THE BILLIONAIRE'S FORGOTTEN VOWS

Elena's phone rang at exactly 9:47 PM, just as she was tucking Lily into bed.

"Ms. Carter?" The voice from the other end said.

"This is Jennifer Holm from Blackwood Enterprises. We received your proposal for our annual charity gala."

Elena's heart stopped. Blackwood?

No. It couldn't be. There were thousands of companies with that name. It didn't mean...

"Mr. Blackwood was very impressed," the woman continued.

"He'd like to meet with you tomorrow morning. 9 AM sharp. Will you be available?"

Elena's grip tightened on Lily's pink bedspread as her knuckles going white.

Blackwood? That very one name that had haunted her for years.

"Ms. Carter?" Jennifer's voice sharpened with impatience.

"Are you there?"

"Yes." The word came out from her trangled. Elena cleared her throat, forced professionalism into her tone and said.

"Yes, I'll be there."

"Excellent. I'll send the address and security instructions to your email. Mr. Blackwood looks forward to meeting you." She said before the line went dead.

Elena sat frozen on the edge of Lily's bed, with the phone still pressed to her ear, her heart hammering so hard she thought it might break through her ribs.

Lily's small hand found hers in the dim light. "Mommy? You okay?"

Elena looked down at her daughter's face, those wide hazel eyes that were so much like her own, the soft brown curls spread across the pillow. She forced brightness into her voice, the same fake cheerfulness she'd perfected over five years of doing this alone.

"I'm fine, sweetheart. Just work stuff."

"Good work stuff?"

Elena's smile felt like it might crack her face.

"Very good work stuff. Now close your eyes. It's way past bedtime."

Lily yawned, her eyes already drifting shut.

"Love you, Mommy." She said.

"Love you more, baby girl."

Elena waited until her daughter's breathing evened out before she stood, her legs were unsteady as she pulled the door halfway closed and walked on autopilot to the living room of their tiny apartment.

The space was small but clean, decorated with thrift store finds and the twins' artwork covering every available surface. It was the little space she had built from nothing.

Mia Torres, her best friend was sprawled on their sagging couch, reviewing their company accounts on the battered laptop that had seen better days. She looked up when Elena entered, her expression shifting from concentration to concern in a heartbeat.

"You look like you've seen a ghost. What happened?"

Elena's voice came out barely above a whisper.

"We got the Blackwood contract."

Mia's eyes widened, her mouth forming a perfect O. She snapped the laptop shut and jumped up, her voice pitching high with excitement.

"What? That's amazing! That's..." She stopped mid-celebration, really looking at Elena's face.

"Why do you look like you're about to throw up?" She asked again.

Elena couldn't speak, she couldn't make her mouth form the words. Instead, she crossed to where her own laptop sat on the dining table with a folding piece of furniture that doubled as their meal space and office. She opened it and typed "Blackwood Enterprises New York" into the search bar.

The screen flooded with images, and it turned out to be him.

Ethan Blackwood stared out from a dozen different photos of forbes covers, business conference panels and charity galas.

He was the thirty-three years old CEO and Billionaire, the most Eligible Bachelor in New York, despite being engaged to Olivia Bennett, a socialite whose family owned half of Manhattan's real estate.

He looked different from the man she remembered.

He looked like a stranger, a very rich one. He looked nothing like the man who'd whispered that he loved her in the dark of his office at 2 AM, his walls finally crumbling, his hands gentle as they cupped her face.

"Oh my god," Mia breathed, leaning over Elena's shoulder.

"That's him? Your..."

"Don't." Elena's voice cracked as she help her hands over Mia's lips

"Don't say it."

But the words hung between them anyway. He is her ex and te father of your children. He was the man who destroyed you.

Mia grabbed Elena's shoulders, spinning her around on the chair.

"Okay. Okay, breathe with me. In..." she demonstrated,

"...and out. Come on, Elena."

Elena tried, but her lungs felt too small.

"Maybe he won't even be at the meeting," Mia said quickly, her voice taking on that forced optimism Elena recognized.

It was the same tone she used when the bills were overdue and she was trying to convince them both it would be fine.

"CEOs don't usually handle vendor meetings, right? You'll probably deal with some assistant or event coordinator. Some nobody who'll just sign the papers and..."

"He'll be there."

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do." Elena pulled away, standing up so fast the chair scraped against the floor. She paced to the window, looking out at the city lights stretching endlessly.

Somewhere out there, in one of those towers, Ethan was probably still working. He'd always been a workaholic. She had all her life prayed that he'd drop dead or live miserably, but he was doing just fine while she was struggling to survive.

He was the bad one!

"I worked for him, Mia. I know how he operates. He controls everything, every detail, every decision. If he personally requested this meeting, he'll be there."

Mia was quiet for a moment. Then, gently, she said

"What are you going to do?"

"I can't do this." Elena pressed her forehead against the cool glass.

"I can't see him. I can't..." Her breath fogged the window.

"What if he realizes? What if he looks at Liam and..."

"He won't," Mia said firmly.

"Liam has your smile, your nose. Lots of kids have blue eyes."

"Not like his." She said.

"God, Mia, what am I supposed to do? Walk in there and pretend? Shake his hand like we're strangers?" She was still pacing about the room.

"Do we have a choice?" Mia asked and Elena eyes unconsciously went around the house, the crack in the ceiling she kept meaning to report. The secondhand furniture. The stack of bills on the counter she'd been avoiding.

They both knew the answer.

Their business was dying. Slowly, painfully, and inevitably. Three clients had dropped them last month when a competitor with venture capital funding had undercut their prices by forty percent.

Their office lease was up for renewal next month at double the rate. Elena's car was making a grinding noise that probably meant the transmission was going, and she couldn't afford to find out. Liam had grown out of his shoes again. Lily's preschool tuition was due in two weeks and the Blackwood contract was worth $150,000!

It meant six months of breathing room, stability. It was groceries without checking her bank account first. It was survival.

"He won't even remember me," Elena said, but her voice shook, betraying the lie.

"I was just his assistant. Five years ago, one of dozens of employees. I'm nobody to him."

Mia's expression said she didn't believe that for a second. Nobody looked at someone the way Ethan had looked at Elena in those old photos she'd once shown Mia, the ones Elena had burned the night she left New York as if that person was nobody.

But Mia just squeezed Elena's hand.

"Then go in there tomorrow and be professional. Be the badass businesswoman you are. Get the contract, get the money and get out."

Elena couldn't sleep that night as she just lay in her bed.

Her mind wandered back to the memories of the way he'd looked at her across his desk, his voice, saying

"I've never felt this way about anyone. You scare the hell out of me, Elena."

Her own whispered response was

"Then don't let me go."

And he'd always promise "Never."

And then, three months later, that same voice had said.

"This was a mistake."

"You need to leave."

"It's over."

She'd only been twenty-one years old and fesh out of college with a business degree and enough student debt to drown in. She was naive enough to believe that when a man like Ethan Blackwood looked at her like she hung the moon, it meant something.

She was supid enough to fall in love with her boss and he'd ended it in his office on a Wednesday afternoon, with no explanation and no room for discussion. Just a severance check with an NDA attached.

Helen had left New York two weeks later with a broken heart and $3,000 in savings and she'd only discovered she was pregnant on a rainy Tuesday in Philadelphia, staring at two pink lines in a gas station bathroom.