Rooftop Edge, A New Life Began

Rooftop Edge, A New Life Began

Shore Tour

5.0
Comment(s)
10.2K
View
11
Chapters

The doctor finally gave me the green light to conceive, and I floated home to tell my husband, Clay. We toasted to our future children, Charis and Donny, names he swore were unique and special. Later that night, I unlocked his iPad and realized those names weren't unique-they were a sick tribute to his mistress, Charity Odonnell. When I confronted him, the "perfect husband" mask shattered. He didn't apologize. Instead, he and his mother slapped me across the face, claiming my "mental instability" had returned, while my own parents begged me not to ruin his reputation. Then came the video from Charity, laughing as she told me to "do everyone a favor and die." Broken and cornered, I stood on the edge of the hospital roof that night. I called Clay, told him to look up, and watched his face crumble in terror as I let go. But I wasn't trying to kill myself. I was aiming for the large oak tree below, calculating the perfect fall to destroy his life and secure my freedom.

Protagonist

: Danae Hodges and Clay Maddox

Rooftop Edge, A New Life Began Chapter 1

The doctor finally gave me the green light to conceive, and I floated home to tell my husband, Clay.

We toasted to our future children, Charis and Donny, names he swore were unique and special.

Later that night, I unlocked his iPad and realized those names weren't unique-they were a sick tribute to his mistress, Charity Odonnell.

When I confronted him, the "perfect husband" mask shattered.

He didn't apologize.

Instead, he and his mother slapped me across the face, claiming my "mental instability" had returned, while my own parents begged me not to ruin his reputation.

Then came the video from Charity, laughing as she told me to "do everyone a favor and die."

Broken and cornered, I stood on the edge of the hospital roof that night.

I called Clay, told him to look up, and watched his face crumble in terror as I let go.

But I wasn't trying to kill myself.

I was aiming for the large oak tree below, calculating the perfect fall to destroy his life and secure my freedom.

Chapter 1

Danae Hodges POV:

The doctor' s words were a whisper of hope I hadn't dared to dream of for years. "Danae, your blood work is excellent. Your hormone levels are stable. And the fertility treatments? They've been a success. You are officially healthy, and your body is ready to conceive."

My breath hitched. Ready to conceive.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a joyful drumbeat after so many years of silence. The darkness that had consumed me, the clinical depression that had held me captive, felt miles away now. The heavy blanket of anxiety had finally lifted. I was free. I was whole. And I was ready to build the family Clay and I had always dreamed of.

I practically floated out of the clinic, the city streets blurring into a kaleidoscope of happy colors. I pulled out my phone, my fingers trembling as I dialed Clay.

"She's ready," I choked out, a sob of pure joy escaping my lips. "The doctor said... I'm ready, Clay. We can finally have our baby."

His deep laugh filled my ear, warm and reassuring. "That's my girl. I knew you'd get through this. I knew you'd fight. I'm so proud of you, Danae."

"I love you," I whispered, tears streaming down my face. "Thank you for everything. For staying with me, for supporting me. We're going to be parents, Clay."

"We are, baby," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "And it's all thanks to you. You're the strongest woman I know."

He arrived home an hour later, flowers in hand, his eyes shining with an intensity I hadn't seen in months. He swept me into his arms, kissing me deeply, his lips tasting of triumph and unspoken promises.

"My brave girl," he murmured against my hair, holding me tighter than usual. "You did it. We did it."

He pulled back, his hands cupping my face. His thumbs brushed away the lingering tears on my cheeks. "Let's celebrate. Tonight, we celebrate us. And our future."

He had ordered my favorite Italian, and the apartment smelled of garlic and basil, a scent that usually brought me comfort. But tonight, it was tinged with an unfamiliar, almost unsettling sweetness.

Clay poured two glasses of sparkling cider, a tradition since I' d started my medication. He raised his glass, his smile wide and genuine. Or so I thought.

"To our future," he toasted. "To our family. To Charis and Donny."

I smiled back, clinking my glass against his. "Charis and Donny. I love those names, Clay. So unique." He had suggested them a few weeks ago, saying he' d always loved them. I hadn't questioned it. It was just another sign of our beautiful future.

He was the perfect husband. Everyone said so. My mother, Dianne, always told me how lucky I was to have him. "He stood by you, Danae, when you were at your worst," she'd constantly remind me. "Most men would have left."

His own mother, Bertha, never missed an opportunity to praise him. "My Clay is a saint," she'd tell anyone who would listen. "Marrying a woman with 'issues' and standing by her side through thick and thin. He's a keeper, Danae. Don't you ever forget what he sacrificed for you."

I never did. I felt indebted to him, grateful for his unwavering support during my darkest days. He was my rock, my savior. And now, he was going to be the father of my children. Charis and Donny.

The evening was perfect. We talked for hours about nurseries, baby names, and which stroller we'd buy. Clay even pulled out his iPad, showing me some digital renderings of a new extension he was designing for our house-a soundproof nursery with a skylight.

"It needs to be perfect for Charis and Donny," he'd said, his eyes full of tenderness.

Later that night, after Clay had fallen asleep, I decided to return his iPad to his nightstand. As I picked it up, a notification flashed across the screen from his cloud storage. "New upload: 'Charity – Our Anniversary.'"

My heart stopped. Charity.

The name hit me like a physical blow. Charity Odonnell. Clay's high school sweetheart, the one everyone said he never truly got over. The one who had broken his heart before he met me.

I dismissed it, telling myself it was an old file, a relic from his past. Yet, a cold dread began to coil in my stomach. Curiosity, a dangerous, dark thing, took hold. I unlocked the iPad, my fingers fumbling with the passcode – our wedding anniversary.

I navigated to his cloud files, my breath catching in my throat as I saw a folder labeled "Charity." I clicked on it.

A series of videos unfolded. Clay, laughing, intimately holding Charity. Their faces pressed together, whispering secrets. Dates flashed across the bottom of the screen, recent dates. Dates from when I was still battling my depression. Dates from when he was supposedly at work, or "working late."

My vision blurred. The world tilted. A sharp, icy pain pierced through my chest, burning its way down my throat. It felt like someone had scooped out my insides and replaced them with shards of broken glass.

I scrolled, numb with disbelief, until I found it. A video, labeled "Charis & Donny." My hands shook so violently I almost dropped the device. This wasn't a tribute to our future children. This was their tribute.

In the video, Charity, draped in nothing but a silk sheet, was laughing, her head resting on Clay' s chest. "So, Charis for a girl, and Donny for a boy?" she teased, running her fingers through his hair.

Clay kissed her forehead. "Only for you, my love. Always."

My ears roared. The warmth of Clay's breath on my neck earlier, the tenderness in his voice, the joy in his eyes – it all curdled into something grotesque. It was a lie. All of it. Every word, every touch, every promise.

The iPad slipped from my grasp, clattering onto the hardwood floor with a harsh crack. The sound was deafening in the sudden silence of the bedroom. Clay stirred, his eyes fluttering open.

"Danae? What's wrong?" he mumbled, his voice still thick with sleep.

I stood there, frozen, the image of Charity' s face, smug and triumphant, seared into my mind. The names. Charis. Donny. His first love. His mistress.

My mouth was dry, my tongue heavy. "Clay," I managed to choke out, the word tasting like ash. My voice was a shaky whisper, barely audible in the quiet room. "We can't have children."

He pushed himself up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His gaze fell on the iPad on the floor, its screen displaying Charity's laughing face, then darted back to me, confusion clouding his features. "What are you talking about, Danae? We just celebrated. The doctor said you're ready."

A bitter, ugly laugh tore from my throat. It was not my own. "No, Clay. You can't have children with me." My voice grew stronger, each word a hammer blow against my own fragile hope. "Not anymore."

His confusion morphed into something darker, a flicker of understanding in his eyes. He glanced at the iPad again, then at my face. "What is this, Danae? What are you saying?"

"I'm saying," I began, my voice raw with unshed tears, "I want a divorce."

The words hung in the air, heavy and final. Clay' s face, which had been registering a slow dawning of realization, instantly froze. The color drained from his cheeks. His eyes widened, fixing on me with an intensity that suddenly felt predatory. The easygoing, loving mask he wore had cracked.

A glass of water he' d left on his nightstand, which he had been about to reach for, toppled over, spilling cold water across the polished wood. He didn' t seem to notice.

Continue Reading

Other books by Shore Tour

More
The Stolen Sapphire: His Fake Girlfriend

The Stolen Sapphire: His Fake Girlfriend

Modern

5.0

I returned to New York after three years in Paris, sick and broken, with nothing but a venomous vow to reclaim my life. I looked like a total disaster in my scuffed boots and ripped jeans, a far cry from the Stanton heiress I once was. On the flight home, a glossy magazine headline hit me like a physical blow: my half-sister Aryana was celebrating a fairytale engagement while wearing my dead mother's sapphire pendant. The necklace was my only legacy, stolen by the interlopers who had usurped my place the moment I vanished. Things spiraled into a nightmare before I even landed. I accidentally spilled milk all over a powerful billionaire, Denis Stephens, and then fainted directly into his arms during turbulence. At the hospital, my ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend mocked my illness, snapping photos of me looking like a "pregnant" mess to ruin my reputation. When I finally fought my way to the family manor to snatch the necklace back, my father tried to hit me, and my ex accused me of becoming a whore in Europe. I couldn't understand how my own father could freeze my bank accounts and treat me like a criminal while my sister played house with my mother's jewels. I was back in the orbit of the Manhattan elite, but I was a pariah with a target on my back and a body that was failing me. Then, the final blow came. I rear-ended a Bentley belonging to Denis Stephens-the same man I'd humiliated on the plane. With six figures in damages and zero dollars in my pocket, I was completely at his mercy. "You're going to be my date tonight," He commanded, pulling me into a high-stakes game of fake romance and cold revenge that I wasn't sure I'd survive.

You'll also like

Betrayed Bride: Claimed By The Brother

Betrayed Bride: Claimed By The Brother

Reilly Mcardle
5.0

I arrived at the hotel with Julian's favorite takeout, ready to surprise my fiancé before our big merger. But the moment I swiped the keycard, the silence of the hallway felt heavy and wrong. Inside, a red-soled stiletto lay on the marble floor-the same one I'd watched my best friend Lila try on at Saks last week. Through the cracked bedroom door, I watched Julian's back arch as Lila looked me straight in the eye and smiled, wrapping her legs tighter around him to mock my heartbreak. I fled to the penthouse to hide, only to find Grafton, Julian's "crippled" brother, waiting in the dark. To my horror, the man who was supposed to be paralyzed stood up from his wheelchair, gripped my chin with cold fingers, and forced me to sign a contract that gave him control of my family's shares. He knew about my mother's secret medical bills and used them to buy my silence, effectively turning my life into a calculated game of corporate chess. The betrayal tasted like acid, and the injustice of it all burned in my throat. My fiancé was a liar, my best friend was a thief, and the man now controlling my fate was a predator who had been faking his disability for years. I couldn't understand how everyone I trusted had turned out to be a monster. I was trapped between a man who cheated on me and a man who wanted to own me, with no way out and no one to turn to. But when Julian came looking for me, Grafton didn't hide; he stood tall, looming over me with a possessive glint in his eyes. "Help me destroy Julian," I rasped, realizing that to survive the Faulkner men, I had to become the most dangerous player of them all.

The Discarded Heiress: Marrying My Lethal Husband

The Discarded Heiress: Marrying My Lethal Husband

Xiao Wang
5.0

The rain in Detroit was slick with grime when my family finally came to fetch me. They didn't want a reunion; they wanted a sacrificial lamb to marry into the Kaufman empire to save their failing business. I thought I was just being sold off, but the limo ride ended under a dark overpass where six hired thugs were waiting with chains. My own sister had ordered them to "break my spirit" so I’d be a shaking, pathetic mess by the time I reached the altar. They called me "Detroit trash" and sprayed air freshener when I sat on their leather seats. My stepmother wanted a video of me begging for my life, and my father was ready to trade me like a used car to a man everyone called a "vegetable." They expected a submissive country girl, unaware that I was a high-level "cleaner" who could snap a radius bone before they could even scream. When I finally reached the Kaufman estate, I found my fiancé, Barron, slumped in a wheelchair, drooling and silent. But as soon as the doors closed, the "invalid" grabbed my wrist with a grip of iron and whispered a command that changed everything. I didn't understand why my own blood was so desperate to see me destroyed. What had I ever done to deserve a hit squad and a forced marriage to a man they thought was a corpse? But Barron isn't a vegetable, and I'm not a victim. We just touched down at the Moon family gala in a matte-black helicopter, and as the doors slide open, the "broken" bride is about to show them exactly what happens when you throw away the wrong daughter. "If we're going to crash a party," Barron whispered, his eyes burning with lethal clarity, "we should make an entrance."

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book
Rooftop Edge, A New Life Began Rooftop Edge, A New Life Began Shore Tour Modern
“The doctor finally gave me the green light to conceive, and I floated home to tell my husband, Clay. We toasted to our future children, Charis and Donny, names he swore were unique and special. Later that night, I unlocked his iPad and realized those names weren't unique-they were a sick tribute to his mistress, Charity Odonnell. When I confronted him, the "perfect husband" mask shattered. He didn't apologize. Instead, he and his mother slapped me across the face, claiming my "mental instability" had returned, while my own parents begged me not to ruin his reputation. Then came the video from Charity, laughing as she told me to "do everyone a favor and die." Broken and cornered, I stood on the edge of the hospital roof that night. I called Clay, told him to look up, and watched his face crumble in terror as I let go. But I wasn't trying to kill myself. I was aiming for the large oak tree below, calculating the perfect fall to destroy his life and secure my freedom.”
1

Chapter 1

11/12/2025

2

Chapter 2

11/12/2025

3

Chapter 3

11/12/2025

4

Chapter 4

11/12/2025

5

Chapter 5

11/12/2025

6

Chapter 6

11/12/2025

7

Chapter 7

11/12/2025

8

Chapter 8

11/12/2025

9

Chapter 9

11/12/2025

10

Chapter 10

11/12/2025

11

Chapter 11

11/12/2025