The Billionaire's Pretend Wife (Isabella) novel Chapter 93

Four Years Later

“Mummy!”

“Daddy!”

“Mummy!”

“Daddy!”

As the two toddlers rushed through the room trying to outdo each other with the screaming, Isabelle turned away from her laptop and got ready to receive the three-year-old boy who came barreling into her arms.

On the other side of the room, Jacob put away the tray of vegetables he was carrying outside to the barbecue just before their daughter barreled into him and wrapped a tiny arm around his legs, the other pointed accusingly towards her brother.

“Daddy, Raul is being mean to me again!”

Jacob reached down and scooped her into his arms. “Is he? What did he do this time, Ruthie?”

Now secure in his mother’s arms, Raul turned to glare at his twin sister. “It was my turn. You never let me have my turn!”

“But then you called me ugly!”

“Did you call your sister ugly, Raul?” Isabelle asked.

He looked at her, blinked, and then shook his head dramatically. “I didn’t.”

“You did!” his sister claimed. And then she started crying.

Raul stared at her for a few moments, and then whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“She didn’t hear you,” Isabelle told him, walking closer to Jacob and their crying daughter. “Tell her again.”

“I’m sorry, Ruthie. Don’t cry. You are pretty.”

Jacob and Isabelle exchanged glances and smiles over the toddlers as the scene played out. Whenever the two got into a scuffle, they always ran to their preferred protector–Dad for Ruth and Mum for Raul–and somehow it always ended with one of them bursting into tears and the other apologising.

“He said sorry,” Jacob told Ruthie.

She sniffled and then wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

“You should let your brother have his turn,” he told her.

“Okay,” she said, dwindling with her fingers and refusing to look at said brother. Raul was the one who usually gave in first. Ruthie didn’t soften as instantly as he did.

Raul wiggled in his mother’s arms, and she set him on the floor. When Jacob set Ruthie down too, Raul took her hand and led her towards their playpen. “You can have your turn first, Ruthie. You can have my new train too, I don’t even like it.”

Isabelle pressed a hand to her chest as she watched them go. Raul had lit up like a starry night when he got that train set. “Poor boy, he has such a big heart.”

“That’s all me,” Jacob said, “and Ruthie’s temper is all you.”

Isabelle dug her elbow into his side. “I would make you work for it too if you called me ugly.”

“Really?” Ruthie’s excited voice came from the playpen. “You can have my princess, then.”

Raul took the offered princess doll without complaint.

Jacob wrapped his arm around his wife’s waist and kissed her cheek. “I know you would.”

Isabelle smiled and laid her arm over his, and then turned her head to give him a kiss on the lips.

“I should get back to the barbecue before we are summoned for our next peacekeeping mission,” he joked. “The Del Mundos should be here soon.”