Forbes series 1: Forever To Be Your Moon

42

Athena Pov

Two years. It's been two years since McKenzie left—two years of silence, of searching, of regret that never seemed to fade. 

Every day felt like a loop of the same painful routine. Wake up, go to work, try to distract myself with meetings and projects, but the truth was always there, lurking in the quiet moments when I was alone.

Where are you, McKenzie?

I had hired dozens of private investigators, each more expensive and skilled than the last. 

Every single one of them came back with the same disappointing result: no trace. McKenzie had completely vanished. It was as if she never existed.

Every day for the past two years, I had thought about her. Regret and guilt were my constant companions. I replayed the moments we shared over and over in my mind, from the way she looked at me when we first met, to the way she walked out of my life, devastated and broken

never meant to hurt her. The last thing I wanted was to push McKenzie away. I didn't choose Philip. It was always her. It was always McKenzie. But things got out of control, faster than I could handle. The tangled web of lies, debts, and blackmail tied my hands.

When Philip first re-entered my life, I thought it was fate playing its cruel tricks. I never loved him like I loved McKenzie, but I thought maybe the universe was giving me a chance to fix things—until I found out the real reason he came back. My parents, once strong and powerful, were neck-deep in debt to Philip's parents. The details were horrifying.

They assured me the debt had been cleared years ago, but then Philip's parents provided proof—papers showing we hadn't paid it all. Interest had piled on for years, ballooning into an amount I could never hope to pay. My company, despite all its success, wasn't enough. The reality crashed down on me, suffocating my every thought.

That's when Philip made his proposal. Marry him, and the debt would be wiped clean. All the years of interest and financial ruin my parents were facing would be erased. At first, I thought it was a joke—a twisted manipulation. But he was serious. Dead serious. I knew he had leverage, and what scared me more was his discovery of my relationship with McKenzie.

He knew.