“She kissed me first,” my husband claimed when I caught him with his mistress on our fifth anniversary, but I left his penthouse without looking back—and the shocking discovery I made that night would turn his betrayal into a secret neither of us could have imagined.

"No," I lied coldly, staring him straight in the face. "They're not yours."

The lie hung in the crisp morning air like poison.

Dante flinched as if I had shot him point-blank in the chest. He stumbled back half a step, looking at my belly, then looking at Julian, who stood fiercely at my side.

For three seconds, a terrifying, murderous rage flashed across Dante’s face—the instinct of a billionaire accustomed to crushing any rival who dared cross him.

Then he looked back at my eyes.

He saw the hatred. He saw the cold, impenetrable wall I had built around myself. And most of all, he saw the timeline.

"Don't lie to me, Elena," Dante whispered, his voice cracking with unbearable pain. "You were eight weeks along when you left Chicago. You were pregnant on our anniversary. The night I..."

He couldn't even say Sofia's name. The shame seemed to choke him.

"You knew," he realized suddenly, his eyes widening in horror as the truth hit him. "You went to Miriam Harris that night. You found out about Chen's records... and you found out about the babies."

"I found out that you stole three years of my life," I hissed, my voice trembling with cold fury. "I found out that you valued your board seat more than my sanity! You made me think I was broken, Dante! You watched me mourn babies that didn't exist while you planned your corporate strategy!"

"I put Chen in federal prison!" Dante shouted, taking two desperate steps toward the porch, ignoring Julian completely. "I fired Sofia the next morning! I liquidated the Vale shares, I gave up the CEO position—I don't have the company anymore, Elena! I burned it all down!"

I stared at him, stunned. "What?"

"I resigned," Dante said, tears finally spilling down his hollow cheeks. "My uncle has the firm. The board forced me out when I spent two hundred million dollars turning this country inside out looking for you. I don't care about Moretti Enterprises. I never cared about the money—I only cared about winning because I thought that's what made me worthy of keeping you!"

He fell to his knees in the gravel at the base of my porch steps, heedless of his expensive suit, heedless of his security guards watching in stunned silence.

"I ruined everything," Dante sobbed, burying his face in his hands. "I broke the only pure thing I ever had. But please, God, Elena... don't make our children pay for my sins. Don't hide them from me."

Suddenly, a sharp, white-hot pain ripped through my lower abdomen.

"Ah!"

A strangled cry tore from my throat as my knees buckled.

"Elena!" Julian caught my right arm, but before he could lift me, Dante surged up the steps with terrifying speed, shoving his way past Julian and catching me against his chest before I could hit the wooden floorboards.

His scent hit me instantly—cedarwood, rain, and familiar warmth. For an instant, my body remembered him, leaning into his strength.

Then warm liquid rushed down the inside of my thighs, soaking through my linen dress.