She Has His Eyes, and He’s Marrying My Stepsister Chapter 14

Chapter 14: Duck Pancakes

Killian sank to his knees in the doorway, still holding her.

For a second, he couldn’t speak. His throat moved. His eyes filled. This man who had just destroyed a billionare and a liar in front of five hundred people couldn’t get out three words.

“Yes,” he finally whispered. “Yes, baby, I’m your daddy.”

Ivy’s face lit up like Christmas morning.

“I KNEW IT!” she screamed. “I knew it! Because you have my eyes!”

He laughed. A broken, wet, beautiful laugh. “No, little bird. You have mine.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed so hard he grunted.

“Are you gonna stay forever? Like, forever forever?”

He looked up at me over her curls. And the way he looked at me made my knees weak.

“If your mom lets me,” he said.

Ivy turned around and gave me her most serious look. “Mommy. You have to let him.”

I laughed through my tears. “Okay, baby. I’ll let him.”

Three months later, the trial was all over the news.

Sloane took a plea deal. Twelve years. Her father was under federal investigation. The magazine that bought her wedding photos ran them anyway, with the headline: THE BRIDE WHO TRIED TO KILL A CHILD.

I didn’t read any of it. I didn’t need to.

My mother came over every Sunday. She brought Ivy books. She never raised her voice. Some days, it almost felt like having a mom again. I was letting her earn it. Slowly.

Grant came over every Saturday and lost to Ivy at Candy Land on purpose.

And my bakery? Wren’s Rise had a line out the door every morning. Turns out, when your love story goes viral, everyone wants a cupcake from the girl who got the billionaire.

I didn’t care about that either.

I cared about this.

It was a quiet Sunday morning. I came downstairs to the smell of something burning.

Killian stood at the stove in sweatpants and a flour-covered T-shirt. Ivy was standing on a chair beside him, directing.

“No, Daddy, the beak goes there.”

“The beak is there.”

“That’s a foot.”

“It’s a beak.”

“It’s a foot, Daddy.”

I leaned against the doorway and watched my whole world argue about pancake ducks. My heart was so full i hort

“Mommy!” Ivy spotted me. “Daddy made you a special one!”

Killian turned around holding a plate. On it was the ugliest duck pancake I’d ever seen. Lopsided. Burnt on one side.

And sitting in the middle of it, where the eye should be, was a ring.

A diamond so big it caught the morning sun and threw rainbows across the kitchen walls.

My hand flew to my mouth.

Killian set the plate down on the counter. Then he got down on one knee. Ivy climbed off her chair and stood beside him, bouncing on her toes, holding his shoulder for balance.

“Wren Calloway,” he said quietly. “Five years ago, someone stole our story. They took our first chapter and burned it.”

My eyes were already overflowing.

“I can’t get back those years. I’ll never stop being sorry I wasn’t there. But I swear to you, on our daughter’s life, you will never be alone again. Not for one more day.”

He took the ring from the pancake. It was a little sticky. I didn’t care.

“Will you marry me?”

“Say yes, Mommy!” Ivy shrieked. “SAY YES!”

I was laughing and crying so hard I could barely get the word out.

“Yes,” I sobbed. “Yes. A thousand times, yes.”

He slid the ring onto my finger. Then he stood and kissed me while our daughter screamed with joy and hugged both our legs.

That night, after Ivy fell asleep with her duck under her chin, Killian found me on the balcony staring at the stars.

He wrapped his arms around me from behind and rested his chin on my head.

“What are you thinking about?” he murmured.

“The night on the rooftop,” I said. “When I told you I loved you. I was so scared you’d laugh.”

“I didn’t laugh.”

THEY

“No. You promised you’d come back for me.”

His arms tightened around me.

“It took me five years,” he whispered against my hair. “But I kept my promise.”

I turned around in his arms and looked up at the man who’d loved me through every lie, every ocean, every stolen letter.

“Killian?”

“Yeah?”

I took his hand and slowly pressed it flat against my stomach.

He went completely still.

“This time,” I whispered, smiling through my tears, “you get to be there from the very first day.”