thinking about Michael.
I was thinking about chocolate chip cookies and silly voices and the way Aiden had carried Oliver to bed like he'd done it a thousand times before.
The choice I'd been avoiding just got a lot more complicated.
And I still didn't know which way I'd fall.