Then a sleek black Bentley came to a slow halt nearby. Inside sat Sebastian Clarke, a billionaire investor known for his precision and detachment. He rarely looked out his window during commutes. Yet something about that sound, two children crying in perfect, painful harmony, made him lift his eyes.
He told his driver to pull over. When Sebastian stepped out, the world around him seemed to blur. The twins looked up at him with tear-streaked faces, their hazel eyes glimmering in the sunlight. He froze. The boys had his features, the same chin, the same dimples, even the same birthmark near the ear that no one else in his family shared.
A shock ran through him as he knelt beside Alicia. Her breathing was shallow but steady. One of the boys tugged at his sleeve and whispered, “Mommy needs help.”
Within minutes, Sebastian had called for an ambulance. As they lifted Alicia onto the stretcher, he could not stop staring at the twins. He did not know this woman, or at least he thought he did not. But something deep in his memory stirred.
At the hospital, the nurses identified her as Alicia Moore, twenty-nine, with no fixed address. She had been living on the streets for months. Malnourished. Dehydrated. Still clutching a threadbare backpack that held only a blanket and two bottles of milk.
Sebastian waited in the corridor long after the doctors had taken her in. His schedule, his meetings, his empire, none of it mattered at that moment. He sat with the twins in silence as they drifted off to sleep. For the first time in years, he felt something heavy pressing against his chest that no business deal could fix.
When Alicia regained consciousness, her first words were for her children. “Are they safe?” she asked weakly.
“They are fine,” Sebastian said. “You passed out. The doctors say you will recover soon.”
She turned her head slowly toward him. Her eyes widened in disbelief. “Sebastian Clarke,” she murmured. “I thought I would never see you again.”
His stomach turned. “Do I know you?”
She gave a faint smile, weary and bitter. “Barcelona. Two thousand fifteen. You were there for a tech summit. You said you did not believe in staying in one place for too long.”
The memory surfaced like a ghost. A night filled with music and laughter. A fleeting connection he had dismissed the next morning. He remembered promising to call her, then never did.
“I tried to reach you,” Alicia whispered. “When I found out I was pregnant, I sent letters to your company. They never got through.”
Sebastian sat in silence. The weight of her words pressed down like stone. He had spent years perfecting control over every detail of his life, yet here was proof of what he had abandoned without even realizing it.
He arranged for her to stay in a private room and covered all medical expenses. But money could not erase the truth. Those children, the twins asleep in the next room, were his.
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