Lahat ng Kabanata ng The CEO'S Forgotten Promise : Kabanata 21 - Kabanata 30

Sara MichaelsThe drive home felt longer than it should have. Every red light, every slow car in front of me, every turn I took toward that house made my stomach twist tighter. Kingsley’s jacket was still around my shoulders, his scent clinging to it like a quiet promise I wasn’t ready to believe. My fingers gripped the wheel so hard my knuckles ached. Tom’s text sat heavy in my mind...cold words on a screen, but they felt like a hand around my throat.*Where are you? Emily’s hungry. Get home and make something.*I swallowed hard. The warmth from the café, from Ruby’s laugh, from Kingsley’s near-kiss...it all faded the closer I got to that driveway. By the time I pulled in, my chest felt hollow again. Empty. Like someone had scooped out everything good and left only fear.The lights were on in the living room. Too bright. Too harsh. I killed the engine and sat there for a second, staring at the house like it was a cage I had to walk back into. My phone buzzed again...another text f

Emily MadrigoThe hotel room still carried the heavy scent of sex and cheap cologne when I stepped out of the shower, steam clinging to the mirror in thick clouds and making everything feel slightly unreal, like I was moving through someone else’s life rather than my own. My hair dripped cold water down my back in slow, steady drops, and the towel I’d wrapped around myself felt too thin, too temporary, as though it could slip away at any moment and leave me exposed in every way that mattered. I reached for my phone on the nightstand because it wouldn’t stop buzzing, the vibration rattling against the wood like an impatient warning I couldn’t ignore any longer.I saw the unknown number and felt the first real twist of fear in my stomach, the kind that settles deep and stays, but I answered anyway, pressing the phone to my ear with a hand that was already beginning to tremble.“Emily,” Jax said, his voice rough and low, carrying the same edge it had when he’d had me pressed against th

Sara MichaelsThe anger came slow at first, deep in my chest like a fire someone had forgotten to put out, burning until it spread through every part of me, until I couldn’t breathe around it without feeling the heat. I walked out of Mom’s room with my legs feeling distant, like they belonged to someone else, each step slower than the last while the doctor’s words kept circling in my head over and over—“I spoke to your husband about it days ago. He said he’d handle it. He was supposed to notify you”—and every time they played again my throat tightened more, until it hurt to swallow, until I had to stop in the middle of the corridor and press my hand to the wall just to stay standing straight.Tom had known. Of course. He is set on making me suffer.While I cried myself to sleep every night, while I cooked for them like a servant, while I knelt on the cold marble floor with blood on my lip and tears in my eyes begging him not to stop Mom’s treatment—he had known the previous donor b

Tom McCarthyTom sat in his office long after Kingsley Salvatore had been escorted out, staring at the door as if the man might suddenly walk back in and continue the confrontation they had just had. His jaw was still tight, and the muscles in his shoulders felt coiled with the kind of anger that refused to settle.The audacity of that man.Kingsley had walked into his office like he belonged there and spoken to him as if he had the right to question how Tom handled his own wife. The memory of it made Tom’s fingers curl slowly against the surface of his desk.His phone vibrated suddenly, breaking through the silence.Tom glanced down and saw the name of his accountant on the screen.He picked it up and answered without bothering to soften his tone.“Mark, this better be important.”On the other end of the line, Mark hesitated for a brief moment before responding. His voice sounded careful, almost nervous.“Mr. McCarthy, I’m calling about one of your private accounts. The one connected

Sara MichaelsSara barely remembered how she managed to walk through the front door.Her hands were still shaking from the article she had just read in the car. Her phone felt heavy in her grip, the screen still displaying the cruel headline that had already begun spreading across every gossip page in town.Her chest felt tight as she stepped into the house.The moment she entered the living room, she realized something was very wrong.Tom was already there.Emily was sitting beside him on the couch, crying dramatically into his shoulder. Her body trembled as she clung to him, while Tom’s arm wrapped around her protectively.The scene made Sara freeze in the doorway.Tom looked up immediately.His expression hardened the moment he saw her.“Well,” he said coldly, “look who finally decided to come home.”Sara swallowed the lump forming in her throat and walked further into the room.Her anger pushed past the humiliation she was feeling.She held up her phone, the article still visible