Chapter 4 - The Billionaire's Collapse
I stared at the security screen, my breath catching in my throat.
He found Dr. Evans.
Of course he did. He had infinite resources. A few phone calls on his private jet could uncover any secret.
“Don’t let him in,” I told Lucas, my voice shaking slightly.
Lucas placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Em. If you don’t open that door, he’s going to stand in the rain until he dies of pneumonia. He knows.”
I took a deep breath, walked to the foyer, and pulled the heavy oak door open.
Blake stood there, chest heaving.
He didn’t look like a billionaire CEO.
He looked like a man who had just realized he had burned down his own paradise.
He held a crumpled medical file in his trembling hand.
“Triplets,” he whispered, the word sounding foreign on his tongue.
“High-risk. Heart failure.”
He looked up at me, tears freely mixing with the rain on his face.
“You were dying. You were carrying my children, and you were dying… and I accused you of—”
He choked on a sob, falling to his knees right on my front porch.
The great Blake Harrington. The man who never bowed to anyone.
He knelt on the wet stone, hiding his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking violently.
“I’m sorry,” he wept, the sound tearing through the quiet suburban street.
“God, Emma, I am so sorry. I was a monster. I was a blind, arrogant fool.”
I stood in the doorway, my arms crossed tightly over my chest to stop myself from trembling.
Five years I had waited for an apology.
Five years I had dreamed of this moment, of him realizing his catastrophic mistake.
But now that it was happening, I didn’t feel vindicated. I just felt tired.
“Get up, Blake,” I said coldly. “You’re making a scene.”
He slowly raised his head, his eyes bloodshot and filled with an agony so deep it was almost hard to look at.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he begged. “Even after I served the papers. Why didn’t you scream it at me?”
“I tried!” I snapped, my composure finally breaking.
“I tried to tell you! But you blocked my number. Your lawyers sent a restraining order. You told the press I was a traitor.”
I stepped out onto the porch, ignoring the rain.
“You didn’t want the truth, Blake! You wanted to be right. You wanted to be the victim.”
He flinched, every word hitting him like a physical blow.
“I was terrified of losing you,” he whispered. “I loved you so much it made me crazy. I saw the texts and my mind just… broke.”
“Well, your mind broke our family,” I replied bitterly.
I pointed inside the house, where the distant sound of the boys laughing could be heard.
“I spent five months on bed rest, staring at a hospital ceiling, wondering if I would live to see my babies. Lucas held my hand. Not you.”
“Emma, please…”
“I gave birth alone. I raised them alone. They are my sons, Blake. Not yours.”
He stood up slowly.
The desperation in his eyes shifted into a quiet, unwavering resolve.
“They have my blood. They have my face. And you have my heart, Emma. You always have.”
He didn’t try to touch me. He respected the distance I had created.
“I will spend the rest of my life making this right,” he vowed softly.
“You can hate me. You can punish me. But I am not leaving. I am going to be their father.”
“You don’t know the first thing about being a father.”
“Then teach me,” he pleaded.
I looked at him—soaking wet, stripped of his ego, utterly broken but fiercely determined.
May you like
Before I could answer, a small voice came from the hallway behind me.
“Mommy? Why is the sad man from the airport sitting in our rain?”
