The sound of the wind dragging the tree leaves against the window caught my attention, leading my eyes to look outside and find the beautiful scenery of orange and brown that only autumn could provide. The wind was misleading though, as it was a beautiful sunny day outside today.

"Mommy, can I ride my own bike at the park?"

"You should ask daddy, he's the one who was in charge of fixing your bike."

Leo, our son of five years old, looked at me with his big blue eyes that were exactly like his dad's. His hair was a mixture of both of us, he was brunette but with some strands of sandy colored hair.

"Did I hear someone mention my name?"

"Your name isn't daddy." I said to Lucas as he walked into the kitchen holding our daughter in his arms. A view I couldn't get enough of seeing.

Violet, who was now three years old, was born on February 6th 2022. She was like my twin sister, born looking exactly like me and still going. With big brown eyes, brown hair with small curls that made my heart swell every time I looked at them. She was a quarantine baby. Conceived during one of the many lockdowns we had to endure.

They were my everything. Everything I've always wanted and everything I never knew I needed.

After becoming a mother, my heart doesn't beat without them. It's really true what they say about becoming a parent. It changes everything and you change forever. Life is never the same again.

Lucas and I don't go out on dates as much as we used to, but instead we go out together with the kids. It's not the same, sure, but it's our new life, our new normal. And we love it.

Don't be fooled though, we do have our own date nights alone, at least twice a month. The good part about moving to London is that Lucas' sister is just a few miles away from us, and we can easily drop the kids off at her place. Melanie is so happy about spending time with them and Lexi adores her cousins.

"It's not?" Leo asked, innocently and looking so shocked. The expression in his face looked like he had just found out Santa wasn't real.

Lucas and I shared a laugh at our son's question but didn't correct him either.

What a difference a year makes. Now imagine five years.

Our home in San Francisco that we ended up buying right before our wedding, when we found out we were having Leo is no longer our home. In fact, I highly doubt it ever was.

Sure, home is where your loved one is, and that is absolutely true, but I feel like for me and Lucas home always belonged to a place, a city.

And that city is London.

Which is where we are now, and where we've been for a while.

We have settled here and I like it a lot.

When the pandemic hit, Lucas was sent home, like most citizens all over the world. The truth is that his work can be done at a distance.

That led to a big talk between us and we ended up deciding that moving to London with our six month old baby was the best decision.

Melanie was in desperate need of someone to watch over Lexi while she was having classes online through Zoom calls and Teams, and she also had to work. Juggling both things was stressful but up until the pandemic hit she was managing it. Mel was an essential worker so that meant that she had to come into work every day as if the world wasn't collapsing outside.

We chose to go and we chose to settle in London for a while, a year, maybe two, but we ended up staying here for five years now, with no prospects of moving back to America.

As for me, well, the editor was more than happy about my move to Europe if that meant I'd be focusing on writing my next story, which I did... It just wasn't what she was expecting.

Too bad.

Inspiration strikes when it strikes, however it strikes.

As we watched our first born grow and turn one, of course, as a writer and a book nerd, my first purchase was a book. More than one, actually, but who's counting?

Infants have books, fully adapted to their age and their skills, but one day, as I walked through Daunt Books in Marylebone to buy my unborn baby some books I stopped by the children's section. That usually goes from ages six to ten. I picked up a book, one I can't even remember right now, and it brought me back so many memories of the books I used to read growing up.

So, you can probably guess what happened... Or if you can't, I'll explain it.

I wrote my first ever children's book. That doesn't mean by any means that I stopped writing romance novels and am a children's author now, not at all. But it means that I tried it and it went well and I've decided to tackle the children's books' world, while I wrote my novels.

And the best part was that Lucas and I worked on it together. "The Lilac Caterpillar" was our third baby.

I worked on the story and Lucas was obviously the illustrator. And if I'm being honest, this project was the most fulfilling one for me as a writer. Firstly because I got to explore another side of me, as a writer, that I had never even thought of exploring, and secondly because I got to do it with my best friend and my partner and overall my favorite person in the world. It was the perfect idea. In fact, it was so perfect and so genuine, that I caught a lot of kids' attention, or better saying, a lot of their parents'. The book did amazing in the bookstores, every kid had one and there was even some buzz going around to turn it into a movie and with Lucas' job being at an animation studio, it was kind of set in stone that it would happen and we couldn't be more thrilled about this news.

I guess I could take a breath and say that well, it's all happening for me. My dreams are all coming true and living the life you've always dreamed of feels unreal. I couldn't be more thankful.

Of course, it's not always rainbows and butterflies, life happens and life doesn't always goes the way we plan to.

I hated being that far away from my best friend and having her miss out on a lot in the kids' lives. She's their auntie and they love her, especially Violet, and they miss her a lot too. Of course, I have lost count of the amount of video chats between all of us and Diane and Trevor but it's undoubtedly not the same. Same thing goes for my parents who have visited their grandkids as much as they could and who video chatted with them every single night.

"Your bike is ready, buddy." Lucas ruffled his son's hair, who smiled at him excitedly before thanking him.

My husband made his way to me, and bent down to capture my lips with his.

"Morning." I whispered against the stubble that he's been growing lately. And that I adored, by the way.

"Morning. This one is all done." He said as he nodded towards Violet who crawled out his arms and jumped into mine, tightly wrapping her arms around my neck.

"Hi mommy!"

"Hi baby!" I said before kissing her cheeks lovingly. Freshly out of the shower, she smelled like flowers and the scent invaded my soul, tugging at my heartstrings.

"Alright so we've got sandwiches and juice boxes packed. Mum, you've got the fruit?"

"I got the fruit!" I replied to Lucas, while I watched him as he checked the kids' backpacks.

"Alright, let's go then."

This was a normal Sunday for us. The four of us would go out with the bikes, take a pit stop at Magic Beans - where Lucas and I share so many memories together - and eat breakfast there. It feels amazing to have our kids visit the place where we spent so much time together. Then, we get back on top of the bikes and take a ride along the park, stopping whenever we want to take a break, eat some snacks or feed the squirrels, the kids' favorite activity and my guess on why they like these types of family outings so much.

Then, we ride our bikes back home, put them in the garage and after a shower we all put on our pajamas and lay under the blankets on the couch or mine and Lucas' bed and watch a movie, while the world just slowly moves along outside. If it's Violet's turn to pick, it's always The Little Mermaid, if it's Leo's turn it's either Toy Story or Ratatouille, and when it comes to me or Lucas, we usually just try to pick different ones than the ones they choose, so we don't watch the same movie every week.

And today was no different.

Today was just another Sunday. 

* * * 

Author's Note: 

Hey lovelies!! Okay, this is it! This is officially the end of my baby, "The Missing Gem" 💕

I want to thank every single one of you who have read my story. Every vote, every comment, every tip or recommendation I thank you all for all those things. I know that this is far from perfect, but it's as perfect as it can be, for now. Needless to say, there will be a LOT of editing in the upcoming months. 

Again, THANK YOU!!! I love you all so much and this wouldn't have been the same without you all by my side, supporting me and my work ❤❤❤

As for now, "The Beginning of the End" will be my priority, but I can already let you know that one of the secondary characters of this story will have her own spinoff, coming soon... Yay! Any guesses?

Stay tuned!

Xoxo, Mars