I Walked Away After Catching My Husband Cheating—Four Years Later, He Met the Twin Sons He Never Knew He Had.

Julian

My brain stopped processing reality.

The woman standing on the porch, illuminated by the golden afternoon sun, couldn't be real. It was a hallucination brought on by four years of sleep deprivation and too much scotch.

But she was breathing. Her chest was rising and falling in rapid, terrified-looking hitched breaths. Her auburn hair was pulled back into a loose bun, and she wore a simple navy blazer over a white blouse. She looked older, more mature, yet undeniably, flawlessly beautiful.

"Audrey," I breathed, the word scraping against my throat like glass.

Her hazel eyes were wide with shock. She took a step back, her hands trembling as they grasped the wooden railing of the porch.

"Julian," she whispered.

Marcus looked between the two of us, utter confusion painting his face. "Julian? You two... know each other?"

I couldn't hear him. The roaring in my ears was deafening. She was here. She was alive. She was standing right in front of me. I took a step forward, a desperate, starving man reaching for water.

"Audrey... my god, Audrey. I've looked everywhere. I've spent years—"

"Stop," she commanded, her voice suddenly finding its strength. She held up a hand, her posture stiffening into a defensive wall. "Don't come any closer."

The ice in her tone froze me in my tracks.

"You're A. Hayes," I realized, the puzzle pieces slamming together in my fractured mind. "You own this place. You've been hiding here."

"I wasn't hiding. I was living my life," she said fiercely, though her chin trembled slightly. "A life that has absolutely nothing to do with you. I am canceling the deal. You need to leave. Now."

"Leave?" A desperate, broken laugh escaped my chest. "I just found you after four years of hell, Audrey. I’m not going anywhere. We are going to talk."

"There is nothing to say—"

BANG!

The heavy oak front door flew open.

"Mama! Look! A helicopter!" a high, breathless voice shouted.

I froze. A little boy burst onto the porch, clutching a toy fire truck. He was small, maybe three or four years old, wearing denim overalls and a striped shirt.

Before I could even process the child's presence, a second boy, entirely identical to the first, ran out right behind him, giggling uncontrollably. "I saw it first, Leo!"

"Boys, go back inside!" Audrey shrieked, a raw, primal panic in her voice that I had never heard before. She lunged forward, trying to block them from my view, trying to push them back into the house.

But it was too late.

The boy named Leo stopped dead in his tracks, looking up at me.

I looked down at him.

It was like staring into a mirror that reflected thirty years into the past. The boy had my messy, dark hair. He had the exact same stubborn set of his jaw. And when he looked at me, I saw my own slate-gray eyes staring back.

The oxygen left the atmosphere. The world around me completely dissolved.

My eyes darted to the second boy. Identical. My face. My eyes.

I looked back at Audrey. All the color had drained from her face. She was shielding them with her body, wrapping her arms around them like a lioness preparing to fight to the death.

Twins.

Four years.