The Secret Pregnancy of the Billionaire's Ex-Wife novel Chapter 313

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Christopher POV

I should have known it wouldn’t last.

The first time Angela mentioned returning to New York, I dismissed it as nostalgia. But she brought it up again, and again, with increasing frequency.

“I want to start my own investment firm,” she explained. “And New York is home. I want the children to know where they come from, to have a connection to their roots.”

What she didn’t say what she didn’t need to say–was that New York meant Sean. Even after five years, even after everything, some part of her still belonged to him.

I tried to talk her out of it. I offered to open a branch of Blake Enterprises in New York, to divide our time between there and Italy. I reminded her of the life we’d built, the stability the children had here.

“I need to do this,” she said finally. “For myself. I need to know I can stand on my own.”

I could have stopped her. Could have reminded her of the legal complications, the fact that I held considerable influence over her financial situation. But looking into those amber eyes–the same eyes that had defended me in a library so many years ago—I couldn’t bring myself to be that person.

“I’ll come visit,” she promised, as the moving boxes stacked up around us. “And you’ll come to New York. The children need you in their lives.”

I nodded, throat too tight to speak. I believed her. Believed that five years of being a family had forged an unbreakable bond. That no matter what happened in New York, I would always have a place in their lives.

I believed, perhaps arrogantly, that if Sean did reenter the picture, Angela would choose me. How could she not? After everything we’d been through, everything I’d given her?

Or maybe some dark part of me wanted the confrontation. Wanted, after all these years, the chance to finally win Angela from Sean once and for all. To have her choose me deliberately, not just accept me as the only option available.

Whatever my reasoning, I let her go. Helped her pack, arranged the transportation, set her up in a New York apartment, made, sure she had everything she needed to start again.

Five months later, she was engaged to Sean.

Five months erased five years. Just like that.

I should never have let her leave. Should never have given Sean the chance to reclaim what I had so earefully built. He hadn’t been there for the midnight fevers, the first days of preschool, the skinned knees and night terrors. He hadn’t earned the right to those children, to Angela’s heart.

But he took them anyway. Effortlessly, as he’d always taken everything I wanted.

In the end, perhaps this was always our fate. No matter how many years I gave, no matter how deeply I loved them, Angela and the children were never truly mine to keep. I lived five years of borrowed happiness, and now the debt has come due.

And so, I did the stupidest, most regrettable thing of my life. I imprisoned Angela and the twins.

After learning Angela and Sean had started a company together–that they might even be reconciling–I lost all patience. Each time

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14

she returned from seeing him, she carried Sean’s scent on her skin. knew what that meant: they had embraced, kissed, perhaps been even more intimate… I couldn’t bear it anymore.