I thought my billionaire ex-husband was about to humiliate me in front of an entire first-class cabin.

The heavy oak door opened, admitting a blast of freezing wind alongside Blake Harrington.

He looked entirely stripped of his billionaire aura. His expensive wool coat was flecked with snow, his hair was messy, and his dark eyes were wide with a turbulent mix of grief, exhaustion, and underlying panic. He stepped into the foyer, looking around at the warm wooden beams, the family photos lining the hallway, and the quiet comfort of the home I had built without him.

"Where are they?" he asked softly, his eyes lingering on a framed photo of the three boys playing in the autumn leaves.

"They are upstairs with their nanny, where they will stay," I said, standing near the entry to my office with my arms crossed tightly over my chest. "You have four minutes left, Blake. Explain why Donald Vance is attacking my company."

Blake dragged a hand down his face, leaning against the doorframe as if his legs could barely support his weight. "Vance presented an emergency board resolution six months ago claiming that Vanguard was losing market share to an anonymous Midwest firm. I didn't look closely at the filings—I've been... distracted for the past year."

"Distracted?" I scoffed softly. "That's a nice word for reckless."

"I was losing control of the board, Emma!" Blake snapped, a flash of his old intensity surfacing before melting back into despair. "Ever since you left, Vanguard hasn't produced a single original breakthrough. You were the genius behind our solar cell architecture. When you walked away, our R&D stalled. Vance took advantage of that gap. He slowly bought up secondary shares through offshore holding companies."

He stepped closer, though he kept a respectful distance when he saw me tense up.

"Vance didn't just push for our divorce five years ago because he thought you were unfaithful," Blake revealed, his voice dropping into a dangerous hush. "He intercepted your sister's medical records because he knew that if you stayed married to me, your joint shares would give us a seventy-percent majority vote on the board. He needed us split up so he could divide our voting power."

I stared at him, processing his words. "You're telling me Vance orchestrated the evidence?"

"He brought me the private investigator's report," Blake confessed, his voice trembling with deep self-loathing. "He swore he verified the bank transfers to Charlotte's clinic. He told me you were funneling Vanguard's capital to a rival developer. I was so consumed by jealousy and paranoia that I swallowed every lie he fed me."

"And you never bothered to verify it yourself?" I asked, my voice laced with venom. "You were supposed to be my husband, Blake. We were partners."

"I was a coward!" Blake shouted, tears finally spilling over his eyelids, running freely down his cheeks. "I was terrified that you didn't love me! I was terrified that someone else had captured your mind, because you were always so brilliant, so far beyond me in every way that mattered! When Vance showed me those texts, my pride couldn't handle it. I destroyed my own life before you could break my heart."

He sank to his knees right there on the hardwood floor of my foyer, bowing his head, his shoulders shaking with silent, wracking sobs.

The sight of Blake Harrington—the ruthless titan of Wall Street, the man who commanded thousands of employees—kneeling in tears on my floor sent a jolt of shock through me.

"I lost you," he wept into his hands. "And I missed five years of my sons' lives. I wasn't there when they were born. I wasn't there when they took their first steps. I was sitting alone in a penthouse in New York, holding on to a grudge against a ghost, while my family was living without me."

Before I could say anything, a tiny voice echoed from the top of the stairs.