LOGINShare
It's Down
publish date:
2026-03-24 11:27:52The FBI arrested Germany Slater at 6 AM. Monica watched the news coverage from George's penthouse, where she'd been staying since the hotel incident three days ago.
"Federal agents raided the offices of Slater Financial Services this morning," the reporter announced. "Germany Slater faces charges of embezzlement, fraud, blackmail, and conspiracy."
George turned off the television. "It's over. Finally."
"What about the photos he threatened us with?"
"Agent Rodriguez found them on Germany's computer. They'll be destroyed as evidence disposal after the trial."
Monica felt relief wash over her. The photos would never surface now.
"And Sharon?"
"Pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges yesterday. She'll serve eighteen months minimum security prison."
George's phone rang. His lawyer.
"The annulment paperwork is ready for filing," George told Monica after hanging up. "I'll be legally single again in ninety days."
Monica nodded. She'd been expecting this news, but it still felt significant.
"Monica, we need to talk about what happens next."
"What do you mean?"
"With us. These past weeks working together, staying in the same apartment, it's felt like..."
"Like what?"
"Like we're married again. But better this time. More honest."
Monica's heart raced. She'd felt it too, the growing closeness, the old attraction returning stronger than before.
"George, we can't just pick up where we left off. Too much has happened."
"I know. But we could start fresh. Date properly this time. Build something real instead of an arranged marriage."
"You want to date your ex-wife?"
"I want to date the woman I fell in love with three years ago. The woman I never stopped loving."
Monica turned away from him. The pregnancy was twelve weeks along now. Soon she'd be showing and couldn't hide it anymore.
"There's something I need to tell you first."
"What is it?"
Monica took a deep breath. This was the moment that would change everything.
"I'm pregnant."
George stared at her. "Pregnant?"
"From that night at the hotel. After the divorce papers were served."
"You're carrying my baby?"
"Yes."
George sat down heavily on the couch. "How long have you known?"
"Since the day I met with Simon. I was planning to raise the baby alone in Boston."
"Without telling me?"
"You were married to Sharon. I thought you'd moved on completely."
George ran his hands through his hair. "A baby. We're having a baby."
"I'm having a baby. What you do is up to you."
George stood up and walked to the window overlooking Manhattan.
"Monica, do you have any idea how this makes me feel?"
"Trapped? Obligated?"
George turned around. His eyes were bright with tears.
"Complete. For the first time in months, I feel complete."
Monica hadn't expected that response.
"Really?"
"I've wanted children since we got married. You know that. But the timing never seemed right with all the business pressures."
"The timing isn't exactly perfect now either."
"When is it ever perfect? But we love each other. We're both free. We have a chance to do this right."
"George, I don't know if I can trust you again completely."
"Then let me prove it. Let me spend every day showing you that I choose you and our baby over everything else."
Monica felt her resolve weakening. The past weeks had shown her glimpses of the man she'd fallen in love with originally.
"What about Winston Corporation?"
"I'll hire managers. Step back from day-to-day operations. Focus on being a husband and father."
"We're not married."
"Yet."
George got down on one knee in front of Monica.
"I don't have a ring. I gave the last one to you under false pretenses during an arranged marriage. This time it's different."
"George, what are you doing?"
"Monica Charleston, I love you completely and honestly. I want to marry you because I can't imagine life without you. Will you give me another chance to be the husband you deserve?"
Monica stared at him. Three months ago she would have said yes immediately. Now she was more cautious.
"I need time to think about it."
George stood up. "Of course. Take all the time you need."
"And I want to do things differently this time. No business arrangements. No family pressure. Just us deciding what we want."
"Absolutely."
"And I'm keeping my consulting business. I'm not going back to being just a corporate wife."
"I wouldn't ask you to. Your business is impressive. You've built something amazing."
Monica smiled. George had never supported her career ambitions during their marriage.
"What changed your mind about me working?"
"Watching you these past weeks. You're brilliant at business strategy. I was an idiot for not recognizing that before."
"Yes, you were."
George laughed. "I deserved that."
Monica's phone rang. Her doctor's office confirming her appointment for next week.
"I have a prenatal appointment Thursday," she told George. "Do you want to come?"
"Can I?"
"If you want to see our baby's first ultrasound."
George's face lit up. "More than anything."
"Then yes. You can come."
George pulled Monica into his arms and kissed her forehead.
"Thank you for giving me this second chance. Both of you."
Monica rested her head against George's chest and listened to his heartbeat. It felt right being in his arms again.
"Don't make me regret it."
"Never again. I promise."
Monica pulled back to look at him. "I'm not saying yes to remarriage yet. We're taking things slow this time."
"Whatever you want."
"I want us to date properly. Go to dinner, see movies, talk about our dreams and goals."
"Like normal couples do."
"Exactly. I want to fall in love with you again, George. But as the real you, not the man you thought I wanted you to be."
"Deal."
George kissed her gently. It felt different than their old kisses. More honest. More hopeful.
"I love you, Monica Charleston."
"I love you too, George Winston. Despite everything that happened, I never stopped."
"What do we tell people? About the baby, about us getting back together?"
"The truth. That we're taking it one day at a time."
Monica looked around the penthouse that had once been their home. It could be again, but only if they built something real this time.
"One more thing," Monica said.
"What?"
"If we do this, if we try again, Germany Slater's name is never mentioned in our house. That chapter is closed forever."
"Agreed. No more outside manipulation. Just us making our own choices."
"Just us," Monica agreed.
She placed George's hand on her stomach where their baby was growing.
"And soon, just us three."
George smiled and leaned down to kiss her again. This time, Monica kissed him back without reservation.
Outside, Manhattan glittered in the evening light. Inside, two people who had lost everything were building something new fro
m the pieces of their broken marriage.
It wouldn't be easy. Trust would take time to rebuild. But they had something worth fighting for now.
Each other. Their baby. And a second chance at happiness.
Latest chapter
Betrayed Hearts and Second Chances They Move Together
George knew where I'd gone before I reached the New Jersey Turnpike on the way back. Simon had tracked my car. I'd suspected he might I'd even understood it, in the thinking part of my brain, as a reasonable precaution given everything Germany had said about my father being "in play." Understanding it didn't make it sit better. I drove in silence for an hour before I called. "You had Simon track me," I said. "Yes." he didn't hesitate "We talked about this, about boundaries." "We talked about you having freedom over your choices, I wasn't interfering with your choice. I was making sure someone knew where you were." His voice was steady. "If you want to be angry about it, be angry. You're allowed. But I'm not going to apologize for making you could be found if something happened." I wanted to find the flaw in that logic. I sat with it for ten miles and couldn't locate one that wasn't more about pride than safety. "He's coming back with me," I said. "My father." "Simon alrea
Betrayed Hearts and Second Chances Philadelphia
I drove to Philadelphia alone. George hated this, he said so once, plainly and then helped me plan the route and didn't say it again. That was the version of him I was learning to trust, the one who voiced his fear and then respected my answer. My father was in a Holiday Inn off the I-95 corridor, three hours south, paying cash and using his middle name on the registration. He was not difficult to find once Simon pulled his credit card trail from before he'd started paying cash at a gas station outside Trenton, a diner near Princeton. My father had never been particularly good at disappearing. He was a man who'd spent his whole life making himself visible in the right rooms. He answered the door on my second knock and looked at me the way people look when they've been rehearsing a conversation and the other person has arrived before they're ready. He'd aged since I'd last seen him at Christmas. Something in his face had collapsed inward, the particular erosion of a man who'd been
Betrayed Hearts and Second Chances The Counter-Opearation
Give me an hour," George said. "George..." "One hour. I need Simon here. I need to show you, not just tell you, because if I just tell you it sounds crazy. He held my gaze. "One hour. If after that you don't believe me, I won't fight it." "One hour," I said. He called Simon. I went to check on Georgia, who was back from Eleanor's and currently conducting a tea party with her rabbit, two stuffed bears, and a plastic dinosaur she'd recently decided was friendly. I sat on the edge of her bed and watched her pour invisible tea and felt the particular ache of loving someone so completely that it rearranges your priorities without asking permission. Whatever George was about to tell me, Georgia needed her father to be who he appeared to be. And I needed to know the truth, regardless. Simon arrived in forty minutes. He and George sat across from me at the kitchen table, Simon with a folder, George with nothing in front of him at all. "I've been in contact with Germany Slater,
Betrayed Hearts and Second Chances Invaded Privacy
The second sweep found two devices. A camera pinhole, mounted inside the smoke detector in the main hallway. And a listening device, different model from the first, planted inside the guest room's ventilation panel. Not the one Rodriguez's team had found. A second one, installed after the first sweep. Germany had sent someone in during the sweep itself. While Rodriguez's agents were methodically checking the apartment, one of them or someone posing as a building employee nearby had placed a second device. "He's showing off," George said. "He's showing us the FBI isn't airtight," I said. "Which we already knew, but now we know he knows we know it." Rodriguez took the devices into evidence without expression. She'd stopped apologizing for each new failure, which I respected. Apologies were noise. What I needed was results. "The camera in the hallway," I said. "How long has it been active?" Rodriguez didn't answer immediately. "Rodriguez." "Based on the storage capacity of the d
Betrayed Hearts and Second Chances The Envelope
George didn't know.That was the question I needed answered before anything else, and I watched his face while Simon read that last paragraph aloud and watched the color leave it, watched his jaw set in a way that had nothing to do with composure b with genuine shock.He hadn't known.That should have settled something. It didn't.Because not knowing wasn't the same as being innocent of the life that knowledge had built around both of us. He had grown up in a family that made those decisions. He had walked into a marriage without asking harder questions about how it had come to exist.So had I. "George." I kept my voice even. "When your father introduced you to me, what exactly did he tell you?""That you were Edward Charleston's daughter. That your family was well-regarded. That he thought we'd be compatible." George's voice had the careful flatness of someone replaying memories through a new filter. "He said the timing was good for the company. I assumed it was a social introduction
Betrayed Hearts and Second Chances The Third Name
Simon had a file.He admitted it the moment I showed him the photograph of my father's message, and the admission cost him something, I could see it in the way he set his coffee down on the counter and didn't pick it up again, the way his hand stayed near it without closing around the mug, as if he needed somewhere to put his hands while he decided how much of this he was finally going to let us see."I've had it for four months," he said.The kitchen went quiet. EymprGeorge was standing by the window with his arms crossed, and I watched something harden behind his eyes, the particular gaze he always had when he's furious."Four months," George repeated. "You sat on the information about Monica's marriage to me about her entire life, for four good months. While she was living in our apartment. While Georgia was missing. While I was bleeding on a warehouse floor." He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. "Four months, Simon.""I needed to verify it fully before I brought it to eit
Betrayed Hearts and Second Chances The Wrong Moment
Rodriguez sent a sweep team within the hour. Four agents, equipment cases, systematic and silent.George and I took Georgia to the building's private lounge on the third floor while they worked. Georgia colored. George watched the door. I sat with my phone face-down on the table and tried to do the
Betrayed Hearts and Second Chances He's Been Inside
Simon ran the phone's serial number by nine the next morning.The result came back in under an hour and it was worse than either of us had prepared for.The device was registered to a shell account traced to Linda Carthage Germany's fixer, the woman who had walked into Georgia's preschool with forg
Betrayed Hearts and Second Chances Ask George's Father
Tyler stayed an hour. Legal updates, Rodriguez had filed for a new warrant targeting Linda Carthage, and the FBI's internal affairs team had narrowed the leak to one of two agents. Nothing actionable yet, but moving in the right direction.George was polite. Precisely, surgically polite, in the way
Betrayed Hearts and Second Chances Almost Normal
George came home on a Tuesday.Not to his penthouse, he was already there. What I mean is he came home the way people do after something has broken them open and put them back together slightly differently. Quieter. More careful with the space around him.His arm was in a sling. He refused the pres
You may also like
Addicted to Loving You: The Paranoid and Domineering Boss's Convicted Wife
Gu family's Little Bamboo688.6K viewsA Dangerous Atrophy
Qi River's Old Stream782.8K viewsForceful Marriage: Young Master's Mute Wife
A Lake’s Depth1.2M viewsI Kissed A CEO And He Liked It!
LiLhyz1.5M viewsACCIDENTALLY YOURS FOREVER
BOSEF53011 viewsThe Beggar Is A Billionaire
Crazymelophaine20 viewsMy Boss is My Daughter's Father
Princess Eva104 viewsVELVET DESIRES: Forbidden Collections
FAYE🩵54 views
