She Has His Eyes, and He’s Marrying My Stepsister Chapter 01

Chapter 1: The Groom

Five years ago, I told Killian Voss I was pregnant.

He texted back three words: Get rid of it.

So I ran, and I raised her alone.

Tonight, my stepsister introduced her fiancé to the whole room.

It was him.

And my daughter looked up at him with his exact gray-blue eyes.

I couldn’t move. The champagne glass in my hand tilted, and cold liquid dripped down my wrist. I didn’t feel it.

“Everyone, this is Killian,” Sloane said, glowing in white silk, her arm locked around his like a handcuff. “The love of my life.”

People clapped. My mother clapped loudest.

Killian didn’t smile. He never smiled. He looked older now, harder. His shoulders filled out a black suit that probably cost more than my bakery made in a month. But his eyes were the same storm-gray blue that had haunted me for five years.

The same eyes I saw every morning across my kitchen table.

“Mommy,” Ivy whispered, tugging my dress. “Who’s the tall man?”

My stomach dropped through the floor.

I should never have brought her. But my babysitter canceled, and my mother had called me three times, saying, “Don’t you dare embarrass Sloane by not showing up, Wren.”

So here I was. In the back corner of the Belmont Hotel ballroom. Hiding behind a pillar like a criminal.

“Nobody, baby,” I said quickly. “Let’s go get your coat.”

“But I didn’t get cake yet.”

“We’ll get cake at home. I’ll make you a whole one.”

I grabbed her hand and turned toward the exit. I just needed thirty seconds. Thirty seconds and we would be out the door, and he would never know.

Then my brother stepped right in front of me.

“Wren!” Grant pulled me into a hug, nearly lifting me off the ground. “You came! Killian’s back, did you see? Come say hi.”

“I can’t. Ivy’s tired.”

“I’m not tired,” Ivy announced loudly.

Grant laughed. “See? Come on. He’ll want to see you. You two used to be close.”

Close. If only he knew.

“Grant, please—”

But Ivy had already let go of my hand.

My heart stopped. I watched my five-year-old daughter skip across the marble floor in her yellow sparkly dress, her dark curls bouncing, straight toward the dessert table.

Straight toward him.

She didn’t see the waiter. The waiter didn’t see her. A tray tilted, and a cup of red punch went flying.

Right onto Killian Voss’s very expensive shoes.

The room went silent.

Sloane gasped like someone had shot her. “Oh my God. Whose child is this?”

Ivy froze. Her bottom lip started shaking. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

I was already running. But Killian moved first.

He crouched down, slowly, until he was eye level with my daughter. He didn’t look at his ruined shoes. He looked at her face. And something in his expression shifted. Something I’d never seen before.

“It’s alright,” he said quietly. That voice. Deep and low, and it still made my knees weak. “They’re just shoes.”

Ivy sniffed. “You’re not mad?”

“No.” He tilted his head. “What’s your name?”

“Ivy. I’m five and a half.”

Five and a half.

I saw it happen. I saw him do the math. His jaw locked. His fingers curled into a fist on his knee.

“Ivy,” I said, my voice cracking as I reached her. I pulled her against my legs. “Come here, baby.”

Killian rose to his full height. Slowly. Like a predator. And for the first time in five years, his eyes met mine.

The room disappeared. The music. The people. My stepsister’s furious glare.

There was only him.

“Wren.” My name sounded like a warning in his mouth.

“Hi, Killian.” I forced a smile so fake it hurt. “Congratulations. We were just leaving.”

“Were you.”

It wasn’t a question.

His gaze dropped back to Ivy. To her gray-blue eyes. Then back up to me. And the look on his face was so cold I actually shivered.

He stepped closer. Close enough that only I could hear him.

“Whose child is that, Wren?”