The cruelest sound I ever heard was not my husband kissing another woman. It was the silence that followed when Nathan Cole looked across his Chicago office and realized I had seen him with Chloe Bennett pressed against his body.

The silver tray in my hands tilted, and a lemon tart slid off the edge, smashing softly against the marble floor.

The sound was lost in the ambient murmur of the gala, but Nathan’s head snapped toward the noise instantly. His smoky gray eyes scanned the floor, tracked up my black catering apron, and finally locked onto my face.

The color drained from his skin as if he were looking a ghost straight in the eye.

Then, slowly, mechanically, his gaze drifted downward.

Standing right in front of him, staring up with identical wide, curious eyes, were Benjamin and Samuel.

Sam was studying Nathan with an intensity that made my chest tighten. He didn't look frightened; he looked fascinated, as if he were examining a complex puzzle he had finally found the missing piece to.

“He has our storm eyes,” Sam said, his small voice cutting cleanly through the quiet space between us.

Nathan flinched as though he had been physically struck. A sharp intake of breath hissed through his teeth, and his hand reached out instinctively, hovering in the air before dropping back to his side.

I hurried forward, my boots clicking frantically against the floor. “Ben! Sam! Come here right now!”

I grabbed both of their shoulders, pulling them firmly behind my legs, shielding them from the man who had no legal or moral right to look at them. But Nathan couldn't take his eyes off the boys. His chest rose and fell in ragged, shallow breaths.

“Clara,” he whispered. It was barely a breath, choked with a grief so profound it felt heavy enough to sink the room.

“Don't,” I warned, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to keep it steady.

Nathan ignored me, dropping down onto one knee so he was eye-level with the twins. His hands trembled as he gripped his knees. He looked at Sam, then at Ben, and finally back up at me, his eyes shining with unshed tears.

“How old... how old are they?” he asked, his voice cracking.

Before I could clamp a hand over Benjamin’s mouth, my fiercely honest, talkative son piped up.

“We’re four! Today is our birthday month!”

Nathan closed his eyes. A single tear broke free, tracking down the sharp line of his jaw.

“Four,” he murmured, the word tasting like ash in his mouth.