Page 146 of Beautiful When He Breaks

Mila beams when she sees us, and it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

“Hi, baby girl,” I say, and my voice comes out shredded. “Look at you.”

Julian is beside me, one knee on the mat, one hand hovering just above the ground, ready to catch her from any direction without crowding her. His eyes are wet already, because Julian West can survive statements, prosecutions, family rejection, and football injuries with his jaw locked, but my daughter standing on her own at her first birthday party is apparently the thing that cracks him open.

“That’s it, meisiekind,” he says softly. “You’ve got it.”

Mila makes a delighted, breathy sound, then she takes one step, and I stop breathing.

It’s barely a step. More like a controlled fall that her foot interrupts at the last second, but it counts. It counts so much the entire yard loses its mind in whispered gasps and strangled noises.

She takes another step, arms lifting for balance and fingers spread wide while her little face is scrunched with fierce concentration. I hold my hands out, not too far, not too close. Every instinct in me wants to scoop her up and protect her from falling, but this is hers.

Her step. Her risk. Her tiny, wobbling declaration that the world is something she intends to cross on her own feet.

“You can do it, baby girl,” I say, and now there’s no hiding the tears in my voice.

Mila’s eyes flick to Julian, then back to me, then she grins with four tiny teeth and takes two more uneven steps.

“Dada!” she squeals.

The word hits me so hard I almost miss catching her when she pitches forward on the last step. I scoop her into my arms with a sound that might be a laugh and might be a sob and is absolutely not anything I’m willing to identify in public.

Her little body slams against my chest, warm and sturdy and alive, and she laughs like falling into me was part of the plan all along.

The yard erupts.

Ryan screams, and Liam tells him to lower his volume while crying. Thorn says “holy fuck” and then immediately looks toward Liam as if expecting discipline. Roman cheers from the pool deck. Damon keeps filming while wiping his face. Luca claps once, hard, then drags Sage into his side. Adrian, who almost never raises his voice, says, “That was excellent,” with such solemn pride that I laugh into Mila’s hair.

Julian’s hand is on my back, his forehead pressing briefly to my shoulder beside Mila. He’s laughing and crying too, and when I turn my head, he kisses my temple without caring who sees.

“She walked,” I say, uselessly.

“She walked,” he answers, just as uselessly.

He laughs, and I lean forward just enough to press my forehead to his for one second with Mila between us, all three of us folded into this tiny impossible celebration on the grass.

Mila grabs my face with one damp hand and pats my jaw. “Dada,” she says again before she turns her head and looks past us toward the gate where Killian has been standing completely still since the first squeal.

He’s several feet back, sunglasses now pushed onto his head, trying really hard not to show emotion. For all his threats and money and ruthless planning, Killian looks almost frightened by the amount of love aimed at him from one tiny person in a duck romper.

Mila lights up all over again. “Kee!” she says, and Killian freezes.

The whole yard goes silent again—somehow my daughter has just created a new emotional crisis with one syllable.

Mila twists in my arms, reaching for Killian with grabby hands. “Kee!”

Julian lets out a choked laugh beside me. I stare at my daughter, then at Killian, then back at my daughter. “Excuse me, tiny traitor. I waited months for a proper Dada, and he gets Kee in the same afternoon?”

Mila does not care. Mila has spoken her truth.

I set her carefully back on her feet because if my daughter wants to emotionally destroy Killian King on her birthday, who am I to stand in the way?

Julian immediately braces a hand behind her without touching, ready to catch if she drops. She stands there for a second, wobbling, then takes one determined step toward the gate where Killian is now crouched down.

Then another. Then another, all the way toward Killian King—ruthless hockey player, terrifying household patriarch, builder of baby-safe outbuildings, and secret keeper of spare pacifiers.

“Come on, Ducky,” Ryan whispers, both hands pressed over his mouth now as if even he knows not to fuck this up. “Go get your emotionally constipated godfather.”