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007: The Woman He Couldn't Forget
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2026-06-30 20:27:19Elena returned to Damian's mansion later that evening.
Her head was full of questions. The pregnancy. The test Adrian found. The phone call from the Vale family. Everything was becoming complicated. As soon as she entered her room, she locked the door and sat on the bed. For years, she had dreamed of having a family with Adrian. She had imagined telling him she was pregnant. She had imagined his happiness. His excitement. Now she wasn't even sure he deserved to know. A soft knock sounded on the door. "Come in." Damian stepped inside. He looked like he had just returned from work. His tie was loosened, and his sleeves were rolled up. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then Damian placed a small paper bag on the table. "What's that?" Elena asked. "Medicine." She frowned. "I'm not sick." "The doctor said you've barely been eating." Elena stared at the bag. Nobody had paid attention to things like that in a very long time. Not even Adrian. Especially not Adrian. "Thank you," she said quietly. Damian nodded and left without another word. Elena watched the door close. The man was confusing. One moment he seemed cold and distant. The next, he was taking care of her. At the Sterling Mansion, Vanessa was furious. She threw a magazine onto the couch. "Why are you so quiet?" Adrian looked up from his laptop. "What?" "You've been acting strange since Elena left." Adrian frowned. "I'm working." "No, you're thinking about her." Adrian's expression hardened immediately. "Don't start." Vanessa crossed her arms. "You wanted her gone. She's gone. So what's the problem?" There wasn't a problem. At least that's what Adrian kept telling himself. Yet every time he entered a room, he expected to see Elena. Every morning, he looked toward the kitchen out of habit. Every night, he noticed the empty side of the bed. It was irritating. Because he shouldn't care. Vanessa sat beside him. "You don't miss her." "I don't." "Then prove it." Adrian looked at her. "What does that mean?" "Call Damian. Tell him the deal is complete." For some reason, the suggestion annoyed him. He closed his laptop. "I'm tired." Vanessa's eyes narrowed. That wasn't an answer. The next morning, Elena woke up earlier than usual. The nausea wasn't as bad today. She decided to go downstairs for breakfast. As she entered the dining room, she stopped. A newspaper was sitting on the table. The front page immediately caught her attention. BLACKWOOD GROUP TO ANNOUNCE MAJOR PARTNERSHIP Below the headline was a picture of Damian. Elena picked up the paper. A second photo sat beside the article. This time, it wasn't Damian. It was her. Her eyes widened. The photo had been taken yesterday outside the hospital. The headline beneath it made her stomach drop. WHO IS THE MYSTERY WOMAN BESIDE DAMIAN BLACKWOOD? Elena quickly put the newspaper down. This was bad. Very bad. People were already paying attention. A few moments later, Damian entered the room. He noticed the newspaper immediately. His expression darkened. "Don't read it." "A little late for that." Damian picked up the paper and tossed it aside. "The reporters won't stop." Elena suddenly remembered something. "If they keep following me..." Her voice trailed off. Damian looked at her. "If they keep following you, what?" Elena hesitated. Then she shook her head. "Nothing." But it wasn't nothing. If reporters started digging into her past, they might discover who she really was. And if that happened, Adrian would learn the truth. The truth that Elena Sterling wasn't a poor woman he rescued. She was Elena Vale. The missing granddaughter of one of the wealthiest families in the country. And when that secret came out, everything would change.
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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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