Part 4 — My Former Billionaire Husband Left Me Because of the Children, but He Saw the Twins in a Restaurant and Lost the Color in His Face

Haley’s voice was still heard on the phone when Luka ended the call.

For several seconds no one in the room said a word.

Then his phone rang again.

And again.

And again.

“Don’t answer,” I told him.

“If I don’t answer, they will hide everything.”

“You spent your whole life not answering questions.”

Luka put the phone on the table. Messages appeared on the screen one after another. The company board, bank representatives, journalists, his chief lawyer.

Everyone was interested in one thing.

Why had Luka Moretti destroyed his own marriage?

Mark stood by the window, holding the small recorder with both hands.

“I should not have sent this recording until now,” he said.

“But you sent it,” I replied.

“Because yesterday I found out that Luka’s lawyer was preparing a request for custody of the children.”

Luka turned around quickly.

“I did not make such a request.”

“But Harper prepared it. He knew that if the children appeared in your life, they could be used in the company inheritance case.”

Luka lowered his eyes.

At that moment I understood for the first time that for years as many people around him had made decisions as he himself had. But this did not erase his guilt. He listened to them. He had never listened to me.

The phone rang again.

This time it was Harper.

“Mr. Moretti, you must make a statement immediately,” the lawyer said. “You must deny the authenticity of the recording and accuse Mrs. Carter of illegally hiding the children.”

Luka was silent for several seconds.

“You are asking me to accuse my former wife?”

“I am asking you to save your fortune.”

“The children’s mother.”

“Exactly for that reason.”

Luka put the phone down.

“Harper, as of tomorrow you are no longer my lawyer.”

“You will regret this.”

“I already regret what I did nine years ago.”

He ended the call.

Later, we all moved to Luka’s office. From the glass room on the twenty-ninth floor, the city spread out beneath us. The morning sun descended over Chicago’s skyscrapers, but a cold light was burning in the room.

Luka’s lawyer, a woman named Diana Reed, played the recording.

The voice of Luka’s father sounded in the room.

“Nia Carter must be separated from Luka. Her pregnancy will make the family lose control. Haley has arranged everything. Luka must think that the problem is Nia.”

Luka raised his head.

In the recorded voice, his father’s laughter could be heard.

“My son is weak when it comes to love. Therefore, we must decide in his place.”

Luka’s face became gray.

“That is my father,” he said.

“Yes,” Diana replied. “And the recording is sufficiently clear.”

Then Mark’s voice was heard.

“Mrs. Carter calls every day.”

“Do not connect her.”

“But what if she is pregnant?”

“All the better. The longer it is hidden, the easier it will be to turn her into the accused.”

Luka turned off the audio.

His own past now stood in the room.

For the first time he was listening to his own decision in someone else’s voice.

“I believed him,” he said.

“You did not believe me,” I told him.

He did not answer.

That same evening the company began an official investigation. Haley was dismissed from the clinic, and a criminal case was opened against him. Mark gave testimony. The recording left by Luka’s father was published only after Diana obtained permission from the court, so that the children’s names would be protected.

I did not sit beside Luka in court.

I sat opposite him.

At the custody hearing, the judge listened to me for a long time. Luka presented only one request: he wanted the right to have contact with the children, but he did not ask to take them away immediately.

“I did not trust their mother when I should have protected her,” he said. “Now I have no right to drag the children into my own pain.”

The judge approved a temporary agreement. Luka could meet the children once a week, in my presence.

The first meeting took place in a small park.

The boys stood by the swings. Luka stopped a few steps away, as if approaching his own children required permission.

“What should I say to them?” he asked me.

“The truth.”

“If they ask why I was not here?”

“Then do not hide the answer from them for the first time.”

He went to the children.

“I am Luka,” he told them.

The younger boy tilted his head to the side.

“Mom said that you knew each other before.”

Luka smiled bitterly.

“Before, I knew myself very badly.”

The child took out the small wooden car. The letters carved by me were visible on its roof.

“This is our car. Mom made it.”

Luka looked at the car.

“It is very beautiful.”

“You can play too, if you follow the rules.”

Luka’s eyes lit up.

“What are the rules?”

“You must not lie and you must not take someone else’s toy.”

Luka nodded.

“I will try.”

That was their first conversation.

Not a big hug.

Not a fairy-tale reconciliation.

Only a small step begun with the truth.

For weeks Luka arrived early to every meeting. Once he brought a book, but instead of the book the boys preferred searching in the park for a lost yellow ball. Luka crawled with them through the wet grass and got mud on his expensive shoes.

I watched from a distance.

He still had many things to learn.

But the children asked nothing from him except that he come when he promised.

Three months later, the first snow came to Chicago.

The boys and I lived in a new apartment, close to Lake Michigan. In the morning, the smell of cinnamon filled the small kitchen. I had started working as an editor at a children’s-book publishing house, and in the evenings I checked the boys’ homework.

One of them drew a picture of a snowman. The other drew a house with four windows.

“Who lives here?” I asked.

“Us, you, and Luka when he comes to visit,” the older one answered.

I looked at the picture.

“Can someone be a guest and still be part of the family?”

The boy shrugged.

“If he knocks on the door and waits for them to open it.”

That evening Luka sent me a message.

“I want us to start again. Not as husband and wife. Simply as two people who must protect their children.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Then I wrote back:

“For the children, we can learn trust. I no longer want the return of my past.”

The reply came immediately.

“I understand.”

This time I asked nothing more of him.

Neither an apology.

Nor a vow.

Sometimes a person’s most sincere apology is when, for the first time, he no longer tries to change your decision.

The wooden car made years ago still stood on our shelf. Its paint had worn away here and there, while the letters had almost been rubbed off by little fingers.

One morning the boys gave the car to Luka.

“Now you keep it,” the younger one told him.

Luka took the car in both hands.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. But you remember the rules.”

Luka looked toward me.

I nodded.

The car remained in his hands.

And for the first time I was no longer afraid that someone would take my life away from me again.

Outside, snow was falling silently on the city.

This time I was no longer the one keeping the door locked.