Married to a Billionaire Stranger
Chapter 20: Buried Ties
Ella stared at the photo long after Valerie had gone to sleep.
The handwriting on the back was jagged, rushed. Faded with time.
> Stay away from the Kings.
She couldn't stop touching the edges of it. Her mother, smiling but guarded. And the man — unfamiliar, but something about his sharp jawline, his cold stance — reminded her too much of Xavier.
She didn't want to believe it. But she couldn't ignore it.
---
Xavier found her in the living room after midnight. Curled up on the couch, barefoot, with the envelope open beside her.
He hesitated in the doorway. The way her body stilled told him immediately: something was wrong.
"Ella?"
She didn't look up.
"How long has your family known mine?" she asked softly.
He frowned. "What?"
She finally turned toward him, holding up the photo.
"Do you know who this man is?"
He walked closer, squinting.
Then froze.
"…Where did you get that?"
Ella sat up straighter. "You do know him."
Xavier didn't speak at first. When he did, his voice was different — hoarse. "That's Anthony King. My uncle."
"Your uncle?"
He nodded, slowly lowering into the chair across from her. "He died almost fifteen years ago. Fell out with my father after a series of… bad business choices."
Ella looked back at the photo.
"This was with my mother. Before she died."
Silence pulsed between them.
"I think they knew each other," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Maybe more than that."
Xavier leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his face unreadable.
"I never met him," he said. "My father erased him from every record. He said Anthony was a disgrace. That he'd tried to take the company down with him."
Ella pressed a hand over her chest, like she could keep her heart from spiraling.
"Do you think… do you think my mother had something to do with that?"
"I don't know," he said honestly. "But if she did, and if they crossed paths back then…"
His voice trailed off.
Ella whispered the rest: "Then maybe we weren't strangers when we met."
---
The weight of it all sank like lead between them.
What if their marriage wasn't fate?
What if it had been a web, spun long before either of them knew?
Suddenly, all the coincidences — the contract, the timing, the way his team found her file — felt less random.
Ella stood up, pacing now.
"I need to know," she said. "I need to know what kind of man my mother was involved with. Why she warned me."
Xavier nodded. "We'll find out."
"We?"
He looked up at her, eyes darker than usual, but steady.
"I'm not letting you do this alone."
---
The next morning, Xavier made a call to someone Ella had never heard him speak to before.
His mother.
Ella stood quietly in the hall as Xavier stepped out onto the balcony, phone pressed to his ear, his posture rigid.
"Yes. I know what I said. But I need to ask you something… about Anthony."
A long pause.
Xavier's voice dropped. "And about a woman named Katherine Carter."
Ella froze at the sound of her mother's name.
She moved closer, just enough to hear the other side of the call.
But all she caught was the silence.
Then: "I see," Xavier said.
Then nothing more.
---
He hung up, came back inside, and looked at Ella.
"She said she'll meet you."
Ella blinked. "What?"
"She agreed to see you. Alone."
Ella's chest tightened. "Why alone?"
"Because I think she knows something," he said. "And because she doesn't want me there when she tells you."
---
That afternoon, Ella rode in a black car to a private estate outside the city. A house nestled between trimmed trees and guarded silence. Cold and perfect.
Xavier's mother, Evelyn King, was waiting on the back veranda. Dressed in white linen, sunglasses perched on her head, with the kind of grace only time and money could teach.
She didn't rise when Ella approached.
"Ms. Carter," she said. "Or is it Mrs. King now?"
Ella stayed standing. "Just Ella."
Evelyn nodded. "Your mother was beautiful."
Ella's heart dropped.
"You knew her?"
"Oh, yes," Evelyn said lightly, stirring her tea. "She was young. Bright. Very determined. Your mother worked for my brother-in-law. Briefly. Then she stopped… quite suddenly."
Ella swallowed hard. "Why?"
"She got pregnant."
The air rushed from Ella's lungs.
Evelyn looked up then, eyes sharp. "I don't know if it was Anthony's. But I do know he was obsessed with her. And he disappeared not long after."
Ella gripped the edge of the table.
"Are you saying my mother ran because she was afraid of him?"
"I'm saying… she had reason to protect herself. And you."
---
By the time Ella left the estate, her mind was racing.
The photo. The warning. The secrets.
And one haunting question Xavier hadn't dared ask yet—
> What if Ella wasn't a stranger to the Kings at all?
What if she was blood?