I raised my champagne glass to celebrate my perfect engagement, but the moment two little girls looked me in the eyes and called me Dad, everything I'd built began to crumble.

The party ended twenty minutes later.

No one said goodbye. No one clapped me on the back and told me it would be okay. They just left. Fast. Like staying near me would somehow taint them too.

Olivia didn’t answer my calls.

Her father sent a text at 1:17 a.m. The deal is off. Don’t ever contact any member of my family again.

The deal. The one that would’ve made me a billionaire. The one I’d spent three years negotiating. Gone. Just like that.

I sat alone in the empty ballroom until the cleaning crew started stacking chairs. Lila and Mia’s drawing was still crumpled in my pocket. The paternity test papers were on the table in front of me, the words blurring under the harsh overhead lights.

I kept seeing their faces.

Lila’s gap-toothed smile. Mia’s chubby little hand wrapped around my finger.

I had daughters.

Two of them.

Seven years I’d missed. First steps. First words. First days of school. Scraped knees and bedtime stories and birthday parties. All of it. Gone. I’d never get it back.

I thought about that night seven years ago.

I was 22. Working two minimum-wage jobs. Living in a 500-square-foot apartment with a leaky roof and a refrigerator that hummed so loud you couldn’t hear the TV. Abana was 21. Working her way through nursing school. We’d been together since high school. We were supposed to be the ones who made it.

Then she’d come home from the doctor with that little blue stick.

Two pink lines.

I’d looked at it and all I could see was my father. Drunk. Unemployed. Hitting my mom. Leaving for days at a time and coming back with empty promises. I was so terrified of turning into him that I’d made the worst choice a man can make.

I’d left.

I’d packed a duffel bag in the middle of the night. Left that stupid, cruel letter on the kitchen table. Drove to Dallas and never looked back.

I’d thought she’d done what I asked. Gotten rid of it. Moved on. Found someone better.

I’d been wrong.

She’d kept the babies.

She’d raised them alone.

And now they were here. Calling me Dad. Looking at me like I hung the moon.

I grabbed my phone and called the number Abana had written at the bottom of the custody papers.

It went straight to voicemail.

“Ethan,” she said, her voice flat in the recording. “If you’re calling to yell, don’t. If you’re calling to offer me money to disappear, save it. I don’t want your money. I never have. The only thing I ever wanted was for you to be a father to those girls. If you want that too, come by the apartment tomorrow after school. 412 Maple Street, Apartment 3B. If you don’t show up, I’ll assume you’re still the same coward you were seven years ago. And I’ll make sure every person in this city knows exactly what kind of man you are.”

The line went dead.

I stared at my phone.

Coward.

She was right.

I’d been a coward seven years ago. I’d been a coward for seven years after that, running from my past, building a fake perfect life to cover up the fact that I’d abandoned the only woman who’d ever loved me and the two little girls who were now half of me.

I could fight this.

I had the best lawyers money could buy. I could drag this through court for years. I could discredit her. I could say the tests were faked. I could try to pretend none of this was real.

But I’d already done that once.

And look where it had gotten me.

I drove to the worst neighborhood in Dallas at 2:30 in the morning. 412 Maple Street. A run-down apartment building with a broken elevator and a parking lot full of potholes. Graffiti on the walls. A group of guys loitering by the front door who watched me get out of my Mercedes like I had a target on my back.

I stood outside Apartment 3B for ten minutes.

I could hear them through the door.

Lila was laughing. A high, bright sound that made my chest ache. Mia was saying something about unicorns. Abana was singing a lullaby I remembered—one her mom used to sing to her when she was little.

I didn’t knock.

I couldn’t.

Not yet.

I walked back to my car and sat there until the sun came up. Watching the window of their apartment. Thinking about everything I’d lost. Everything I’d thrown away.

When the sun was fully up, I drove to the nearest department store.

I bought two backpacks. Two lunch boxes. A stuffed unicorn for Mia. A set of art supplies for Lila. I bought every size of little girl clothes I could guess at, from 5T to 8. I bought a step stool for the bathroom. A nightlight shaped like a star. A box of the strawberry pop-tarts I’d seen Mia draw on the back of her picture.

By 3:30 p.m., my car was full.

I parked outside the apartment building again.

My hands were shaking so bad I could barely turn off the engine.

I was about to meet my daughters.

Really meet them.

Not for five minutes in front of a room full of shocked strangers. But as their father.

If Abana let me.

I took a deep breath.

Grabbed the first armful of bags.

Walked up the three flights of stairs (the elevator was still broken).