His First Love Returned, So I Married His Assistant

A black Rolls-Royce rolled up the driveway, and I pressed the binoculars harder against my eyes.

Sebastian Vale stepped out first. He was the billionaire who had paid my bills for three years, and the man who had never once called me his girlfriend.

He leaned into the back seat and lifted out a little boy. Three years old, maybe. Then he reached back in and offered his hand to a woman.

She took it. She stepped into the sunlight.

My stomach dropped.

She had my nose. My chin. Seventy percent of my face, and all of it softer. Gentler. I knew that face. It had been the wallpaper on Sebastian's phone since the day I met him: a teenage girl laughing at the camera.

I lowered the binoculars.

"Well," I said to the empty bedroom. "The original is back. The copy can finally retire."

I dragged my suitcase out of the closet and flipped it open.

Three years. No family dinners. No holidays with his mother. No title. Just a deposit on the first of every month. I'd figured out early that this wasn't a love story. It was a job. Great pay, zero chance of promotion.

So I grabbed my phone and typed.

**Please settle the final payment. Thanks.**

Thirty seconds later, my bank app chimed. One hundred thousand dollars.

I kissed the screen. Then I frowned at it.

"A billionaire," I muttered, "and he can't even throw in a condo as a going-away gift? Cheap."

I was zipping the suitcase when the door banged open.

The little boy stood there in tiny sneakers. He pointed straight at me, eyes huge.

"Two mommies!"

Footsteps hurried down the hall. "Noah, sweetheart, you can't just run into..."

The woman appeared in the doorway. She froze. Her lips parted.

I snatched my sunglasses off the dresser and shoved them on.

"Hello?" I squinted in her general direction and waved at the lamp. "Sorry, is someone there? My eyes are terrible today."

"I... I'm Serena. Serena Collins." Her voice was warm, a little shaky. "And you are?"

"Lily. Sebastian's cousin." I patted the air until I found the suitcase handle. "Distant cousin. Very distant. Practically a stranger."

"His cousin?"

"Lily."

That voice belonged to Adrian Hayes, Sebastian's executive assistant. Tall, crisp suit, wire-rimmed glasses. He was the most serious man I'd ever met. He had once corrected my grammar in a birthday card.

He'd been reaching to push his glasses up his nose. His hand stopped halfway there and hung in the air.

I stared at him through my dark lenses. *Help me.*

He lowered his hand slowly.

"Miss Bennett," he said, "is visiting from out of town. She's leaving today."

Serena's face softened. "Oh, you poor thing. Let me help you down the stairs."

She hooked her arm through mine before I could argue. Noah trotted beside us, tilting his head left, then right. Back and forth between my face and his mother's.

"Same," he announced.

"Common face," I said. "Very common. You'd be shocked."

"Where are you headed?" Serena asked.

"California. There's an eye specialist out there. World famous. He fixes..." I waved vaguely. "Eyeballs."

Behind us, Adrian carried my suitcase without a word.

When Serena turned to steady Noah on the landing, I reached back and jabbed Adrian's bicep with one finger.

Hard. Solid.

I leaned toward him and whispered, "Huh. You look so bookish. Who knew there was real muscle under there?"

His mouth pressed into a thin line. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He was fighting very hard to keep his professional face on.

He won. Barely.

Sebastian sat on the leather sofa in the living room, scrolling through his phone. He glanced up as we came in. Then he stood, walked over, and plucked the sunglasses straight off my face.

He studied me. "Why does your eyeshadow look like someone punched you?"

I'd cried a little upstairs. Just a little. Not that he'd ever know.

I pressed a hand to my chest and gazed toward the window.

"Because this house," I said, my voice trembling, "is where my youth lies buried."

Sebastian blinked. "Did you not get the character you wanted in that game again?"

For one second, I just stood there.

Then I laughed. I couldn't help it. Three years, and he truly thought my heart broke over a mobile game.

"Something like that."

He was already tapping his phone. "I'll have someone set up a trip to California. Go relax."

"Sebastian," Serena said gently, "aren't you going to see your cousin off?"

He finally looked at the suitcase in Adrian's hand. His eyes stayed on it a beat too long.

"Getting away will be good for you," he said.

I smiled my brightest smile. "It really will."

The second the car door shut behind me, I kicked off my heels. One bounced off the seat in front of me.

"That's it," I declared, stretching my toes. "I am officially unemployed."

Adrian sat beside me, his tablet resting on his knee. He didn't look at it.

"He does care about you, you know," he said quietly.

I watched the mansion shrink in the window. The white columns. The second-floor balcony where I'd stood that morning.

"Does he care about me?" I asked. "Or about a face that looks like someone else's?"

Adrian didn't answer.

---

I spent two weeks in California. On day three, I lost the "travel companions" Sebastian had sent. They were really babysitters. Then I flew home to a small town in Pennsylvania.

I deleted his number. I sold the handbags I never used and the jewelry I never liked. Then I sat at my kitchen table with a calculator, adding up how many years I could live on my savings.

A lot of years, it turned out.

A lot of very quiet, very boring years.

By the second month, I was so bored I joined an online hobby community. That's where I met **IronLog**.

He posted workout logs. No face in his profile picture, just a barbell. Mine was a cartoon cat. We argued about dog breeds and video games. He hated my favorite game. I hated his opinions.

One night, after a terrible day, I typed: **Prove you actually lift. Pics or it didn't happen.**

He sent a photo. Shoulders down. No face. Just a white towel, a gym mirror, and a stomach carved like stone.

I nearly dropped my phone into my soup.

**Your abs just saved my terrible day,** I wrote.

He replied with: **...**

Then, three minutes later, he sent three more photos.

I laughed so hard my neighbor's dog started barking.

We talked every night after that. About his old golden retriever. About the lake in my hometown. About nothing, and everything.

Then he wrote: **Coffee? Somewhere public. You pick.**

I picked the diner on Main Street. I wore my red slip dress, the one I'd never been allowed to wear in Sebastian's world. Too loud, he'd said. Not her style.

I walked in grinning.

The man at our table, the corner booth by the window, wore a charcoal suit. Wire-rimmed glasses. He looked up from his coffee.

My smile died on my face.

The man who'd been sending me ab photos at midnight was Adrian Hayes.

He set his cup down very carefully.

"Hello, Lily," he said.