Elara asked it so directly.
I couldn’t help but feel both amused and a little helpless.
Rhett didn’t say anything either. He just looked at her.
I crouched down slightly to meet her at eye level.
“Elara,” I said softly, “from now on… can you call Rhett ‘Daddy’?”
She paused for a moment.
Then she smiled—a small, slightly proud smile.
“I’ve actually been calling him that for a long time,” she said.
“In my heart,” she added.
She said it very seriously.
The next second, she ran over.
Her small body squeezed right between us.
“Daddy!”
She looked up at Rhett and called out, her voice unbearably sweet.
Rhett visibly froze for a moment.
That expression on his face—I had almost never seen it before.
Like something had struck him right at the core.
Then he reached out and picked her
