The Officer's Runaway Wife and Secret Son novel Chapter 486

Felix would just use the same trick tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.

"How about this: if you sleep in your own bed tonight, tomorrow morning Daddy will help you build a snowman to use as a target, and we can try out your new toy gun. Deal?"

The mention of testing the gun made Felix's eyes light up.

His conflicted expression cleared instantly, and he nodded vigorously. "Deal! You have to keep your word, Daddy!"

"Absolutely," Rhys said, satisfied, as he tucked his son into bed.

On Felix's nightstand sat the stuffed rabbit he'd won from the claw machine, and next to it, the model train Noah had sent from Zurich.

Rhys's gaze lingered on the model train for half a second.

Noah had always had impeccable taste, not just in gifts, but in people, too.

The thought flashed through his mind, leaving a slightly bitter taste.

Whatever.

Let it stay there.

The model train was a part of Felix's childhood memories. He couldn't negate the people who had loved this child during his absence.

"Daddy, tell me a story."

"What kind of story?"

"About you catching bad guys."

Rhys sat on the edge of the bed and thought for a moment, choosing a case from his time as a traffic cop about catching a hit-and-run driver.

The case had actually been quite dangerous. The driver was drunk and had been driving the wrong way down a highway in a minivan. It took him and two other officers over ten minutes of pursuit to force the van to a stop, and they'd nearly had a head-on collision.

He edited out those details, leaving only "the clever police officer set up a roadblock" and "the bad guy got out of his car and surrendered peacefully."

He even improvised an ending: after the bad guy was caught, the police officer got to go home early, make a delicious meal for his own little boy, and build LEGOs with him.

After he finished, Rhys himself paused for a moment.

He felt that this fictional police officer was the version of himself he had always wanted to be but had never managed to become.

Felix, hearing this, bluntly stated, "You made that up, Daddy."

"What part did I make up?"

"Policemen don't get off work that early. Mommy said you used to never even come home."

"..."

He was silent for two seconds.

"Daddy was wrong before," he said, his voice lowering as he brushed the hair from Felix's forehead. "It won't happen again. Daddy will come home on time from now on."

Felix stared at him for a moment, weighing the credibility of this promise.

But after hearing it, Rhys had gone to the bathroom and splashed his face with cold water several times to quell the redness in his eyes.

Those nights he was absent, when Clara had to endure it all alone—what must she have been feeling?

He didn't dare to think too deeply about it.

He rose quietly and slipped out of the kid's room, pulling the door almost shut but leaving a thin crack to let a sliver of light from the hallway spill in, just in case Felix woke up in the middle of the night and got scared.

When he turned around, he saw Clara leaning against the doorframe of the other bedroom, dressed in her pajamas.

He didn't know how long she'd been standing there. One hand rested on the edge of the doorframe, the other clutching the collar of her pajamas.

The light from inside the room backlit her, casting a warm halo around her silhouette.

Rhys's heart began to pound.

Just moments ago in the kid's room, he'd been fine, his mind filled with paternal love and self-recrimination. He was thinking noble thoughts like, 'I need to be a good father,' 'I have to make up for four years of absence,' 'I need to be there for my son's childhood.'

But the second he stepped out of that room and saw her leaning there, all those lofty, heavy emotions vanished completely.

All that remained were thoughts that weren't exactly proper.

Clara looked at him with a half-smile.

"Kicking the kid out of our room so late at night... you must have ulterior motives, huh?"