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001: The Anniversary Gift
Data de publicação:
2026-06-30 17:25:54Elena arranged the plates on the dining table and checked the time again.
9:32 PM.
Her husband was still not home.
She looked at the food she had spent hours preparing and forced herself to smile. Today was their third wedding anniversary. Adrian had forgotten the last two, but she still hoped this year would be different.
She adjusted the candles and picked up her phone to check if she had gotten a response from Adrian. No response still. The dinner was already getting cold.
A few minutes later, she heard the front door open downstairs. She heaved a sigh of relief immediately.
“Adrian?” she called softly as she walked toward the staircase.
Then she stopped.
She heard laughter.
A woman’s laughter.
“Elena is probably sleeping already,” Vanessa said.
Elena froze.
“That’s good,” Adrian replied carelessly. “I’m tired of explaining myself to her.”
Vanessa laughed again. “Then divorce her.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why? You don’t even love her.”
There was silence for two seconds before Adrian answered.
“You know I don’t.”
Elena felt her chest tighten.
Vanessa lowered her voice playfully. “Then why are you still keeping her around?”
“She listens. She doesn’t question me. And honestly, she’s useful.”
Useful??? Elena repeated quietly.
Elena tightened her grip on the stair rail.
Vanessa hissed. “Please. That woman has nothing. No status. No money. No connections. I still don’t know why you married her.”
“I was stupid back then and I regret it so much"
Elena stopped breathing for a moment. She didn't want to believe what she was hearing.
Then Adrian added casually, “Besides, after tonight, she won’t be my problem anymore.”
Vanessa sounded confused. “What do you mean?”
“The deal is done.”
“What deal?”
Adrian chuckled. “Damian Blackwood wants her.”
Elena’s brows pulled together immediately.
Vanessa gasped. “Wait… seriously? You’re actually giving your wife to another man?”
“It’s a contract arrangement,” Adrian corrected. “And in return, Damian invests in my company.”
“Oh my God.” Vanessa laughed in disbelief. “That’s insane.”
“It’s business.”
“And Elena agreed to this?”
“She doesn’t have a choice.”
Elena felt sick. She couldn't believe what she had just heard.
Her body moved before her mind could stop it. She walked downstairs slowly until both of them saw her.
The moment Adrian noticed her standing there, his expression changed slightly.
“Elena.”
Vanessa stepped away from him immediately, but it was too late.
Elena had already seen everything.
Vanessa was wearing Adrian’s shirt.
Her lipstick was smeared.
And Adrian didn’t even look guilty.
Elena looked at him quietly. “You’re cheating on me?”
Adrian sighed like he was already tired of the conversation. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
Vanessa crossed her arms. “Well, now you know.”
Elena ignored her completely and kept staring at her husband.
“Today is our anniversary.”
“I forgot.”
No apology.
Nothing.
Elena laughed softly, but her eyes were already filling with tears. “I cooked for you.”
Adrian loosened his tie. “Elena, let’s not make this dramatic.”
“Dramatic?” she repeated. "You’re sleeping with my best friend and you say I'm being dramatic?"
Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Please stop acting innocent. Your marriage has been dead for a long time.”
Elena looked at her slowly. “For how long has this been going on?”
Vanessa smirked. “Six months.”
The answer hit harder than she expected.
Elena looked back at Adrian. “Six months?”
“It just happened.”
“It just happened?” Elena repeated in disbelief.
Adrian walked toward the table and picked up a file. “Forget about that for now. There’s something more important.”
He handed the papers to her.
“Sign them.”
Elena looked down at the document.
TRANSFER AGREEMENT.
Her face slowly lost color.
“What is this?”
“Damian Blackwood requested you personally.”
She blinked. “What?”
“In exchange, he saves my company.”
Elena stared at him like she had never seen him before.
“You’re selling me?”
“No one is selling you.”
“You literally just handed me transfer papers!”
Adrian’s expression hardened immediately. “You want to keep living in luxury, don’t you? This house, these clothes, everything you enjoy came from me.”
Elena looked at him in shock.
“You think I owe you?”
“I think you should stop pretending you’re too good for this arrangement.”
Vanessa stepped closer to Adrian and wrapped her arm around his.
“You should just sign quietly, Elena. At least this way, you’ll finally be useful.”
That was the moment something inside Elena broke completely.
Before she could respond, the front door opened again.
The room fell silent instantly.
A tall man walked inside wearing a black suit. His eyes landed directly on Elena.
Damian Blackwood.
His expression changed the moment he saw her.
And Elena’s heart stopped too.
Because she recognized him immediately.
The stranger from that night.
The one man she prayed
never to see again.
Damian stared at her for a long moment before speaking.
“You’re married?”
Último capítulo
Too Late To Want Me Back 053: What the Dead Don't Spend
Her grandfather was waiting for her when she arrived, which told Elena everything before she'd said a word. He'd known this conversation was coming since the moment Damian's security team pulled that bank statement."You should sit," he said."I'd rather stand."He nodded, as though he'd expected that too, and folded his hands in his lap the way he always did before delivering news he didn't want to give."Katherine didn't die of her heart," he said. "Or not only that. It's complicated, and I've spent seven years telling myself complicated was close enough to a lie that it didn't count as one."Elena set the bank statement on the table between them. "Someone has been funding an account under her name for seven years. Paying Marcus Reyes. Explain that to me."Her grandfather looked at the paper like it was something that could still bite him."Katherine wasn't just your aunt," he said slowly. "She ran security for this family for almost a decade before you were born. Off the books, mos
Too Late To Want Me Back 052: Six Weeks
The doctor's office was quiet in the way expensive places always were — no waiting room chatter, no rushed appointments, just soft lighting and the faint hum of machines that were about to answer a question Elena had been avoiding for weeks.Damian sat beside her, his hand wrapped around hers, saying nothing because he understood, without being told, that she needed the silence more than reassurance right now."Six weeks along," Dr. Whitfield said, turning the monitor slightly so Elena could see. "Measurements are right on track."Six weeks.Elena did the math again, the way she'd done it a dozen times already in the privacy of her own head, and the number landed exactly where it had every other time. Six weeks put conception right around the week she'd been signed over to Damian. Not years ago, in a hotel room she'd spent seven years trying to forget.Now.Recently.The night she'd told herself, at the time, hadn't meant anything."Elena." Damian's voice was low, steady, meant only f
Too Late To Want Me Back 051: The Reckoning Begins
By the time Elena walked into the Vale Group's headquarters, the entire city already knew her name.Cameras lined the entrance. Reporters shouted questions she didn't answer. Analysts had spent the last three days rewriting projections for a company everyone thought had lost its heir seven years ago, and now here she was, stepping out of a car with Damian Blackwood's hand at the small of her back, dressed like a woman who had never once been anyone's collateral.She didn't flinch under the lights. She'd spent too long flinching."Ms. Vale." A board member met her at the door, older, cautious, testing the ground before he committed to a side. "We weren't expecting you so soon.""I've been gone seven years," Elena said. "I don't intend to waste a single day more."The boardroom fell silent when she entered.These were men who had run her father's company in her absence, who had built careers on the assumption she would never come back to claim what was hers. A few looked afraid. A few l
Too Late To Want Me Back 050: Following the Money
By morning, Damian's security team had a location.Not a home address — Marcus Reyes hadn't lived anywhere long enough to leave a paper trail worth following. But he had a habit of using the same private mail service every few weeks, a small storefront wedged between a dry cleaner and a shuttered bakery on the edge of the industrial district."It's not much," the head of security admitted, sliding a folder across Damian's desk. "But it's the only thread that's actually moved in three days."Elena reached for the folder before Damian could. "Then we pull it.""Elena—""I'm not asking you to let me go alone." She met his eyes. "I'm telling you I'm coming."Damian studied her for a long moment, the way he did when he was deciding whether to fight her or trust her. He chose trust. He usually did, these days."Fine," he said. "But we do this quietly. If Marcus knows we're looking, he disappears."The mail service was smaller than the photograph suggested, lit by a single flickering sign an
Too Late To Want Me Back 049: The Hotel
Damian didn't sit. He never did when the truth was about to cost him something."Seven years ago, I wasn't in that city by accident," he said. "I was there because my father had just died, and I'd inherited a company that was quietly bleeding out from a deal he'd made with your family."Elena's grip on his hand tightened. "My family?""The Vale Group had a controlling stake in a shipping consortium my father needed to survive. He'd borrowed against it without telling anyone — including me. When he died, I had ninety days to either renegotiate the terms or lose everything he'd spent thirty years building." Damian's jaw worked. "I flew in to meet with a Vale representative. Someone who could get me an audience with your father before the board found out how close we were to collapse.""And instead you met me.""I didn't know who you were. Not that night." He finally looked at her. "You told me your name was Ellie. You said you were in town for a wedding you didn't want to attend."Elena
Too Late To Want Me Back 048: What He Never Told Her
Damian's security team traced the call within thirty-six hours. A burner phone, purchased in cash, activated for eleven minutes and never used again. Untraceable, technically. But the store it came from sat two blocks from a building Damian recognized immediately — the old Sterling Holdings satellite office, the one Adrian had quietly shut down during the restructuring. "That doesn't mean Adrian's involved," Elena said, reading the report over Damian's shoulder. "I didn't say it did." He set the tablet down. "But someone who used to have access to that building did." "Marcus." Damian looked up. "You know that name?" "No." Elena frowned. "But Vanessa's been different this week. Distracted. My assistant mentioned she canceled two meetings and left the office early yesterday without telling anyone where she was going." "You're still keeping tabs on Vanessa." "I'm keeping tabs on the people who might hurt me. She qualifies." Elena crossed her arms. "She always has." Damia
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