All Chapters of The CEO'S Forgotten Promise : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Kingsley Salvatore"I fucking hate mornings..."The morning sun was still weak, barely cutting through the gray haze that hung over the city. I pulled the car up to the curb in front of the McCarthy mansion, engine idling low. Mariah... sat in the passenger seat, hands folded neatly in her lap, her cleaning bag resting between her feet like it weighed nothing.She looked smaller today...older, somehow. The lines around her eyes deeper. She’d been quiet the whole drive, staring out the window like she was memorizing every tree we passed.I killed the engine.“You sure you don’t want me to walk you in?” I asked.She shook her head, small smile tugging at her lips. “I’m fine, mijo. You’ve already done enough driving me around like I’m some fancy lady.”“You are fancy,” I said. “To me, anyway.”She reached over and patted my hand warmly, steady, the same way she used to when I was ten and crying because the kids at school called me an orphan. She’d raised me after my parents died in tha

Sara Michaels The building looked different in daylight, somehow less intimidating this time. Not that I had gotten used to it. It made my palms sweaty and my tummy time in knots...All because of one person. Kingsley. There was a medium sized , modern glass decor and steel, tucked between taller towers. I parked across the street, took a deep breath, and checked my reflection in the rearview mirror one last time.I wore a pink top still neat and jeans still hugging in all the right places. My hair loose but tamed. I decided against makeup except the bare minimum, it was enough to hide the shadows under my eyes. I looked like someone who belonged here. Someone who was building a future. I stepped out, bag slung over my shoulder, and walked inside. The lobby was quiet, clean, smelling faintly of fresh paint and coffee. A receptionist smiled when she saw me. “Mr Sara Michaels?” I nodded. “For the app design class.” I had decided to use my names for this reason. I did not want an

Sara MichaelsI closed the door behind me very softly so Mom wouldn’t wake up again. My back pressed against the wood for a second. Breathing felt heavy. Too heavy. The hallway lights were too bright and my eyes still burned from crying. I wiped my face with both sleeves even though I knew it was useless. The tears had already left marks.Kingsley was still leaning on the wall opposite the door with his arms crossed and head slightly tilted back like he was resting but the moment I stepped out his eyes opened. Straight to me. No questions or pity words. Just that quiet look he always gave.I walked toward him slowly. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else.He pushed off the wall when I got close, he didn’t say anything at first. Just fell into step beside me like it was the most natural thing.We walked down the corridor in silence. My sneakers squeaked on the shiny floor. His shoes made almost no sound. I kept my arms wrapped around myself even though I was wearing his jac

Tom McCarthyI pushed the front door open and stepped into a house that already felt wrong before I even closed it behind me. The silence pressed in immediately, there was no faint clatter from the kitchen, no low murmur of Mariah giving instructions to the other staff, no trace of food warming on the stove the way there used to be when Sara was still trying to hold everything together. Just emptiness. Thick, cold emptiness that settled over me the moment the door clicked shut.I dropped my keys onto the console table and the metallic sound bounced off the marble louder than it should have, echoing through the foyer like it was mocking me. My tie was already loosened from the drive, sleeves rolled up, but I still felt constricted, like the day had wrapped itself around my throat and refused to loosen its grip. I walked toward the living room because that was where Emily’s voice drifted from....soft, lazy, giggling at something the masseuse must have said, the sound light and carele

Kingsley SalvatoreI pulled into the parking lot of the little café on 7th around eight-thirty, the same place I always stopped when I wanted to bring Mariah something decent to eat. She lived in that small apartment above the old bakery on Maple, the kind of place with creaky stairs and thin walls, and no matter how many times I offered to pay her rent or buy her groceries, she’d give me that look....the one that said she still had her pride and her dignity and she wasn’t about to let me take them from her. So I stopped trying to pay her bills. Instead I brought food. Good food. Warm food. Things she could heat up when she got home late from the mansion and didn’t have energy to cook.Tonight I was thinking pasta from the Italian place two streets over, the one with the creamy mushroom sauce she liked, plus garlic bread and tiramisu because she always pretended she didn’t have a sweet tooth but ate every bite anyway. I parked near the entrance, cut the engine, and was about to get