“Lila,” he began, his voice low, tinged with an unfamiliar vulnerability. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

She turned, offering a gentle smile that only complicated his emotions further. “Well, you did invite me,” she replied, her voice steady. “Though I doubt you expected company.”

He glanced at Noah and Nora, who were engrossed in a game they had invented, seemingly oblivious to the adult world around them. “They’re remarkable,” he admitted softly.

“Yes, they are,” Lila replied, her gaze unwavering. “And they’re yours.”

The words hit him like a tidal wave, overwhelming and undeniable. A rush of emotions—astonishment, confusion, guilt—flooded him. He thought back to the careless days when his ambition blinded him to everything else. The day she left, he had chalked it up to her inability to keep up, never considering the depth of her reasons.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispered, an edge of accusation in his voice.

“I did,” she replied calmly. “When I needed you most, I reached out. But you were… busy.”

Alexander’s mind flicked to that fleeting, shameful memory: a night of celebration and indulgence, where he had turned his back on his phone and the past it represented, in favor of a future filled with promises of grandeur and fame.

“I thought it was best to let you live the life you wanted,” Lila continued. “And honestly, they needed stability, not the turbulence of a high-profile life.”

Her words, though gentle, carried a weight that anchored Alexander to a reality he had ignored for too long. He realized then that his success, while monumental, was built on a foundation of choices that had cost him dearly. He looked at his children—truly looked—and felt a yearning for something he never knew he was missing.

As Cassandra mingled with guests, oblivious to the interaction, Alexander felt a pull towards something genuine. “Lila, I… I want to know them,” he said, a sincerity in his voice that was new even to him.

Lila nodded, considering. “We’ll take it one step at a time,” she said. “They deserve that.”

As the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky with hues of orange and pink, Alexander felt the first stirrings of hope for a different kind of future. One that, perhaps, could merge the dreams of his past with the reality of his present—a mosaic of success built not just on ambition, but on reconnection and redemption.