Chapter 1 - The Ghost of Lake Forest
"I’m studying sustainable design,"
she had answered that night,
her voice steady despite the way her hands trembled.
I remembered the way the moonlight hit the kitchen floor,
casting long shadows across the granite countertops of my empty estate.
She was just the girl who cleaned the guest rooms,
and I was the man who owned the world,
but in that quiet moment,
the distance between us felt like nothing more than a heartbeat.
We talked for hours,
sharing coffee and dreams while the rest of the city slept.
I learned that she grew up in a small town in Iowa,
that she loved the smell of rain on hot pavement,
and that she believed every person had a story worth telling.
For the first time in my life,
I stopped thinking about profit margins and stock options.
I started thinking about her.
For six months,
we lived in a secret world of our own making.
I would come home early just to hear her laugh,
and she would wait for me with a book in her hand and a smile that felt like home.
But then the board of directors started asking questions,
and my mother began mailing me brochures of eligible heiresses.
The pressure of the Whitmore name began to suffocate the air between us.
I was a coward.
I chose the empire over the girl,
believing that money could fill the hole where my heart used to be.
The phone call from London was my ultimate betrayal.
I can still hear the static on the line,
the coldness of my own voice as I told her it was a mistake.
I didn't give her a chance to say a word.
I didn't let her tell me she was pregnant.
I didn't let her tell me that she was carrying the only thing in the world that truly belonged to me.
Now,
standing behind a soup pot in a crowded shelter,
the weight of those three years crashed down on my shoulders.
I looked at Milo,
at the way his hair swirled in the same direction mine did.
I looked at his gray eyes,
shining with a light that I had spent years trying to extinguish in myself.
He was the living proof of my failure.
He was the boy I had abandoned before I even knew he existed.
Anna took the tray from my hand,
her fingers brushing against mine for a fleeting second.
The spark was still there,
electric and terrifying.
"Move along, Milo,"
she said,
her voice tight with a pain that I had caused.
"There are people waiting behind us."
I wanted to jump over the table,
to grab her and tell her I was sorry,
to tell her that I would give her everything I owned just for one more night in that kitchen.
But I was paralyzed by the truth.
I was Max the billionaire,
and I was Max the volunteer,
but to her,
I was just the man who left.
As they walked toward a corner table,
the room felt smaller,
the noise of the shelter louder,
and the rain against the window sounded like a thousand voices calling my name.
I watched them sit down,
Milo carefully breaking a piece of bread to share with his mother.
He was the strongest person in the room,
and I was the weakest.
I had all the money in the city,
May you like
but I couldn't buy the way he looked at her.
I couldn't buy a single moment of the life I had thrown away.
