Chapter 1

I had loved Ethan Carter for five years.

To be with him, I walked away from my family and everything they had prepared for me.

Now I was going home.

I had just finished packing when Ethan returned to the villa. The moment he saw the suitcase beside my feet, his expression darkened.

“What is this?” he asked. “Are you running away from home?”

He yanked off his tie and tossed it onto the couch.

“Is this because I told you to return the wedding dress? Elena, can you stop being so controlling for once?”

I looked at him without emotion.

“Susan didn’t tell you?”

His eyebrows pulled together. “Tell me what?”

“I’m not marrying you anymore. Susan can have the title of Mrs. Carter.”

“This isn’t me running away. I’m ending our relationship.”

Ethan stared at me as though I had lost my mind.

“You’re breaking up with me over one argument?”

He had expected tears, accusations, and another fight about Susan.

“You’re my fiancée,” he snapped. “Why do you keep making Susan the problem? She’s just my assistant.”

“If people hear you talking like this, they’ll think she destroyed our relationship.”

He stepped closer, his anger rising because he could feel himself losing control of the conversation.

“At least Susan knows how to respect me. You always act as though you’re the only person in the room who knows what she’s doing.”

I looked at the man in front of me and wondered how I had once believed he was worth abandoning my entire family for.

Ethan did not know who I really was.

I was Elena Moretti, the only daughter of Don Vittorio Moretti and the most protected woman in one of Sicily’s most powerful families.

Moretti interests stretched across Italy and much of southern Europe. I had been allowed to sit in on business negotiations since I was ten years old. By the time I became an adult, I could read a contract, expose a bluff, and judge an investment faster than most executives twice my age.

My father had opposed my relationship with Ethan from the beginning.

He believed Ethan might be drawn to my name, my inheritance, or the power behind the Moretti family.

I insisted Ethan loved me for myself.

To prove it, I left Sicily, stopped using my family name publicly, and began a life with him as an ordinary woman.

Back then, Ethan had nothing.

We lived in a damp basement apartment and drank the cheapest coffee we could find. When we could not afford groceries, we survived on food-bank packages.

I used everything I had learned from years of watching the Moretti family conduct business. I helped Ethan assess investments, negotiate contracts, and secure one client after another.

Horizon Dynamics began making a profit within its first year.

Five years later, the company was valued at more than nine hundred million dollars, and we were living in a villa with a swimming pool.

My father had finally agreed to accept Ethan.

I thought the hardest years were behind us. I believed Ethan and I could finally get married and enjoy everything we had built together.

It took me until today to understand how wrong I had been.

Somewhere along the way, Ethan had stopped seeing me as the woman who stood beside him.

He had started seeing me as the woman standing in his way.

Things became worse after Susan Blake entered our lives.

Susan and Ethan had grown up in the same group home. We met her a year ago when Ethan and I returned there for a charity event.

Susan told us that she had offended the daughter of an influential family in college. According to her, several companies had rejected her applications because that family had quietly blacklisted her.

Her academic record was excellent. She had received scholarships every year and graduated third in her class.

I believed a talented young woman should not have her career destroyed by someone else’s grudge.

I was the one who persuaded Ethan to hire her.

Instead of taking the opportunity seriously, Susan began using it to get close to my fiancé.

Three days ago, she gave one of our potential clients the wholesale cost of our products during a negotiation. Her mistake could have cost Horizon Dynamics two million dollars.

I stopped the contract before it was signed and asked the legal department to take over.

Susan went into Ethan’s office, cried, and repeated that she was sorry.

That was all it took.

Ethan reprimanded me in front of the entire project team.

“The contract wasn’t signed,” he said. “Why are you making this into such a serious issue?”

“She hasn’t been here long. New employees make mistakes.”

“Did you ever consider her dignity before humiliating her in front of everyone?”

Then he made his final decision.

“Susan will take over the project. You’re no longer involved.”

The entire room went silent.

All the work I had done to prevent the loss suddenly became irrelevant.

As I looked at Ethan, I finally understood.

He knew Susan had made a serious mistake.

He simply cared more about reminding everyone that he was the one in charge.

It made me remember the business summit the year before.

During an interview, the host had laughed and asked Ethan, “People call Elena the heart of Horizon Dynamics. What do you think about that?”

I had immediately stepped in to protect him.

“There would be no Horizon Dynamics without Ethan,” I said.

That night, for the first time in years, he did not hold me when we went to bed.

Later, I saw Susan standing beside him with a glass of wine, looking at him as though he were the most extraordinary man she had ever met.

“They have no idea how capable you are,” she told him.

“Elena just enjoys being the center of attention.”

I had believed Ethan and I would end up with both a successful company and a happy marriage.

Instead, my success had become a threat to him.

He did not want an equal partner.

He wanted a woman who would admire him, obey him, and make herself smaller so he could feel powerful.

He was no longer the man who had once held me in that miserable basement apartment and whispered, “You’re the only person I would ever kneel for.”

My phone lit up on the table.

A message from Sicily appeared on the screen.

The private jet has been arranged. We will welcome our principessa home in three days.

I looked up.

Ethan was still standing across from me with a cold expression, waiting for me to apologize and continue the argument.

In the past, I would have demanded that he fire Susan.

This time, I simply said, “Don’t worry. I won’t interfere with anything involving Susan again.”

Ethan paused.

He clearly had not expected me to surrender so easily.

His expression softened. He reached for my hand and spoke as though he were rewarding me for finally behaving properly.

“That’s more like it.”

“You don’t need to involve yourself in every decision I make.”

I pulled my hand away and placed my passport and documents inside my bag.

Ethan did not understand.

I was not giving in.

From that moment forward, his company, his assistant, and every decision he made had nothing to do with me.