The CEO's Unexpected Baby

The first time I saw Elara Santos, I didn't know her name.

I only knew she didn't belong in my world.

She stood at the back of the ballroom with a clipboard in her hands, completely uninterested in the people fighting for my attention.

Then she looked at me.

And smiled.

I didn't know that smile would become the beginning of everything.

I didn't know her family was carrying secrets mine had buried.

I didn't know the woman I was about to love was connected to the one story my family had spent years trying to erase.

And I certainly didn't know that years later, I'd be standing between her and the people who wanted to destroy us.

There are things you learn too late.

Some truths arrive after the damage is already done.

Some people enter your life by accident.

And some become impossible to leave behind.

Elara was all three.

But if I could go back to that night...

I'd still walk toward her.