Billionaire Boss Was Taking His Fiancée Home — Until He Saw His Ex Crossing the Crosswalk with Twins
The rain came down in relentless sheets that Tuesday afternoon, turning the streets of Manhattan into slick rivers of gray. Inside the back seat of a black Mercedes, Philip Hartman sat beside his fiancée with his hand loosely wrapped around hers, listening as she spoke about centerpieces and seating charts. Their engagement party was only three weeks away.Victoria Ashford’s voice flowed smoothly as she discussed orchids versus roses, her perfectly manicured fingers scrolling through photographs on her phone.
It should have been an ordinary moment in the carefully structured life Philip had built for himself. The car slowed as it approached a red light on Fifth Avenue, wipers brushing rhythmically across the windshield. And then Philip stopped hearing her.
A woman stepped into the crosswalk through the rain, pushing a double stroller while struggling to keep hold of a large umbrella the wind kept threatening to flip inside out. For a moment the umbrella tilted back, exposing her face clearly through the rain-streaked glass. Philip’s body went completely rigid.
Rachel. Rachel Montgomery. The name echoed through him like a shockwave.
Six years had passed since he had last seen her, six years since the woman he had loved more fiercely than anyone else in his life had disappeared without warning. All she had left behind was a short note—three sentences about needing to find herself somewhere beyond the world he lived in. He had never heard from her again.
But it wasn’t just Rachel who stole the air from his lungs. It was the children. Two small figures sat inside the stroller beneath a clear plastic cover—a boy and a girl, both perhaps five years old.
Even through the rain, Philip could see the dark curls bouncing around their faces as they laughed at something their mother said. Something about those curls made his heart pound. “Philip, are you listening?”
Victoria’s voice cut sharply through the fog of his thoughts.
She had noticed the way his attention had drifted to the street. Her icy blue eyes narrowed slightly as she followed his gaze. Rachel had already reached the other side of the street.
She bent over the stroller to shield the children from the rain, her posture instinctively protective, and then disappeared into the moving crowd. Gone again. “Do you know that woman?” Victoria asked.
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