Chapter 23

Liana’s POV

As I walked into the ward room, I paused when I heard Ryan’s little voice floating through the half-open door. I stopped right there, not wanting to interrupt, but what he was saying made my chest tighten.

“Mommy doesn’t like it when I ask of my daddy,” he was saying. “She says it hurts her because she misses him so much. She says he’s in the military and when he returns, he’ll take us on outings. Maybe to the zoo. Or the beach.”

I closed my eyes.

God…

When I finally stepped in, three pairs of eyes turned to look at me. All at once.

My father’s expression was unreadable, but the look in his eyes told me everything. It was—We had a whole lot to talk about kinda look. My stepmother looked the same too—calm, but surely had a lot of things she wanted to say.

Ryan’s eyes lit up.

“Mommy!” he shouted, jumping off Dad’s lap and running to me. He wrapped his arms around my waist. “Where’ve you been? Where’s Uncle Killian!”