Eight Years of Maybe One Day of I Do—Bride Swapped Deal With It novel Chapter 92

Chapter 14

His voice carried a weight I’d never heard before-like he’d been building up to this moment for months, maybe years, and was finally forcing himself to say it out loud.

It didn’t matter.

The northern lights rippled overhead in waves of green and violet, and against my will, old memories started breaking through the walls I’d carefully built.

I’d once told Derek I wanted to see the aurora with him. Some tourist had mentioned the old myth-that couples who witness the lights together are bound to each other forever.

Standing here now with my daughter asleep in my arms while he watched from the other side of a fence, the irony was almost unbearable.

I’d loved him with everything I had once.

The summer I turned seventeen, backpacking through Italy, someone grabbed my bag and ran. Derek came out of nowhere and chased the guy down six blocks. Got into an actual fistfight with the thiefs friends-split lip, bruised ribs, the works.

Then he insisted on carrying me nearly two miles to find a doctor after I’d sprained my ankle trying to keep up.

The next year in Paris, three drunk guys followed me out of a bar. Derek appeared again, stepping between us and speaking French so sharp and commanding they actually backed down and apologized.

That’s when I realized he’d been going to my university the entire time.

After that, he was just… there. Always nearby when I needed help.

When I mentioned craving comfort food from home, he spent weeks learning to cook it from online videos.

When I got brutal cramps in the middle of the night, he’d show up with heating pads and tea and stay until the pain passed.

Being far from home and mostly alone, I’d started relying on him completely.

After we married, he became even more devoted.

He’d make breakfast every morning, bring me warm milk before bed, lay out my clothes for the next day.

No matter how crazy work got, he’d call at lunch to make sure I was eating.

He never missed an anniversary or holiday.

He’d take my shoes off when I got home and rub my feet without me asking.

When I got pregnant, he did everything-I barely had to move.

Even my mother started commenting. “He’s spoiling you rotten. What kind of executive spends all his time doting on his wife?”

Back then I’d just felt grateful. Lucky.

But that same man had taken my newborn-while I was still unconscious from blood loss-and handed him to someone else.

Every kind thing he’d done after that was just guilt. Years of performance to cover up the unforgivable.

Chapter 14

Three years ago, I might have wavered. Might have let him convince me.

Not anymore.

I had Alex. I had our daughter. I’d built a life that didn’t have a Derek shaped hole in it.

I didn’t need whatever he was offering now.

I didn’t answer him that night. I hadn’t spoken to him once since he’d moved next door.

I just shifted my daughter’s blanket and whispered to her about the colors dancing across the sky.

Eventually I heard his footsteps retreat.

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