The Divorced Military Queen Awakens (by Sadie Baxter) novel Chapter 684

Chapter 684 Dust Finally Settles

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He had felt nothing when looking at Raina. Now, looking at the girl, his emotions rose and fell like a tide, and a quiet sense of completion settled inside him.

He studied the little girl in front of him, realizing–almost with a jolt–that this was what a child born of him and Quinn Bridger would look like.

A yearning whispered inside him: if the child carried even more of Quinn’s features, that would be even better. It was as though some secret part of him had always longed for that.

“Are you my daddy?” the child asked once again.

Julius blinked hard, the question slicing through his reverie and dragging him back to the

room.

What is wrong with me, wandering off into such thoughts at a moment like this?

“I suppose I am your father. My name is Julius Whitethorn.”

“I have the same last name–Whitethorn. My name is Dawn Whitethorn. Ms. Megan chose it for me. It means the first ray of sunlight at dawn. Isn’t it lovely?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “You carried the Whitethorn surname from the very beginning?”

Yet the reports said Quinn had vanished, lain in a coma for five years–no more than a breathing statue. How, then, had the child ended up with the name Whitethorn?

“Because Ms. Megan said that while Mom was giving birth to me–even though she was unconscious–she kept murmuring the name Whitethorn. Ms. Megan thought it must be Mom’s surname, so she called her ‘White‘ for short and gave me that surname too.”

The little one offered the explanation with wide, earnest eyes.

A dull ache bloomed beneath Julius‘ sternum, forcing his brows to knit without warning.

Instinctively, his gaze drifted past the child to Quinn, silent and delicate behind her.

During those lost years… had she, even in dreams, called out his surname?

The thought punched straight through his ribs, a sudden, inexplicable sorrow that made him wish he had been beside her, absorbing the pain on her behalf.

Gavin, ever the physician, spotted the change first. “Julius, what’s wrong?”

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Chapter 684 Dust Finally Settles

“N–Nothing,” Julius muttered.

He pressed his thin lips together and made to rise, but Dawn’s voice chimed again.

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“May I… touch you, Daddy?” The tremor in her words blended timidity with raw hope. Julius froze, locking eyes with those eyes so like his own.

This was his daughter–tied to him by blood, by fate.

“You may.” The answer left his mouth before thought could intervene.

Dawn’s grin blossomed, exposing tiny pearl–white teeth, impossibly endearing.

He found himself staring, wholly disarmed by how beautiful a child’s smile could be. Worse- he wanted, irrationally, to see that smile again and again.

Before Julius could reclaim his composure, a tiny hand was already pressed to his cheek.

Julius Whitethorn had been so terrifying and untouchable, and yet this small girl touched his face without fear.

Up until this moment, not even Raina had touched him before.

Yet now, Dawn’s tiny palms roamed across that cool, impossibly handsome face with bold, almost ceremonial resolve. She slid from his cheek to the gentle curve of his lips, then traced the proud bridge of his nose. Only when her fingertips reached the strong arch of his brow did she seem satisfied, as though committing every edge and hollow to memory.

She was getting to know his father in this way.

So this is what Daddy looks like! Maybe now I’ll have a mom and a dad. Maybe no one will ever again whisper that I’m the kid without a father.

At last, her questing hand paused at the fine crease at the corner of Julius‘ eye, the warmth of her fingertip blooming against his skin.

“My eyes look just like yours, Daddy,” Dawn announced, pride shimmering in her voice.

Julius‘ dark gaze flickered. The small pulse of warmth at his eye corner reminded him with startling clarity that the child before him was painfully, irrevocably real.

“Yes, we really do have the same eyes,” he murmured.

“Daddy, hug!” Dawn threw her arms wide, her face alight with expectations too big for her tiny frame. She wanted nothing more in that moment than to be gathered into her father’s arms.

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