The Secret Pregnancy of the Billionaire's Ex-Wife

Chapter 297 Chapter 297: Ghosts of Christmas Past Christopher POV The Italian villa was exactly as she'd left it. I insisted on that. The cleaning staff ctwice a week, dusting and vacuuming, keeping mold from the bathrooms and insects from the kitchen. But they had strict instructions: nothing was to be moved. Nothing was to be thrown away. Not even things that seemed like garbage.

"Sir, the children's old drawings are fading in the sunlight, Maria, the head housekeeper, once pointed out. Perhaps we could move them to- "Leave them, I'd interrupted. "They stay exactly where they are." She'd nodded, lips pressed together in that way people do when they think you've lost your mind but are paid too well to say so.

Maybe I had. Lost my mind. It would explain why I found myself here again, alone on Christmas Eve, in a house full of ghosts.

I walked the familiar path from the front door to the living room, my fingers trailing along the wall where pencil marks stili recorded the twins' growth. Each line had a date beside it, sin my handwriting, sin Angela's. Ethan, age 3. Aria, age 4 and two months. Both, age 5.

The living room was still arranged the way Angela had set it up years ago. The oversized sectional where we'd spent countless nights watching movies, the twins squeezed between us. The coffee table with a faint ring where I'd once set down a hot mug without a coaster, earning Angela's exasperated sigh.

"You're the one who insisted on real wood," I'd teased.

"And you're the one who insisted on ignoring basic furniture care, she'd shot back, but there was no real anger in it.

I crouched down by the toy chest in the corner, lifting the lid slowly. Inside, Aria's collection of stuffed animals stared up atwith glassy eyes. Ethan's wooden puzzles were stacked neatly, just as he'd always left them. I reached for the small pink blanket folded at the bottom-Aria's "special blankie" that she'd carried everywhere until age four.

The fabric was soft with age and countless washings. I pressed it to my face, inhaling deeply, but any trace of that baby scent was long gone, replaced by dust and time. Still, I folded it carefully and placed it back exactly as it had been.

On the bookshelf, a row of Dr. Seuss books stood alongside Italian fairy tales. I remembered reading to them each night, Ethan serious and attentive, Aria constantly interrupting with questions.

"But why is his heart too small?" she'd demanded when we read about the Grinch.

"Speople just don't know how to love properly," I'd explained, catching Angela's eye over Aria's head. "That's sad," Ethan had concluded solemnly.

I moved to the kitchen next, where a child's plastic cup still sat on the counter. It was Ethan's favorite-blue with dinosaurs that changed color when filled with cold liquid. He'd refused to drink from anything else for months. Angela had finally bought three identical cups to rotate when one needed washing.

In the drawer next to the sink, I found a small rubber pacifier. Aria had been almost three before she'd given up, and only after I'd convinced her that big girls didn't need pacifiers. She'd handed it over with great ceremony, extracting a promise that I'd keep it safe "just in case.

I never broke that promise.

1/2 Chapter 297: Ghosts of Christmas Past Upstairs was harder. Their bedrooms remained frozen in time-twin Beds with cartoon character sheets, toys arranged on shelves, glow-in-the-dafy stars still stuck to the ceiling, I'd helped them place those stars, lifting each child in turn so they could reach, Aria had insisted on making the Little Dipper, though her version looked wore like a deformed spoon.

In Angela's bedroom, her scent lingered faintly. I'd purchased her signature perfume-Acqua di Parma Gelsomino Nobile-and Instructed Maria to spray it lightly around the room once a month. Ap artificial reminder, but necessary, I couldn't bear the thought of the last traces of her disappearing completely.

On her vanity, a silver hairbrush still held strands of her dark hair. I found myself hefe more than once, gently removing a single strand, wrapping it around my finger like a promise, before forcing myself to place it back. Beside the brush stood a half-empty bottle of the lotion she'd used every night, the one that smelled like vanilla and something uniquely her.

I opened the closet, running my fingers along the clothes she'd left Behind. The sleeves of her sweaters, the silk of her robes. The sundress she'd worn on Aria's fourth birthday, when we'd had a picnic by the lake. The faded jeans with a small paint stain from when we'd repainted the kitchen and she'd insisted on helping

In the back corner of the closet, wrapped in tissue paper, I found what I'd cfor-a small box of Christmas ornaments the children had made. Construction paper stars covered in glitter. Popsicle stick frames with their school photos. Salt dough handprints painted in bright colors.

I carried the box downstairs and placed it beside the Christmas tree I'd had delivered and set up earlier that day. Eight feet tall, just like the ones we'd had when they lived here. I'd spent hours decorating it with the sornaments we'd used then, arranging the lights in the spattern Angela had always insisted upon.

From my briefcase, I removed three carefully wrapped packages and placed them under the tree. For Angela, a first edition of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice her ve favorite book, one she'd mentioned wanting to collect during a lazy Sunday conversation years ago. For Aría, a custom-made music box that played the lullaby I used to sing to her. For Ethan, a telescope more advanced than any six-year-old needed, but perfect for the boy who used to point at the night sky and ask endless questions about the stars. Presents they would never open. But I bought them every year anyway.

I poured myself a glass of the scotch I kept in the cabinet-the expensive kind I never drank during those five years because Angela hated the smell. Settling onto the sofa, I raised my glass to the empty room.

"Merry Christmas," I said to the ghosts that filled the space. "I miss you all." The silence that answered was deafening.

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