Second Chance with My Billionaire Boss by Tessa Kelwyn
Second Chance with My Billionaire Boss
Description
Have you ever wished someone would finally see the truth behind your forced smile-and step in before it's too late? Aubrey has perfected survival. Covered bruises, quiet obedience, and a life that looks almost normal from the outside. She's learned how to endure, how to shrink, how to exist in the space someone else allows her to take. Until the day everything begins to crack-when a job she desperately needs puts her face-to-face with a man she thought she'd lost forever. A man who sees too much. Notices too much. And refuses to look away when he realizes the truth she's been hiding. Because some men walk past broken things... and others? They take one look and decide to tear the world apart to fix them.
Chapter 1
Apr 24, 2026
Aubrey's POV
The bruise my husband dear gave me has faded to yellow at the edges, but the center still holds deep purple.
I lean closer to the bathroom mirror, tilting my jaw toward the light. I dab concealer onto the discoloration, blending in slow circles until the shadow disappears beneath foundation.
My reflection watches me with tired gray-blue eyes, but I keep going. Layer upon layer. The woman in the mirror looks almost normal when I'm finished.
From the bedroom comes the electronic chime of slot machines—that hollow, cheerful sound that has become the soundtrack of our collapsed marriage. Daniel lies on the bed with his phone held above his face.
I chose a navy blouse, the most professional thing I own, and fastened the buttons with unsteady fingers. Howell Capital is my last chance at financial stability. The interview is in two hours, and if I don't get this job, we will lose the apartment by month's end.
I emerge from the closet and my husband finally looks up. His tone is casual, almost pleasant, which somehow makes it worse.
"You're wearing that?" Daniel sets his phone on his chest, studying me with detached interest. "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter—you'll anyway blend into the background like you always do. Just like any other office plankton."
"I thought you liked this blouse." I smooth the fabric over my stomach, a nervous habit. "You said it brought out my eyes, remember? When we went to your mother's birthday dinner?"
I hate the hope in my own words—the way I'm reaching for a version of him that surfaces less and less with each passing day.
Daniel's mouth curves, but it isn't a smile. "That was before you lost your curves, babe."
He returns to his phone, reaching for the breakfast plate on the nightstand—eggs I made at six this morning while he slept. He chews slowly, scrolling through whatever app promises him fortune.
"Try not to embarrass yourself, Aubrey. We both know you're not exactly work material, but the bills won't pay themselves since someone can't manage money. If you'd been more careful with the accounts, we wouldn't be in this position. But here we are again…"
The irony burns in my chest like swallowed glass.
His gambling debts are the reason I need this job. His losses. His compulsion.
For years, he wouldn't let me work at all.
‘A wife's place is at home, honey,' he'd say. ‘I don't need other men looking at you all day, and I can provide for our family just fine on my own.'
So I stayed, and I managed the house on whatever he gave me.
I stretched grocery money while he bled our savings dry at poker tables and sports apps.
Now the debts have piled so high that even his pride can't pretend anymore, and suddenly I'm being sent out to fix what he forbade me from preventing. But in Daniel's reality, everything is my fault.
I need this job. I need my own money. I need the way out of this.
I move toward the door to gather my bag, and his hand shoots out as I pass, fingers closing around my wrist. He squeezes, and the bones grind together beneath his grip.
"Daniel…" The pain flares white-hot, radiating up my arm. "That hurts."
He doesn't loosen his hold, doesn't even blink. It's as if I haven't spoken at all, as if my voice is just static in the background of his thoughts.
"Remember what we discussed." His thumb digs into the soft flesh of my inner wrist, pressing against the vein until I can feel my own pulse throbbing. "You come straight home after. You go, you interview, you come back. That's it, you understand?"
"Please, you're hurting me…" My voice cracks.
I hate how small it sounds around him now, how much it resembles begging.
His expression doesn't change. He continues as if I'm not standing here with tears pricking the corners of my eyes, as if my pain is simply not relevant to the conversation. "Do you understand? Answer me, now."
"I understand," I say, because he won't let go until I give him an acceptable answer.
"And Aubrey?" He waits until I meet his blue eyes that once made me feel chosen and loved. "Don't forget where you belong."
Daniel releases my wrist and I stumble back a step, cradling my arm against my chest.
He turns back to his phone, already dismissing me, and offers a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "Good luck. You'll need it."
I close the door behind me and stand in the hallway for a moment, breathing.
The stairwell is empty. I take the steps slowly, my wrist throbbing with each heartbeat, and somewhere between the third floor and the second, the tears come.
This is what I chose when I walked down an aisle and said ‘yes' to a man who said he'd take care of me. Of a baby growing inside me.
The interview folder sits in my lap when I take the bus, but I don't open it.
I already know the company history, the position requirements, the talking points I've rehearsed. What I don't know is how to stop my hands from trembling.
Through the window, the glass tower of Howell Capital rises against the gray sky half an hour later, all sharp angles and expensive architecture.
Inside I approach the reception desk and give my name, and a young woman in a tailored suit offers me a practiced smile. "Mrs. Palmer? Right this way. Mr. Howell is ready for you."
We pass through a corridor of glass-walled offices, and I catch fragments of conversation from employees clustered near a water cooler about their CEO's infamous reputation. About my potential boss' reputation.
"Mr. Howell is intimidating as hell, honestly. Four people quit last month because they couldn't handle the pressure. He's a monster."
"He expects complete perfection. Don't even think about making excuses. Remember what he said to Brian when he tried?"
"Well, yeah, but he's fair, if you actually do your job. Just don't waste his time like Brian, man."
My stomach tightens. Dear God… What I got myself into?
I knew a Howell once, back when I was twenty and stupid enough to believe in things.
But the Finn I knew had dreams of proving himself outside his family's wealthy shadow. He wouldn't have taken over the family empire. This must be just one of his family's companies with a cousin, or an uncle, or some other branch of the family tree as CEO.
Either way, would I ever be able to see him again? Even in passing?
I haven't heard about him in years… Did he change much from the guy I remember, who was my best friend back in college, who made me laugh and my breath caught when he touched me?
Would he be disappointed with who I've become?
The receptionist stops before a corner office with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. "Go right in," she says. "He's expecting you."
I push open the door. A man stands at the window with his back to me, silhouetted against the skyline, broad shoulders beneath a charcoal suit.
He's on the phone, his voice low and commanding. "I'll call you back," he says, and ends the call.
When he turns around, the air leaves my lungs completely. My heart stops, then restarts and stops again because I know that jaw.
I know the way his brown hair falls across his forehead, darker now than it was at twenty-one but still the same.
Finn Howell. My former best friend. My first and only true love.
The last time I saw him, I was walking away. He'd asked me to stay—just stay, just talk to me, just tell me what's wrong—but I disappeared anyway.
I couldn't explain to him that the pregnancy test in my purse had already made the choice for me. That I loved him enough to vanish rather than watch his face when he learned what I'd done.
I never answered his calls after. I never told him about the pregnancy.
I let them ring until they stopped, and then I let the silence grow until it became its own kind of wall. He reached out for several months. Then nothing. I told myself it was mercy, letting him forget me.
I never expected to see him again.
Now he is gonna decide if he wants to become my boss.
Second Chance with My Billionaire Boss
30 Chapters
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