The voice on the other end of Eliza’s phone asked a question Julian couldn’t hear.
Eliza kept her eyes on him.
“Yes,” she said.
“Four children.
Same alleged father.”
Julian flinched at the word alleged, even though he understood why she used it.
Peter had already run back toward his brothers, dragging the red kite behind him.
The boys resumed arguing about who was captain, unaware that their mother was arranging a test that would redraw the borders of their family.
Eliza turned away slightly and gave the necessary information.
No names were spoken loudly enough for the children to hear.
When she ended the call, she slid the phone back into her canvas tote.
“There,” she said.
Julian stared at her.
“You agreed quickly.”
“I’ve had five years to imagine this conversation.”
That stopped him.
He looked at the boys again.
“Did you ever think I’d find out?”
“Every day.”
“Then why stay near Boston?”
“Because hiding forever wasn’t the life I wanted for them.” Eliza folded her arms.
“But neither was handing four babies to the Sterling family and hoping everyone suddenly developed a conscience.”
Julian’s first instinct was to defend himself.
He felt it rise automatically—the habit of a man who had spent years winning arguments before anyone else could finish making them.
He let it die.
She was right about one thing he could no longer escape.
Six years earlier, Eliza had needed him to choose a side, and he had tried to stand in the middle.
The middle had belonged to his family.
“I want to know them,” he said.
Eliza’s expression closed immediately.
“A DNA result doesn’t make you their father overnight.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Julian watched Peter and Logan wrestle with the kite while the other two boys shouted contradictory instructions.
“No,” he admitted.
“I don’t know anything about being their father.”
It was perhaps the first answer he had given her that day without defending himself.
Eliza noticed.
Her shoulders lowered by half an inch.
“What do they know about me?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“They know they have a father.
They don’t know his name.”
Julian absorbed that quietly.
He had spent years attending charity dinners where strangers praised the Sterling legacy.
There were plaques bearing his surname in marble hallways.
Articles discussed who might someday inherit his holdings.
All the while, four boys carrying his blood had been learning to ride bicycles, losing baby teeth, getting fevers, fighting over toys, and asking questions about a father whose identity their mother was too afraid to reveal.
“When can we do the tests?”
Eliza gave him the information from the call.
Julian nodded.
“I’ll be there.”
“You come alone.”
He looked at her.
“No family attorney.
