Arabella's POV
I listened to his voicemail seventeen times.
Seventeen. I counted. The first time, I was standing in my kitchen, frozen with my coffee mug halfway to my lips. By the fifth time, I was sitting on the floor with my back against the refrigerator. By the twelfth, I'd stopped crying—not because I'd run out of tears, but because I'd moved past tears into something rawer. Something that didn't have a name.
"Liam asked me if I was lost. In the park. He said his daddy was an explorer lost at sea. I am. I've been lost for four years. And I think you're the only one who can show me the way back."
I pressed the phone to my chest and closed my eyes.
This wasn't supposed to happen. He was supposed to be the villain. The cold, ruthless billionaire who'd discarded me like a business a
