Chapter 2 Another Baldwin Man

(Lila)

“He never even knew my real name,” I said, staring at my reflection in the vanity mirror while Maria, our longtime housekeeper, pinned my hair up. “For a whole year, I was just Lila. No last name. No family legacy. No Montgomery fortune.”

“Miss Lila—”

“Do you know what the funny thing is?” I cut her off, pressing my hand to my temple. “When I saw him…something just clicked. Like I knew him from somewhere.”

Maria’s face went blank. I’d seen that expression before, whenever I asked about my childhood.

“The doctors said your memories might return naturally,” she said, busying herself with my jewelry box. “It was your brain’s way of protecting itself.”

“Eight years old,” I muttered, picking up an old photograph from my bedside table. I stared at the faded image—a summer barbecue, a little girl with pigtails turned away from the camera, standing next to a teenage boy.

Everything before that car crash was a blank slate. Sometimes I’d get flashes—the smell of cotton candy, a warm hand holding mine, laughter across a lake—but nothing concrete. Nothing I could hold onto.

The door burst open and Alexander strode in, already in his tuxedo for tonight’s gala.

“Well, if it isn't my wayward sister,” Alexander leaned against the door, “still moping over that Baldwin?”

“I’m not moping.” I snatched up the red lipstick Maria handed me. “I’m thinking.”

“About how you spent a year pretending to be nobody special? Admit it, your little experiment failed miserably.”

I lifted my chin, refusing to let him see how much I was hurting. “It’s not an experiment. I loved him.”

Alexander pushed off the door and laughed in a way that made my blood boil. “Isn't this exactly how I said it would end? Did you really think you could keep this up forever?”

The worst part was, he was right. 

“He never knew, did he?” Alexander continued, “That you’re Lila Montgomery, heiress to Montgomery Industries? That you’re the daughter of the man whose business empire rivals his own?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” I said quietly, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows at our manicured gardens. “He’s gone back to her. Grace’s returned, and whatever Ethan and I had…it wasn’t enough.”

For a year, I’d lived a double life. During the day, I’d worked remotely, managing Montgomery Industries’ international portfolios from my laptop while pretending to be a freelance consultant.

At night, I was just Lila, the woman Ethan was falling for.

Or so I thought.

“Grace,” he’d murmured in his sleep one night, his arms tightening around me. “Don’t leave again.”

That was the first crack in my fantasy. The first hint that maybe I wasn’t the one he was seeing when he looked at me with those blazing eyes.

Ethan was seeing someone who was tall with dark hair, pale skin, and green eyes; just like me, but not me.

“Let’s drop it, okay?” I try hard to shut my mind and Alexander's mouth. “What's that?” I pointed to the garment bag he was holding. 

He unzipped it, revealing a blood-red gown. “Mama sent this. It’s your armor for tonight. If you’re done playing commoner, it’s time to remind everyone who you really are.”

The dress was everything I’d avoided while with Ethan—bold, expensive, unmistakably high society. I slipped it on in the bathroom, letting Maria zip me up.

When I returned to my bedroom drape in it, I barely recognized myself in the mirror. Diamond earrings. Red hot. My hair swept up in a style that screamed old money.

Gone was the sweet image I’d cultivated for Ethan, replaced by the haughtiness expected of my family name.

Alexander grinned annoyingly. “You know, he’ll probably come with Grace.”

“Now that she’s back.”

“Convenient timing, isn’t it? Just when those condoms showed up tampered with?”

I spun to face him. “You don’t think—”

He shrugged. “That the perfect Grace Williams would stoop so low? People do crazy things for love.”

I scoffed.

“Mother wants you downstairs, by the way,” Alexander said. “Says there’s someone you need to meet at the gala.”

“Yeah, she told me. Ethan’s grandfather’s youngest son.”

“Same age as Ethan, isn’t he? Old man Baldwin’s second family scandal?”

I nodded, slipping into my heels. “The papers had a field day with that one when he was born.”

Nicholas Baldwin. Ethan’s uncle—or more accurately, his grandfather’s youngest son from a second marriage. The product of an old man’s late-life crisis with his secretary, born the same year as Ethan.

The black sheep of the Baldwin family, who’d built his own empire instead of fighting for a piece of his father’s.

“Well, he certainly made up for the scandal instead of fighting for daddy’s scraps.” Alexander offered his arm. “Might be exactly what you need to forget his nephew.”

I ignored his arm, walking past him. “I don’t need another Baldwin man in my life.”

I arrived late enough to the Charity Gala that the party had already reached its peak. 

Everything in the ballroom looked like a dream. Or a nightmare, considering who I might run into tonight.

“There’s your target,” Alexander whispered, nodding toward a man standing near the bar. “Nicholas Baldwin.”

I followed his gaze and nearly stumbled. Nicholas looked nothing like the photos I’d seen.

He was tall, with dark hair and the kind of face that belonged in an art gallery. Where my ex kept his distance with those cold stares, Nicholas had his head thrown back as he laughed—something I'd never seen Ethan do.

“Go introduce yourself,” Alexander urged. “Mother’s orders.”