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006: The Test He Found
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2026-06-30 20:26:23Elena's grip tightened around the phone.
"What pregnancy test?" Across the room, Damian looked up from where he was standing. On the other end of the call, Adrian was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Don't play games with me." "I have no idea what you're talking about." Adrian let out a frustrated sigh. "I found it in the bathroom cabinet." Elena frowned. There had never been a pregnancy test in their bathroom. Never. "You're mistaken." "I know what I saw, Elena." Before she could respond, the call ended. Elena slowly lowered the phone. Something felt wrong. Very wrong. "What's going on?" Damian asked. She shook her head. "I don't know." But she did know one thing. There was a setup. And she was going to find out who was doing that. Meanwhile, at the Sterling Mansion, Adrian sat alone in the living room. The house was quiet. Too quiet. For the first time in years, there was no sound coming from the kitchen. No smell of Elena's cooking. No lights left on for him. Nothing. Vanessa walked downstairs wearing one of his shirts. "You've been staring at your phone all night." Adrian ignored her. Vanessa frowned. "Are you seriously thinking about Elena right now?" "No." The answer came too quickly. Vanessa noticed. "She's with another man. Why do you care?" Adrian rubbed his forehead. He wasn't sure why he cared. He had wanted Elena gone. That was the whole point. So why did the house suddenly feel empty? His eyes drifted toward the dining room. The anniversary dinner was still there. Nobody had touched it. The candles had burned out. The food had gone bad. Something tightened in his chest. Vanessa followed his gaze and rolled her eyes. "She was being dramatic." Maybe. But Adrian suddenly remembered how excited Elena had looked that morning. She had asked him three times what time he would be home. He never answered. A strange feeling settled in his stomach. Not guilt. Not yet. Just discomfort. Back at the hospital, Elena couldn't stop thinking. A pregnancy test. Who put it there? Then a memory flashed through her mind. A few weeks ago, Vanessa had visited the mansion while Adrian was at work. She had spent almost an hour upstairs. Alone. Elena sat up straight. Could it have been Vanessa? But why? The answer came almost immediately. To make Adrian think Elena was pregnant. To create another problem in the marriage. To push them further apart. The realization made her sick. Vanessa had been planning things for much longer than Elena realized. A knock interrupted her thoughts. The doctor entered again carrying another file. "Mrs. Sterling, we have your blood test results." Elena accepted the file nervously. The doctor smiled. "Everything looks healthy." Elena released a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. Then the doctor added, "Based on the dates, you're approximately six weeks pregnant." The room became quiet. Six weeks? Elena immediately started counting backwards in her head. Her heart began to race. Because six weeks covered two possible dates. One date with Adrian. And one date she desperately wanted to forget. The night she met Damian Blackwood. She slowly closed the file. The mystery hadn't become clearer. It had become worse. Much worse. And sitting across the room was one of the two men who could be the father. Damian looked up from his phone. Their eyes met. For a brief second, Elena wondered what would happen if the baby turned out to be his. The thought terrified her. Because she had no idea whether that would make her life easier... Or destroy it completely.
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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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