The snow began falling just as the helicopter descended over the Reynolds estate.
Below us, the mansion looked like something from a Christmas card—stone walls, glowing windows, pine trees wrapped in gold lights. My four children pressed their faces to the glass, too excited to notice my hands trembling in my lap.
“Mom, is this really where Dad grew up?” Noah asked.
I swallowed hard. “Yes.”
Eight years ago, Marcus Reynolds disappeared from my life without a goodbye. One week after I told him I was pregnant, his number stopped working, his apartment emptied, and every door connected to his family closed in my face.
I raised our quadruplets alone.
Noah, Ethan, Sophia, and Olivia.
Four children with his eyes.
Four children his family had never met.
When the helicopter landed, a housekeeper rushed out, confused. Then the front doors opened, and an older woman in pearls stepped onto the snowy path.
Eleanor Reynolds.
Marcus’s mother.
Her face went pale the moment she saw the children.
Sophia waved shyly. “Are you our grandmother?”
The woman covered her mouth.
Before I could speak, another voice cut through the cold.
“What is going on?”
Marcus stood in the doorway, wearing a dark suit, holding a champagne glass, surrounded by guests.
He looked at me first.
Then at the children.
The glass slipped from his hand and shattered on the stone steps.
Because for the first time in eight years, Marcus Reynolds was staring at the family he had abandoned.
And behind him, his fiancée whispered, “Marcus… why do those children look exactly like you?”
