After My Ex Kidnapped My Daughter, My Husband Ruined Him

The afternoon light came through the kitchen window in long gold strips. I sat at the table with my sketchbook open, a pencil balanced against my thumb. My belly pressed against the table's edge now, seven months round, and I'd started resting my other hand on it without noticing I did it.

Across from me, Lily hunched over a coloring book, tongue between her teeth, filling a dragon in with three different shades of purple because she said one purple wasn't "interesting enough." She got that from Magnus. He never settled for one version of anything either.

"Mommy, look." She held up the page. The dragon had wings the size of buildings.

"That's a good dragon," I said. "Very fierce."

"He's friendly," she said, offended. "He just looks fierce."

I smiled and went back to my own page — a ring, wide band, a cluster of small stones instead of one big one. I'd been sketching rings again lately. Old habit. Magnus said I did it when I was happy. I didn't tell him it was true.

The doorbell rang.

Lily's head popped up. "I'll get it!"

"No, baby, stay there." I pushed up from the table, one hand under my belly, and walked to the door. I wasn't expecting anyone. Adaline had Lily's pickup covered for tomorrow, the building's package room held anything bigger than an envelope, and Magnus was in London until Thursday.

I opened the door.

For a second, I didn't understand what I was looking at. Then I did, and my stomach dropped somewhere south of my knees.

Kian Reyes stood in my hallway.

He was thinner than I remembered. Older, too, in a way that wasn't just years — something had worn down in his face, like a coin rubbed smooth. He wore a gray coat that looked expensive and slightly too big on him now, and he held a small velvet box in both hands, the way you'd carry something you were proud of.

"Brynn." He said my name like he'd been saving it. Like it cost him something to spend it now. "You look good."

"What are you doing here?" My voice came out flatter than I expected. Good. Flat was good.

"Can I come in?"

"No."

He blinked, like the word had never been used on him before. Then he smiled anyway, the same smile that used to make my chest go warm five years ago. It did nothing now. It was just teeth.

"Sawyer passed," he said. "Six weeks ago. Cancer. It was fast, at the end."

I didn't say I was sorry, because I wasn't sure I was, and I've never been good at lying to a man's face.

"Ethan needs a mother," he went on, like I'd asked. "He's four. He doesn't remember much of her already, and I keep thinking — I keep thinking about you. About us. About how things could've gone if I hadn't been so stupid back then." He held the box up slightly, an offering. "I know this is a lot. I know I don't deserve an easy yes. But I'm here, Brynn. I came back for you. You should—" He paused, like he was choosing the kindest possible phrasing. "You should feel lucky I did."

Somewhere behind me, I heard Lily's chair scrape against the floor. I didn't turn around.

"Lucky," I repeated.

"I know it sounds strange," he said, mistaking my tone for softening. "But how many men come back and offer this? A family. A real one. You're still not married, still no ring on your hand—" his eyes flicked, briefly, to my stomach, then away, like he'd decided not to notice it yet, "—and I'm giving you the chance to have everything you always wanted."

He opened the box.

The ring sat inside on a bed of white satin, and my whole body went cold in a way that had nothing to do with the draft coming off the stairwell.

I knew that ring.

I took it from the box before I decided to. My fingers knew its weight before my mind caught up — the exact placement of the stones, the exact curve of the band. I'd drawn this ring myself, five years ago, in a sketchbook I kept under my mattress like a secret. A ring I'd dreamed he might someday put on my finger.

I turned it toward the light from the hallway window.

And there it was, engraved in small, careful script on the inside of the band, exactly where I'd once imagined my own initials would go.

*K & S Forever.*

I stood there holding it, feeling something in my chest go very still and very quiet — not sadness. Something colder than that. Something with edges.

"Brynn?" Kian said, and for the first time, a thread of uncertainty ran through his voice. "Say something."