ELENA AND THE BILLIONAIRE

Chapter Three: A Daughter's Heart

She had just come back from another long day at the bank, her heels kicked off near the door, her blouse wrinkled, her eyes tired. New York hummed beyond the windows—sirens in the distance, muffled voices drifting from the street, the city alive even while she sat in silence. She had been staring at it for over an hour, turning it over, locking and unlocking the screen, opening her contacts, closing them again, scrolling through her messages without really reading. The act of dialing her stepfather’s number felt impossible, and yet she knew she could not avoid it forever. He deserved to hear from her directly. He deserved to know where she stood, even if she refused to explain why.

The late afternoon light slanted through the curtains of her small New York apartment, golden and indifferent, touching the rim of the glass of water beside her and making it glow. Inside, she felt frozen, as though the weight of her silence had turned her body into stone.

He wasn’t the one she hated. He was the one who still tried, gently, persistently.

She sighed, grabbed the phone, and pressed it to her ear.

“Elena,” came his voice, warm but laced with exhaustion. “Thank God you picked up.”

Her throat tightened. “Hey, Dad.” She still called him that, even though blood didn’t bind them. He had raised her, after all. He had been there when she scraped her knees, when she had nightmares, when she needed someone steady.

“I’ve been worried sick,” he said. “Your brother’s been worried. Catherine’s…” He trailed off, choosing his words carefully. She misses you. Thank God. I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks. Your mother—” He stopped himself, as though already anticipating the barrier she was about to raise. “We’re both worried.”

Elena leaned back against the couch, staring at the ceiling. “I don’t want to hear about her.”

“Elena—”

“I mean it,” she snapped, her voice sharper than she intended. She exhaled, closing her eyes. “I’ll never speak to her again. Not now. Not ever.”

The silence that followed was heavy, as though he were sifting through words, trying to find the right ones. “She’s your mother,” he said finally, his tone soft, almost pleading.

“Elena?”

She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the couch cushion. “Don’t,” she whispered.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t say her name. Not right now.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, long enough for her to picture him in their old house—her childhood home—with the cordless phone pressed to his ear, standing by the kitchen counter with its familiar marble surface where so many family meals had been prepared. She could see him as vividly as if she had been transported there: his shoulders slightly hunched, his expression patient but lined with worry, his loyalty stretched thin between a wife and a stepdaughter he loved in very different ways.

“Elena,” he said finally, his voice gentler now, “what’s going on? Talk to me. Please.”

The words rose up in her like a flood but caught at the back of her throat. She wanted to tell him everything. She wanted to scream, to confess, to let the truth spill out until it drowned the silence that had been suffocating her for years. But she couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

“I can’t,” she said. “Not with you. Not with anyone.”

Another pause. Then: “But you’ll talk to me about her, won’t you? You can tell me what happened. Whatever it is, we can fix this. She misses you terribly. You know how she is, she—”

Elena cut him off. “No. You don’t understand. There is no fixing this. Not for me. I’ve made my decision.”

The firmness of her tone startled even her. It was like a wall being built brick by brick, sealing her in, making the separation real.

“Elena…” His sigh carried all the weight of a man torn in two. “Your mother loves you. You’re her daughter. Nothing—nothing—changes that.”

Her chest burned. Memories she had worked so hard to bury clawed their way back to the surface. Her mother’s laughter echoing down the hall. Her mother’s voice calling her name when she came home from school. Her mother’s hands brushing her hair back from her forehead when she was little, soft and careful, smelling faintly of lavender. And then—the other memories. The ones darker, sharper, impossible to reconcile with the woman she had once adored.

She pressed her hand hard against her chest, as if she could keep those memories from breaking free. “No,” she said again, softer this time but just as resolute. “Love isn’t enough. Not anymore.”

There was a crackle of silence. She thought she heard him clear his throat, but when he spoke again, his voice was rough with emotion. “Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do? To stand here, in this house, between the two of you? She cries every night. She doesn’t sleep. She wakes up and wanders the halls like she’s lost in her own home. And all I can do is watch her unravel while you—while you tell me you’ll never speak to her again. How am I supposed to live with that?”

The guilt landed like a stone in her stomach, heavy and unmovable. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, tasting blood. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“You’re sorry,” he repeated, disbelief cracking through the syllables. “That’s all you have to say?”

“Yes. Because it’s the truth. I am sorry. But I can’t undo what’s been done. I can’t forgive what I can’t forget.”

Her stepfather exhaled sharply, the sound halfway between a groan and a sigh. “Then at least tell me why. Give me something I can hold on to, something I can use to help her understand. She deserves that much.”