My Billionaire Ex-husband Wants Me Back

I woke up to the soft weight of a small body climbing onto the bed. “Mommy,” Mia whispered, her five-year-old voice still thick with sleep. No—she was only two then. Tiny hands patted my cheek. “Daddy’s making eggs.” I smiled before I even opened my eyes. The smell of butter and coffee drifted from the kitchen of our penthouse. Raymond always cooked on Sunday mornings. It was one of the few things he refused to leave to the staff. I sat up and pulled Mia into my lap. Her dark curls, so much like her father’s, tickled my chin. “Did you help him?” She nodded proudly. “I stirred.” Raymond appeared in the doorway a moment later, still in his black sleep pants and a white T-shirt. Even like this...barefoot, hair slightly messy. He carried two plates and set one on the nightstand beside me. “Breakfast in bed for my girls,” he said. His voice was warm, the same voice that used to make me believe everything would always be fine. I took the plate. Scrambled eggs, toast, and the strawberry jam I loved. He remembered every small thing. Mia scrambled off the bed and ran to him. He lifted her easily, settling her on his hip like she weighed nothing. She pressed a sticky kiss to his cheek. In that moment, I thought we were happy. We had been married six years. Raymond Lopez, heir to a hotel empire, and me...Elena, the woman who once worked as an assistant in one of his properties and somehow ended up wearing his ring. People still whispered about how a girl like me had landed a man like him. I used to ignore the whispers. Back then, I believed love was enough. Raymond set Mia down and sat on the edge of the bed. He brushed a strand of hair from my face. “I have a meeting later with the board about the new downtown hotel. I’ll try not to be late for dinner.” “Lucy will be there, won’t she?” I asked carefully. His expression tightened for half a second. “She’s part of the family business. I can’t keep her away from every meeting.” Lucy. His older sister. The woman who had smiled at our wedding and then spent the next six years finding new ways to remind me I didn’t belong. She never said it outright in front of Raymond, but the cold looks, the pointed comments about my background, the way she always managed to stand between us at family gatherings—none of it was subtle to me. I had told Raymond more than once that Lucy hated me. He always answered the same way: “She’s protective. She’ll come around.” She never did. That Sunday felt ordinary. We ate breakfast. Mia played with her toys on the living room rug while Raymond answered emails on his phone. I planned the week’s menu with the housekeeper. Normal. Safe. I should have paid more attention to the tension in Raymond’s shoulders when his phone rang an hour later. He stepped out onto the balcony to take the call. When he came back inside, his face had changed. The warmth was gone. In its place was the cold, controlled expression he wore in boardrooms. “Is everything all right?” I asked. He looked at me for a long moment. Too long. “Three documents are missing from the downtown hotel files,” he said. “Important ones. Contracts. Financial records.” My stomach tightened. “Missing how?” “They were in the secure cabinet in my home office last night. This morning they’re gone.” His eyes stayed on my face. “Only three people have the code to that cabinet. Me. My assistant. And you.” The words landed like a slap. “You think I took them?” “I didn’t say that.” But he didn’t need to. The way he looked at me said enough. Mia chose that moment to run over and tug on his pant leg. “Daddy, come play.” Raymond didn’t look down at her. He kept staring at me like he was seeing a stranger. I felt something cold settle in my chest. For the first time in six years, I wondered if the man I married had ever truly trusted me at all. He turned away without another word and walked toward his office, phone already at his ear. I heard him say Lucy’s name. I sat on the edge of the bed, the half-eaten plate of eggs growing cold beside me, and watched the first crack form in the life I thought was solid. I didn’t know then that the crack would become a canyon. I didn’t know that by the end of the week, I would be packing bags with a two-year-old crying in the next room. All I knew was that Raymond Lopez had looked at me with suspicion in his eyes 👀 And it hurt more than I could bear.