Chapter 16
Christmas morning arrived softly, like the house was holding its breath.
The scent of gingerbread cookies drifted through the air, mingling with pine and the faint sweetness of hot chocolate warming on the stove. The tree lights blinked lazily, ornaments catching the early light, casting fractured reflections across the walls.
Morgan was already awake.
Michelle followed seconds later.
Their feet pounded down the hallway, the sound sharp and joyful, and then—
“Mommy! It’s Christmas!”
Paper tore. Wrapping crinkled. Laughter erupted in bright, uncontrolled bursts that filled every corner of the house.
I sat cross-legged on the floor near the tree, mug in hand, watching them with a full, aching heart. Aunt Ruth lingered by the fireplace, robe pulled tight, her eyes soft and knowing as she observed the chaos unfold.
And then there was a knock at the door.
Firm. Familiar.
I didn’t need to look.
Morgan and Michelle beat me to it, skidding across the hardwood, their excitement overflowing.
“Mister!” Michelle squealed as the door flew open.
Creed stood on the porch, a dusting of snow on his coat, a stack of neatly wrapped boxes in his hands. No suit. No armor. Just dark jeans, a thick sweater, and that unmistakable presence that shifted the gravity of a room the second he entered it.
Morgan wrapped herself around his legs. “You came!”
“I told you I would,” he said, his voice warm, steady as he bent to greet them—setting the gifts aside before lifting Michelle into his arms like it was the most natural thing in the world.
My chest tightened.
He stepped inside, brushing snow from his shoulder, the door clicking shut behind him.
Christmas wrapped around him, music humming low from the speakers, the glow of the tree, the heat of a house already full.
For a moment, he just stood there like someone measuring the shape of a life that wasn’t quite his.
Then his eyes found mine. Something quiet, unspoken, and fragile passed between us.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Morning,” I replied, my voice softer than I intended.
Breakfast blurred into noise and movement. Pancakes stacked high. Syrup spilled. Morgan insisting on wearing her new sweater immediately. Michelle announcing, loudly, that she opened her gifts one at a time “like a big girl.”
Creed sat at the table with them, sleeves pushed up, laughter slipping free when Michelle attempted to pour her own juice and nearly flooded the glass.
He paid genuine attention to the girls. The same way he had at the gala, standing at the edge of something luminous and dangerous, like he wasn’t sure whether stepping fully into it would cost him more than he knew how to give.
My throat tightened.
After breakfast, the girls sprawled on the rug, surrounded by torn paper and toys, assembling something with pieces already scattered everywhere.
Creed crouched beside them, helping Morgan snap a piece into place while Michelle narrated every move like a sportscaster.
“Mister,” she said suddenly, tilting her head, curls bouncing as she studied him.
He looked up. “Yes, sweetheart?”
Michelle hesitated, just a beat. Then she asked, simply the way children do when something feels obvious, and they don’t know it shouldn’t.
“Are you going to be our new daddy?”
The world stopped.
I felt it happen—felt the air shift, felt time pull taut.
Creed froze. Not visibly. But I saw it in the way his shoulders locked. In the way his hand stilled mid-motion. In the way something deep behind his eyes closed—hard.
Morgan looked up too now, curiosity bright. “Yes, because you’re always here.”
The room felt too quiet. Too full.
Aunt Ruth shifted near the fireplace, setting her mug down carefully, ready to intervene, but I was already moving.
“Morgan,” I said gently, forcing calm into my voice even as my chest tightened. “Sweetheart, that’s not how it works.”
“But he takes care of us,” Michelle pressed, earnest, unguarded. “That’s what daddies do.”
I felt it then.
The fracture.
Not loud.
Just a clean, devastating crack along a fault line that had already been there.
Creed stood. “I should go,” he said quietly, already reaching for his coat.
“No—” I started.
“I have somewhere I need to be,” he added, his voice controlled, distant—the same tone he used when something mattered too much.
The girls protested. Aunt Ruth stood. I followed him to the door, heart hammering.
“Creed—”
He stopped just long enough to meet my eyes. Something raw lived there. Not doubt.
Fear.
“I’ll call you,” he said.
He wouldn’t.
I knew it before the door closed. Knew it the way you know when a storm has shifted direction.
The door clicked shut.
I stood there, my hands clenched at my sides, staring at the space he had just occupied. Behind me, the girls returned to their toys, laughter resuming, unaware that something irreversible had just happened.
Aunt Ruth met my gaze across the room, her expression soft with understanding.
This was the moment.
It wasn’t because of what had been said. But because Creed Kirkland had been shown a future he hadn’t given himself permission to want.
And it had scared him enough to run.
Merry Christmas.
* * *
THE HOUSE DIDN’T FEEL different after he left.
That was the cruelest part.
The lights still blinked. The tree still glowed. Wrapping paper littered the floor like confetti after a celebration that had already passed. Morgan and Michelle laughed in the living room, arguing over whose turn it was to use the karaoke machine, their voices bright and unbroken.
Life went on.
I moved through the kitchen on autopilot, rinsing syrup from plates, stacking mugs in the sink. My hands didn’t shake. I didn’t cry. I focused on the small, ordinary tasks because they were solid and required nothing from me.
Behind me, the girls played.
In front of me, the water was cool beneath my palms.
I breathed. Slow. Measured. Mine.
This wasn’t the first time I’d watched a man leave my doorway. But this one hurt differently—not sharper—just deeper. Because for a moment, I had let myself believe he was staying.
Not just for me.
For us.
I disappeared into the bathroom and pressed my fingers into the counter until the ache grounded me. He hadn’t rejected me. That was the truth I needed to hold onto.
He had flinched from the shape of a future he hadn’t been ready to claim.
That didn’t make him cruel. But it didn’t make me wrong for wanting more.
A soft knock sounded behind me.
Aunt Ruth.
She didn’t say anything at first. Just wrapped her arms around me, steady and warm, her cheek resting against my temple. I let myself lean into her for one quiet second.
“He didn’t leave because of you,” she said gently, as if reading the thought before it could root itself.
“I know,” I whispered.
And I did.
That knowledge didn’t ease the hollow in my chest, but it kept it from swallowing me whole.
I straightened, wiping my hands on a hand towel, squaring my shoulders.
“Mommy!” Michelle called from the living room. “Morgan won’t share!”
“I will,” Morgan protested. “In a minute!”
I smiled despite myself. “I’m coming,” I called back.
I walked toward the sound of their laughter—toward the mess and the noise and the life waiting for me.
Behind me, the door remained closed.
Ahead of me, the day continued.
And somewhere deep inside, beneath the ache and the disappointment, a quiet truth settled into place. I had not lost myself this time.
I had stayed.
* * *
I HADN’T SEEN OR HEARD from Creed since Christmas, and the silence he left behind felt deliberate, as if he had erased himself with the same precision he used to control every other part of his life.
He didn’t just disappear from me—he vanished from IWM as well, leaving behind an absence that was impossible to ignore.
When the building came back to life after the New Year, I caught myself searching for him without realizing I was doing it.
My eyes skimmed meeting agendas for his name.
I checked instant messages out of habit.
I listened for the sound of his voice cutting through the halls—sharp, commanding, unmistakable.
But there was nothing. Not even during executive meetings, where his presence had once been a constant, anchoring force.
His chair at the head of the table remained empty, a silent declaration that he had relinquished control and walked away without explanation. No one questioned it. No one dared. Creed Kirkland didn’t disappear unless he wanted to, and the entire organization seemed to understand that instinctively.
The only person who knew where he was—if anyone did—was his assistant. And that bulldog of a gatekeeper wasn’t offering even a hint of information.
At first, I told myself it was for the best.
My girls didn’t deserve the kind of uncertainty Creed left in his wake.
They deserved stability, not the ache of wondering whether someone they cared about would suddenly reappear or vanish again.
And if I was being honest, neither did I.
Logic told me I was doing the right thing.
Logic insisted this was self-preservation.
But logic had no power over the slow, corrosive ache that settled beneath my ribs. It didn’t stop my hand from drifting toward my phone in quiet moments, expecting his name to light up the screen. Expecting something—anything—that would tell me I hadn’t imagined what we’d shared.
There were no missed calls. No unread messages. Just silence.
For months, I had lived suspended between hope and restraint, believing that if I waited long enough or fought hard enough, I would finally understand where I stood with him. Now I did.
He was gone.
And yet, the truth I hated most remained untouched.
I still loved him.
The realization cut clean and deep, like a blade pressed precisely where it would do the most damage.
I hated how persistent the feeling was, how it refused to loosen its grip despite everything.
No matter how carefully I tried to compartmentalize him, I couldn’t erase the memory of the nights he held me in the dark or the way he whispered my name like it mattered.
I couldn’t pretend he hadn’t shown up when I needed someone most. And worst of all, I couldn’t undo the future I had allowed myself to imagine.
Me.
Him.
My girls.
Someday.
It had been reckless. Na?ve. I had believed—if only for a moment—that love might be enough to fracture the walls Creed Kirkland had spent a lifetime reinforcing. But he had never let anyone in all the way, and I had convinced myself I could be the exception.
I was wrong.
So, I did the only thing I could to protect what mattered most.
I shut him out. Not because I wanted to. Because I had to.
Because my girls deserved better.
Because I deserved better.
I didn’t fully believe that yet—but I would.
* * *
I BURIED MYSELF IN work.
During the day, I led IWM the way it demanded to be led—decisive, focused, and unflinching.
Meetings ran on time. Deadlines were met.
The magazine moved forward without hesitation and without the shadow of Creed Kirkland hovering over every decision.
There was no space for indulgence, no room for emotional fallout.
In the evenings, my time belonged to my girls.
Morgan and Michelle became my anchor, their laughter and endless curiosity pulling me firmly into the present.
We baked cookies that ended up dusting every surface with flour.
We built blanket forts that collapsed into tangled limbs and breathless giggles.
We created a life that had nothing to do with Creed Kirkland—a life that was learning how to be whole again.
And still, they asked about him. At first, it was every day.
“Is Mister coming back soon?”
“Does he have to work forever?”
“Can he take us ice skating again?”
I answered gently, choosing my words with care. I told them he was away on business. That sometimes adults got busy. And that absence didn’t always mean someone didn’t care.
Eventually, the questions stopped.
They stopped waiting for him.
I told myself I had, too—but the truth was harder to swallow.
Creed Kirkland was still in control.
He had left on his terms, and his silence wasn’t surrender. It was a statement. A pause. A test—one I refused to take.
So, I stopped searching for him. I stopped imagining that I would turn a corner and find him standing there, watching me the way he used to. I stopped leaving space in my life for someone who had chosen absence over presence.
Creed was gone.
And it was time for me to move forward.
Whether he ever caught up—or not.