Chapter Four #2
The question felt absurd the moment it left his mouth because deep down, he already knew that wasn’t what he was really asking.
Years of experience had taught him to trust his instincts, and every one of them was screaming that he was standing on the edge of something that was about to change his life.
The boys exchanged another one of those twin looks, and as the silence stretched between them, Grant realized he was bracing himself for an answer he wasn’t entirely sure he was ready to hear.
Tyler swallowed.
“Amelie is our mom,” he said, his voice surprisingly steady. “And unless there’s another Grant Carter out there who looks exactly like you, we’re pretty sure that you’re our dad.”
For a second, Grant stared at the boys.
The words were simple. Yet they hit him with the force of a freight train.
Silence settled over the table.
Grant stared at the boys, his pulse roaring in his ears as Tyler’s words replayed over and over inside his head. Part of him had known.
But knowing and hearing it were two very different things. Because now it wasn’t a suspicion or a possibility. It was the truth. These boys were his sons.
His gaze moved between them, taking in faces that suddenly looked both familiar and entirely new.
He looked at Mac, then Rafe, then Nico, as if one of them might tell him he was imagining things, but no one spoke. Hell, they all looked just as shocked as he felt.
His gaze returned to Tyler and Trevor, and the emotions inside of him hit so hard that it physically hurt.
For twelve years, he had wondered what had happened to Amelie. He spent countless hours searching for answers, and now those answers had been standing right in front of him.
Before he could think, ask questions, or make sense of any of it, he pushed back his chair and stood.
The boys immediately looked nervous, but Grant stepped around the table and pulled them both into his arms. For a brief second, they froze, then they hugged him back, and the simple reality of it nearly broke him.
They were real—not a dream, not a fantasy, not some desperate wish he had carried for years. They were his sons, his children.
Grant closed his eyes against the rush of joy and grief tangled together. He mourned the years he could never get back, even as he held them for the first time.
A small voice finally broke the silence.
“Please don’t be mad at Mom.”
Trevor
Grant looked down, and the concern in the boy’s expression hit him almost as hard as the revelation itself.
Grant immediately shook his head.
“No.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “I promise that I’m not mad at your mom.” Though he did have questions. A lot of them.
The boys visibly relaxed. Grant rested a hand on each of their shoulders.
“I don’t know what happened. And I don’t know why she didn’t tell me. But I know your mother.” Emotion tightened his chest again, and damn, he was fighting back tears. “And if there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that there had to be a reason.”
Because this was Amelie—sweet, loyal, and honest. The woman he had wanted to marry and planned to spend his life with.
There was no version of reality where she had kept something this important from him without believing she had no other choice.
The realization only made him want to see her more, to talk to her, and understand what had happened.
But he couldn’t stop looking at his sons. He had twin boys. The thought still felt impossible, and yet they were standing right in front of him.
“You’re really not mad?” Tyler asked, not looking convinced.
Grant laughed softly.
“Mad? Boys, I just found out I have two sons. Trust me, being mad isn’t anywhere on my list of emotions right now.”
That finally earned a smile from both of them.
Questions crowded his mind, thousands of them all at once.
Where did they live? What sports did they play?
When were their birthdays? What were their favorite foods?
Did they like school? Were they happy? And beneath all of those questions lurked others he wasn’t quite ready to ask.
Was Amelie happy? Was she married? Jesus, he hoped not.
Before he could figure out how to ask any of that, Tyler beat him to it.
“Can we ask you something else?”
Grant nodded immediately. “Anything.”
The twins exchanged glances, again. Then Trevor asked the question.
“Are you married?”
“No.” The answer came so quickly it surprised even him.
Both boys looked relieved.
“Why not?” Tyler asked.
Grant smiled. “Because there was only one woman I ever wanted to marry.” He could see in their expression that they already knew who he meant. “Your mom.”
“She still talks about you,” Trevor told him as he grinned.
“She does?” Grant asked, though surprised.
“Not all the time because she gets sad,” Tyler clarified. “But she tells us stories.”
Grant lifted one of his eyebrows. “I hope they’re good stories.”
“Mostly,” Trevor laughed.
Grant laughed. “Mostly?”
Tyler grinned. “Mom told us about the time you tried to win her a giant stuffed bear at the fair.”
Grant groaned, and Trevor pointed at him.
“That face tells me you know what this story is about.”
“It was one game,” Grant muttered.
“Mom said you spent forty dollars trying to win a ten-dollar bear.”
Mac burst out laughing.
“No way,” Rafe said.
“I’m embarrassed for you,” Nico piped in.
“Oh, there’s more,” Trevor promised.
Tyler nodded. “Mom said after twenty minutes, the guy running the booth felt so bad for you that he just gave you the bear.”
The table erupted in laughter.
Grant dragged a hand down his face.
“In my defense, those games are rigged.”
“Mom said she told you that before you started.”
“I was seventeen.”
Trevor grinned. “Mom also said you carried that giant bear around the fair for three hours like you had just won the Olympics.”
Grant pointed at the boys. “Your mother enjoys embarrassing me.”
Tyler shrugged. “Mom also said it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her.”
The laughter around the table faded, and for a second, Grant couldn’t say a word.
Then Trevor smiled. “Yep. After that, she said she pretty much knew she was in trouble.”
Grant smiled, thinking back to that night. That fair had been one month before his eighteenth birthday, and the same night, he had finally worked up the courage to tell Amelie that he loved her.
Grant looked at his sons. “I still can’t believe this.”
“We can’t either,” the boys said in unison, and Grant could only smile.
The guys all made room at the table, and Grant bought the boy’s lunch.
Tyler wiped his mouth with a napkin and then looked at Grant. “So, Mom said that you were a Navy SEAL. Is that true?”
Grant grinned. “Yeah. I was.”
“That’s cool. I’ve never met one before.”
Grant pointed to Mac, Nico, and Rafe. “Well, now you’ve met four.”
Tyler’s eyes widened. “All of you are SEALs?”
Mac laughed. “We’re retired now, but yeah.”
“Mom said that you live in Florida,” Trevor stated.
Grant nodded. “I do.”
For the next several minutes, the conversation flowed easily.
The boys told him they lived in Norway, which partially explained how she managed to evade him.
They also told him that their mom had always answered their questions about him and that if they ever wanted to contact him, she wouldn’t stop them.
Everything they told him raised questions he wanted to ask, but he knew only Amelie could answer them.
Then Trevor quietly admitted something that nearly destroyed him.
“We almost contacted you a couple of years ago, but we were afraid that you wouldn’t want us.”
Grant felt like a knife had stabbed him in the heart.
The idea that either of his sons had spent even a second believing that nearly brought him to his knees.
He reached across the table and squeezed Trevor’s shoulder.
“Boys, if I’d known about you, I would’ve moved heaven and earth to be in your lives.”
Finally, there was a question he couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Can I ask you boys, something?”
They both nodded.
“Is your mom…with someone?”
The twins exchanged that look again.
“No,” Tyler said.
“At least not that we know of,” Trevor added.
Grant tried not to react. And for a moment, he sat there absorbing the weight of those words. Twelve years, and somehow, neither of them had ever truly moved on from the other.
Then he asked the boys what had brought them to Switzerland.
“Mom is delivering wedding rings to a client,” Tyler explained. “She always wanted to visit the Swiss Alps, so we made a vacation out of it.”
Mac scrunched his eyebrows together. “Wait, your mom is a jewelry designer?”
“Yup,” Trevor said. “Her company is Lumi.”
“Holy shit,” Mac said and then looked at Grant.
“What?”