Her Last Name, His Claim
She left him five years ago, long before he became the ruthless billionaire the world now fears.
Now she's ready to marry again but first, she needs his signature.
Except Enzo Wayne doesn't plan to let go. He's waited five years to remind her what belonging means.
One signature, one demand, one impossible month..and one question neither of them wants to answer: What if she never stopped loving him?
Chapters
Share
Chapter 2
The cafe was too quiet for the way my heart was beating. Or maybe it was my heart beating too fast. I couldn't tell.
All I knew was that I could hear it, loud and clear, over the soft jazz playing in the background.
I sat by the window, holding a cup of tea that had gone cold, pretending to be calm. Five years was supposed to be enough time to bury the past.
It wasn't.
He chose this place. Of course he did...Perfect decor, soft jazz, impeccable service and a view of the city he practically owned now.
The perfect stage for Enzo Wayne.
When he finally walked in, half the women in the room turned to look at him. He didn't have to speak, his presence alone commanded attention. Five years hadn't aged him. Same broad shoulders, same dark hair, same intense eyes that made you feel like he could see into your soul.
"You look beautiful, Elena."
How is it that my name in his mouth still did strange things to me.
"You got my lawyer's letters," I said, going straight to business. "But just in case you didn't, I brought the papers." I lifted them slightly. "I need your signature."
He didn't even sit. "I got them".
"And?"
He finally sat across from me, leaning back, unbothered, acting like he had all the time in the world. Maybe he did. Billionaires can buy time.
"This isn't a joke, Enzo" I said. "It's been five years."
"And yet here you are," he murmured. "Still my wife."
"Not for long."
He leaned forward, resting his arms on the table, his voice dropping low.
"You want a divorce? Fine. After you give me what's mine."
"What's yours?" I repeated, stunned.
"Closure," he said first. "After five years of silence. My wife vanished. You owe me an ending that means something."
" And a child," he added quietly. "My heir."
I froze. "Are you insane?" I yelled before remembering where we were. A few people looked our way.
"Sometimes, especially when it has to do with you. But I'm also really patient," he said.
He smiled. "I waited five years. You left before our story was finished. I'm just asking for the ending I deserve."
"You deserve a court date," I snapped, standing. "And a therapist, because clearly, you need help."
He smiled again, clearly trying to get on my nerves. "I'm not fighting you, Elena. I don't understand why you're so agitated."
"You can't be serious," I said, " I'm marrying someone else."
"Go ahead and marry him if you want, sweetheart," he shrugged, casual as always. "But remember, it's a crime to marry when you're already married to someone else. I'll just sue both of you to death."
For a moment, I felt like I was choking. I forgot how to breathe.
"Don't you think it's easier on everyone if you just call off the engagement?" he said softly. "Stop stringing the poor guy along. You belong with me. And that ring..."
He glanced at my hand, smirking.
"The guy can't even take care of you. Look at that awful ring. I gave you a better one when I was dirt poor."
"Shut up about my ring. I love it."
My voice came out sharper than intended. My hands were shaking, but I wouldn't let him see it. He's arrogant enough as it is.
"Enzo smiled, clearly amused by my outburst. "Notice how you missed the chance to say you love him."
"You're unbelievable."
"I'm honest," he replied, leaning forward. "You used to love that about me."
"I used to love a lot of things about you," I said quietly. "Doesn't mean I still do."
"I've always been able to tell when you're lying, Elena. Your eyes tell a different story even though you're trying to make me believe you hate me."
I couldn't sit here with him any longer without causing him bodily harm, so I pushed the papers toward him. "Just sign the damn papers, Enzo."
He smirked.Then picked them up slowly and tore them one by one, his eyes locked on mine.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Enzo? Now listen..."
"No," he cut in. "You listen."
He leaned in close, his breath brushing my cheek. "We'll do this my way."
He paused, then said, "if you need me to sign it that badly, then you're going to play by my rules. Do as I say, and I just might sign it. I'm going to enjoy this."
This man really does bring out the ghetto in me.
I grabbed the coffee, and for a wild second considered throwing it in his stupid, smug face. But I stopped myself.
He wasn't worth me loosing my cool, even though I knew how good it would feel.
Instead, I stood, slightly shaking, furious. "You're pathetic," I said quietly. "And I pity you."
I walked out before he could reply, my heels clicking against the tile.
The soft jazz drifted behind me, the world around me moving on. A waiter passed me by. Everything perfectly normal.
Except me.
Except my world, currently being turned upside down by Enzo.
In that moment, I wasn't sure who to direct my anger at, Enzo, for holding me hostage in the past when I'm trying so hard to break free, or myself, for still caring at all.
The morning light streamed through the windows of Maplewood Town Library, warm and golden.
Rows of shelves arranged neatly, the faint smell of books, old and new and clean polish hanging in the air,
It was quiet, peaceful, the kind of peace I built my life around. My perfect, happy place.
I adjusted a stack of children's books on the table for the weekend's reading event, humming along to the soft music in my headset. For a while, it almost felt like yesterday and the past week didn't happen.
"Excuse me," a voice said behind me.
I turned to see Maya from the front desk, pointing toward the hallway. "Someone's here asking for you."
I frowned. "Who?"
Before she could answer, I saw him..tall, confident, and so out of place among the rows of bookshelves.
Just my rotten luck.
The devil found his way into my sanctuary.
"You're stalking me now?" I asked, crossing my arms.
Enzo's lips twitched. "You always did look good surrounded by books."
"Don't start." I turned back to the table to pick up the next stack of books going on the shelf. "If you're here to finish tearing things up, the trash can's over there.
He chuckled softly. "You look beautiful and that top is doing such wonderful things to your...
I cut him off. "Shut up. Sign the papers, Enzo. Then leave."
He didn't reply immediately. Instead, his tone softened, unexpected. "You really got your dream job, huh? I remember how you used to talk my ears off about those novels you're always reading. About wanting to work in a library, helping kids fall in love with books."
That stopped me for a moment. I hated that he remembered. That tiny flicker of tenderness hurt more than the fight yesterday.
"Don't," I said quietly. "Don't pretend you care."
"I'm not pretending," he said. "I came to apologize. For yesterday."
"You came all the way for that? You could've texted."
"I don't live far." His eyes held mine. "I bought a house nearby."
I looked up sharply. "You're moving back here?"
"Already did." he said.
Before I could answer, my phone buzzed on the desk. Nathan's name lit up the screen.
"Hey babe," I answered, forcing my voice to sound steady. "Yeah, I'm at work. That would be nice. Mm hmm. I love you too."
When I hung up, Enzo's expression had changed. The softness was gone, replaced by that cold, unreadable mask I knew too well.
Without another word, he turned and walked out.
For a moment, I stood there, phone still in my hand, wondering what just happened.
Then I took a deep breath, straightened the books again and whispered to no one in particular,
"He's not going to win this time. I don't care how he feels."
You may also like
8.0
When gifted cellist Vivienne Aurel inherits her late father's catastrophic $4.2 million debt, she expects to lose everything. She doesn't expect the debt to be bought by Caspian Vane, the most feared private equity magnate in New York. Caspian doesn't want to ruin her; he wants her to work exclusively for him as the artistic director of his new cultural foundation for eighteen months. Forced into his world under a binding agreement, Vivienne prepares to fight against a cold, transactional cage. But as the intense, quiet proximity between them begins to blur the lines of their contract, she discovers a terrifying truth: the man who now owns her future has been watching her from the shadows long before she ever knew his name.
9.5
For two years, I lived as a ghost in the Horn manor, a world built on blood money where my every breath was monitored. Fulton Horn, my stepfather’s nephew and the executor of my life, held the golden leash around my neck, forcing me to play the role of his secret mistress while he paraded a socialite as his fiancée.
Everything shattered at a high-society gala when the scent of raw seafood made me vomit at the feet of Fulton’s future bride. The ballroom erupted in whispers of a secret pregnancy, but Fulton’s reaction wasn't concern—it was cold, predatory calculation.
He immediately forced me into a clinical "inspection" to ensure his "merchandise" was sound, then destroyed my only chance at escape by framing my friend in a scandal and blacklisting my credit. He dragged me to his penthouse, ripped my clothes, and told me I was nothing but a "placeholder" for his dead first love, Arlena.
I was drowning in his obsession, forced to model his fiancée’s engagement gown while he claimed he was the only one who could "protect" me.
"You are what I say you are," he whispered, "and you belong where I say you belong."
I didn't understand how he could be so cruel, or why he was so determined to keep me in a cage of secrets. But when I looked closer at the photo of the "original" girl he loved, my blood turned to ice. It wasn't a girl named Arlena. It was a picture of me from six years ago, smiling and unbroken.
I realized then that Fulton hadn't just found a replacement—he had spent years carefully destroying the girl I used to be so he could keep the broken pieces for himself. Reaching for the hidden keycard, I finally made a choice: I would find a way to kill the ghost he loved before he finished killing the woman I had become.
8.2
I spent three years playing the role of a submissive, small-town wife for Evertt Baker, trading my true identity for a quiet life in a Manhattan penthouse. I thought my devotion would be enough to build a real home, but I was just a placeholder in his grand design.
The illusion shattered at 2 AM when Evertt walked in smelling of Chanel No. 5-the signature scent of his mistress, Adda. Without a word of apology, he dropped divorce papers on the table, demanding I sign them immediately so he could finally be with the woman he truly loved.
He looked at me with pure disgust, flicking a five-million-dollar check toward me as if he were paying off an incompetent employee. He told me it was more money than anyone from my "trailer park" background would ever see and ordered me to hurry because Adda was waiting in the car downstairs. He didn't care that I had spent years nursing him through illness and tolerating his family's insults; he only cared about his own convenience.
The sheer arrogance of his payout and the blatant disrespect of bringing his mistress to our home was the final blow. I realized that the man I loved never actually saw me, only the submissive shadow I had forced myself to become.
I signed the papers with a fluid scrawl he didn't bother to check, then I fed his millions into the office shredder. I pulled a hidden, encrypted device from a kitchen drawer and dialed a number I hadn't called in three years.
"Brother," I said, my voice finally steady. "Come get me. The game is over."
Evertt thought he was discarding a penniless nobody, but he was about to find out that he had just declared war on the Stafford empire.
9.0
To save her dying mother, Adaline walked into the Waldorf Astoria to deliver a shirt to her fiancé.
She didn't know her stepsister, June, had swapped her keycard. Adaline stumbled into a pitch-black suite and was brutally assaulted by a stranger in the dark.
The nightmare didn't end there. June paid off the only bone marrow donor for Adaline's mother to flee the city, and stole Adaline's fiancé. Bankrupt and desperate, Adaline was forced to sell herself into a loveless marriage with the ruthless billionaire Ferris Finch just to secure a medical team.
But when Ferris saw the dark, violent bruises covering her body, his eyes filled with absolute disgust.
"You make me sick. Pack up your cheap tricks."
He mocked her, calling her a filthy woman who couldn't even wash her lover's marks off before crawling into his house.
Adaline swallowed her pride and endured his cruel humiliation. When June publicly taunted her about the hotel assault, Adaline finally snapped, ending up handcuffed in a freezing police cell.
She thought she was completely out of moves, waiting to rot in prison while her new husband despised her.
But back at the estate, Ferris had just pulled the hotel's security footage.
Staring at the screen, the arrogant billionaire's face turned completely ashen.
He finally realized that the innocent woman he had destroyed in the dark that night, and the wife he was currently torturing, were the exact same person.
8.6
Beneath the full moon, secrets ignite.
Ava Sinclair is a brilliant heiress hiding a dangerous past that could destroy everything she holds dear. Adrian Blackwood is a powerful billionaire with a secret darker than anyone could imagine.
Their worlds collide in a storm of passion and intrigue. Sparks fly, loyalties are tested, and every choice brings them closer to danger-and each other.
As nights grow longer and the moon rises higher, Ava begins to uncover the truth behind Adrian's mysterious life. She must decide whether love is worth the risk when desire and danger blur.
Experience romance, mystery, and supernatural thrills in Moonlit Billionaire: Alpha Secrets.
7.5
Elena Vale's life is carefully controlled, molded by strict family expectations and an arranged marriage she never wanted. But the night before her wedding, a shocking betrayal turns her world upside down. One scandalous mistake leaves her publicly humiliated, her engagement broken, and her future uncertain.
Just when all hope seems lost, Adrian Blackwood, a powerful and enigmatic billionaire, offers her a lifeline: a contract marriage. Thrust into a world of wealth, power, and danger, Elena must navigate his dominance, protect her independence, and confront those who seek to destroy her.
As tension and attraction build between them, Elena discovers her own strength and resilience, while Adrian reveals sides of himself he has long kept hidden. Together, they face betrayal, ambition, and jealousy, learning that love can emerge from the most unexpected circumstances.
In the end, Elena claims her dignity, her future, and a love forged on her own terms.