The Billionaire's Reluctant Bride

The Cracks Beneath The Surface

SERENA

I sat stiffly in one of the leather chairs across from Damien’s massive desk, the postmortem report open in my trembling hands. My heart pounded in my ears, and the words on the paper blurred for a moment before I blinked them back into focus.

Blood alcohol content: above the legal limit.

Time of death: estimated between 11:20 and 11:45 p.m.

Cause: blunt force trauma due to collision with stationary object.

Conclusion: accidental death due to impaired driving.

I read the lines over and over, trying to make sense of them, but they felt like foreign characters. Eleanor had been drinking? That night? She’d gotten in the car drunk and—

No.

That didn’t sit right with me. Not at all.

Eleanor wasn’t reckless. She’d had the babies to take care of, she’d just started getting better after her long battle with postpartum depression, and she was trying so hard to put her life together again. I had talked to her that afternoon—she sounded tired, yes, but not the kind of tired that would lead her to pour herself a drink and drive out into the night alone.

I looked up at Damien, who had taken a seat behind the desk. His dark eyes were unreadable, his jaw locked tight. He sat like he always did—shoulders straight, hands folded, gaze distant. Detached. Controlled.

Too controlled.

“You knew,” I said quietly, the paper fluttering in my hand. “You knew all this time what the report said.”

He didn’t answer right away. His silence made my stomach churn.

“You knew,” I said again, louder this time. My voice cracked. “And you didn’t tell me.”

He let out a breath through his nose. “Serena. It wasn’t important to tell you.”

I shot up from the chair, the report slipping from my fingers and onto his desk. “Not important? Not important? Eleanor is—was—my sister! And you don’t think I deserve to know the truth about how she died?”

Damien stood too, slowly. “The truth,” he repeated, as if testing the word. “You want the truth? The truth is, she had too much to drink, she got behind the wheel, and she crashed into a tree at full speed. It was an accident. That’s what the report says.”

I hated the way his voice sounded so emotionless. Like he’d already accepted it. Like he’d buried it deep and didn’t want to touch it again.

“You really believe that?” I asked, my voice shaking. “You believe she would’ve driven drunk? That she’d leave the twins alone at home and—”

“I don’t want to believe it, but what choice do I have?” he snapped, eyes flashing. It was the first time I’d seen the tight mask on his face slip. “She’s gone. Nothing we do now will bring her back.”

I felt my throat tighten. “You think I don’t know that? You think I haven’t cried myself to sleep every night since she died? I just want to know why. Why did she get in the car? Where was she going? What was she running from?”

Damien looked away, his fingers brushing the edge of the desk. “You’re going too deep into this, Serena. There’s nothing more to find. The report is clear.”

“But it doesn’t make sense,” I whispered, gripping the edge of the desk until my knuckles turned white. “She wasn’t drinking when I spoke to her that day. She said she was tired. She said she was going to sleep early. Why would she lie to me? Why would she—”

“People do things they don’t always explain,” he said, quieter now, but not gentler. “Even to the people they love.”

My chest ached at the weight of his words. A memory of Eleanor’s laugh surfaced suddenly—soft and airy, the way it used to be when we were kids. I remembered how she’d always braid my hair, how she promised me she’d name her daughter after our grandmother, Lucy.

I pressed my hand to my heart. “I don’t believe she did this to herself,” I said. “Or the twins. Or you.”

Damien sighed and moved away from the desk, heading toward the window. He pushed one hand through his thick black hair, and I noticed the faint lines around his eyes—lines of exhaustion, of grief, of too many sleepless nights. He looked older than thirty-five in that moment. Like a man who had lost more than he was willing to admit.

“I’ve gone over that night a thousand times in my head,” he said without looking at me. “I’ve asked myself all the same questions you’re asking now. And I still don’t have any answers. All I know is that she’s not here anymore. And I have two children who wake up crying every night looking for her.”

His voice cracked, just barely.

“And now,” he added, finally turning to face me, “I have you. Digging into something that will only make things worse.”

“I just want the truth,” I said again, my voice softer this time.

“Even if it destroys everything else?”

I paused.

Yes. No. I didn’t know anymore.

I wanted to scream that someone needed to care, someone needed to ask. Eleanor wasn’t just another statistic in a report. She was my sister. My blood. She deserved more than silence and resigned acceptance.

But when I looked at Damien’s face—at the tired crease between his brows, the rigid line of his shoulders—I saw a man who had buried his grief behind steel walls. Who had no space left for questions that might crack those walls open.

I swallowed hard. “I won’t stop,” I said, steadying myself. “I’m not accusing you of anything, Damien. But I need to understand what happened. For her. For myself. Maybe even for the twins.”

He nodded slowly, his expression unreadable. “Then do what you have to do. But don’t expect me to follow you down that path.”

I felt like I was standing on opposite shores of a river neither of us could cross.

I bent to pick up the report from the desk, smoothing the creased edges. The fluorescent light above us buzzed faintly, and for a moment, all I could hear was my heartbeat, heavy and loud in my ears.

“I’ll be leaving now,” I said, holding the papers close to my chest.

Damien didn’t say a word as I turned and walked to the door.

But just as my hand touched the handle, his voice stopped me.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, barely above a whisper, “I miss her too.”

I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. My eyes were already stinging with tears.

Because no matter how distant we were, how different our grief looked—there was still that one thing we shared.

The same unbearable loss.

And the painful truth that none of us really knew who Eleanor had been in those final moments.