From Drowning to Darling: A Second Chance

From Drowning to Darling: A Second Chance

Catlaina Sloggett

5.0
Comment(s)
15.3K
View
20
Chapters

I walked into City Hall, ready to tear up my marriage application. It was over. Hours earlier, I woke up in a hospital bed, my fiancé Aubrey beside me, his face a mask of annoyance. He told me to apologize to Kennedy, the woman who had just pushed me into an icy lake, nearly drowning me. Through the churning water, I had seen Aubrey swim past me, straight to Kennedy, who was faking drowning. He believed her lies, accusing me of attacking her, despite my life-threatening injury. He dismissed my pain, my sacrifice, and my years of loyalty, all for a woman who had betrayed him in the past. He even used my own values against me, telling me to "put others before yourself." I was tired. So incredibly tired. The near-drowning had been a baptism. I finally understood: I could not fix this. I could not win his love. When I returned home, he had already given my precious herbal tea, meant for my chronic pain, to Kennedy. He then demoted me to a guest in my own home, ordering me to cook for her. It was time to burn the last bridge.

Chapter 1

I walked into City Hall, ready to tear up my marriage application. It was over.

Hours earlier, I woke up in a hospital bed, my fiancé Aubrey beside me, his face a mask of annoyance. He told me to apologize to Kennedy, the woman who had just pushed me into an icy lake, nearly drowning me.

Through the churning water, I had seen Aubrey swim past me, straight to Kennedy, who was faking drowning. He believed her lies, accusing me of attacking her, despite my life-threatening injury.

He dismissed my pain, my sacrifice, and my years of loyalty, all for a woman who had betrayed him in the past. He even used my own values against me, telling me to "put others before yourself."

I was tired. So incredibly tired. The near-drowning had been a baptism. I finally understood: I could not fix this. I could not win his love.

When I returned home, he had already given my precious herbal tea, meant for my chronic pain, to Kennedy. He then demoted me to a guest in my own home, ordering me to cook for her. It was time to burn the last bridge.

Chapter 1

I walked into City Hall, the air thick with the smell of old paper and stale coffee.

"I need my marriage application," I told the clerk.

He looked up from his paperwork, his eyes widening slightly. "Eva? What' s wrong? Did you and Aubrey have a fight?"

"No," I lied, my voice flat. "We just need to update some information on it. A small mistake."

It was a plausible lie. Aubrey was meticulous. A mistake on an official document would drive him crazy.

The clerk, a kind older man named Mr. Gable who had known my family for years, still looked concerned. He pulled the file from a cabinet and slid it across the counter to me.

"Eva," he said, lowering his voice. "Is everything alright with... Kennedy?"

The name hung in the air between us.

"She and Aubrey are close," I said, stating a fact that felt like poison on my tongue. "Always have been."

Mr. Gable nodded slowly, a knowing, sad look in his eyes. It was the look I' d seen on other people' s faces for years.

"That girl is attached to his hip. It's not right, Eva. You're his fiancée. If you want, I can talk to General Gregory about it."

He was offering to go to Aubrey's father. A bitter smile touched my lips. "Thank you, Mr. Gable. But it won' t do any good."

I took the file, turned, and walked out of the office. The moment the door clicked shut behind me, I walked to the nearest trash can. I tore the marriage application into small, precise pieces and let them fall from my hands.

It was over.

...

Hours earlier, I had woken up to the sharp, sterile smell of a hospital.

My head throbbed. I was in a hospital bed. Aubrey sat in a chair beside me, his arms crossed, his perfect face set in a frown.

He noticed I was awake. A flicker of annoyance crossed his features before he smoothed it away.

"You' re awake," he said. It wasn' t a question.

I tried to move, but my body felt heavy and weak. A familiar, deep ache flared in my abdomen, a cruel reminder of the IED blast that had ended my career. The cold water had made it worse.

"Are you done making a scene?" Aubrey's voice was sharp, impatient. "You need to go apologize to Kennedy."

Kennedy.

The name was a key, unlocking the memory of what happened before I blacked out.

We were at the lake house. I was on the dock. Kennedy had walked up behind me, a smug smile on her face. She said something about how I didn't deserve Aubrey. Then she pushed me. Hard.

The shock of the icy water stole my breath. My leg, the one with the metal rod, seized up. I was sinking.

Through the churning water, I saw Aubrey dive in. For a second, I felt a surge of hope. Then he swam right past me, toward Kennedy, who was flailing dramatically in the shallow water near the shore, pretending to drown.

The last thing I saw before the world went black was Kennedy, safely on the bank, looking back at me with a triumphant smirk.

I looked at Aubrey now, my voice colder than the lake water. "Apologize? For what?"

His perfectly sculpted eyebrows drew together in a tight line of displeasure.

"For pushing her into the lake, Eva. She could have died. Don' t play dumb with me."

A laugh escaped my lips. It was a harsh, ugly sound. "I pushed her? Is that the story she told you?"

Aubrey's expression hardened from impatience to a quiet, controlled rage.

"She would never lie to me. What is wrong with you? You' ve been jealous of her from the start. You saw me talking to her, and you couldn' t handle it, so you attacked her."

The accusation was so ridiculous, so twisted, that all I could do was stare at him.

A bitter smile formed on my face. "You' re right. I' m just a simple soldier. How could I possibly compete with the brilliant schemes of your precious Kennedy?"

In his eyes, I wasn' t a decorated veteran who had served her country. I was just an accessory, a handsome, stable woman he could show off. But Kennedy... Kennedy was a part of him. A toxic part he refused to see.

I had tried, so many times, to talk to him about her. About the way she looked at me, the little things she did to undermine me.

Every time, he had turned it back on me. I was being paranoid. I was insecure. I was trying to control him.

I was tired. So incredibly tired.

The near-drowning hadn' t just been a shock to my system. It had been a baptism. In those dark, freezing moments, I finally understood. I could not fix this. I could not win his love by being loyal and patient. Because he was incapable of giving it.

A nurse walked into the room, her expression brisk. "Mr. Gregory, Ms. Ferrell is awake. She's asking for you."

My gaze met Aubrey's. I gave a slight nod. "Go. She needs you."

A flicker of surprise crossed his face at my easy compliance, quickly replaced by satisfaction. He thought he had won.

"Good," he said, standing up. "When I get back, I expect you to have thought about your apology."

He left.

He didn' t come back.

An hour passed. Then two. The dull ache in my gut turned into a sharp, grinding pain. I didn' t wait any longer. I disconnected the IV myself, ignoring the sting, and slowly got dressed. I had to get out of there.

I walked down the hall, my steps unsteady. As I passed room 204, I heard Aubrey's voice. I glanced through the small window in the door.

Kennedy was in the bed, looking pale and pathetic. Aubrey was sitting beside her, carefully peeling an apple for her, his expression full of a tenderness he had never once shown me.

She murmured something, and he leaned in, his face etched with concern. I watched as she looked up at him, her eyes full of adoration.

It was a perfect, heartbreaking picture.

"You shouldn' t be out of bed."

I turned. It was the nurse from earlier. She looked at me, then at the scene in the room, and her lips thinned in disapproval.

"Your old injuries are acting up because of the cold and the shock," she said, her voice softer now. "You need to rest."

She glanced at Kennedy in the bed. "Unlike some people."

She wasn' t trying to hide her disgust. "She just swallowed a little water. She doesn' t need to be here at all, taking up a bed."

From inside the room, Kennedy' s face flushed with embarrassment. Aubrey immediately stood up and strode to the door, pulling it open. His eyes were like chips of ice.

"She is weak and needs observation," he declared, his voice low and dangerous.

"She's fine," the nurse insisted, refusing to back down. "She's wasting resources."

"I am Assistant U.S. Attorney Aubrey Gregory," he said, the words a clear threat. "My family is a major donor to this hospital. She will stay as long as I deem it necessary."

The nurse' s face fell. She gave me a sympathetic look, then turned and walked away, defeated.

I looked at Aubrey. The man I once thought was a crusader for justice, using his power and influence to protect a manipulative liar. The hypocrisy was staggering.

I just shook my head and started to walk away.

"Eva, wait," he called out.

I stopped but didn' t turn around.

"You still owe Kennedy an apology."

"No," I said, my voice empty of all emotion. "I don' t."

I walked away without another word, leaving him standing in the hallway. I ignored the doctor' s advice at the front desk and signed my own discharge papers.

Then, I went straight to City Hall. It was time to burn the last bridge.

Continue Reading

Other books by Catlaina Sloggett

More
Waking Up To The Mafia Don's Betrayal

Waking Up To The Mafia Don's Betrayal

Mafia

5.0

I woke up from a five-year coma, only to find my death certificate filed away—signed by my own husband. Dante Vitiello, the Don of New York, looked at me like a miracle, but he was holding the hand of another woman. Sofia Bianchi was wearing my diamonds, living in my house, and standing beside the man I had built an empire for. But the true betrayal wasn't the mistress. It was my son. When I reached out to Leo, my baby, he recoiled in terror and buried his face in Sofia's dress. "Go away!" he screamed. "Mama Sofia said you're a monster! You're a ghost!" Sofia smiled at me, a sharp, victorious blade. She didn't just steal my husband; she rewrote my son's memories to make me the villain. To protect the family alliance, Dante forced me to stay silent. When Sofia later rammed my car on the racetrack to finish the job, Dante ran past my bleeding body to comfort her over a broken nail. When she faked a fatal illness, he dragged me from my recovery bed. He forced me to donate my rare blood to save her. "Do it for the family, Elena," he said, watching the life drain out of me to fill the veins of the woman who destroyed us. That night, I didn't just leave. I erased myself. I left my wedding ring on a cliff's edge and let the world believe Elena Vitiello had finally drowned. Six months later, Dante sat in the audience of a global tech summit in Zurich, desperate to find his dead wife. I walked onto the stage in a white suit, looking him dead in the eye. "My name is Kate Harding," I announced. And I prepared to burn his world to ash.

You'll also like

Too Late: The Spare Daughter Escapes Him

Too Late: The Spare Daughter Escapes Him

SHANA GRAY
4.3

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

Stripper's Love: I Married My Ex's Uncle

Stripper's Love: I Married My Ex's Uncle

G~Aden
4.2

I'm a moaning mess as Antonio slams into me from behind. His hips hit me hard, and each deep thrust sends shockwaves through my body. My breasts bounce with every movement, my eyes roll back, and I moan his name without control. The pleasure he gives me is overwhelming-I can't hold it in. I feel my walls tighten around his thick length. The pressure builds fast, and then- I explode around him, my orgasm tearing through me. He groans loud and deep as he releases inside me, his hot seed spilling into me in thick pulses. Just when I think he's done, his grip shifts. He turns me over and lays me flat on the bed. His dark eyes stare into mine for a moment, filled with raw hunger. I glance down- He's still hard. Before I can react, he grabs my wrists, pins me down, and pushes himself inside me again. He fills me completely. My hips rise on instinct, meeting his rhythm. Our bodies move together, locked in a wild, uncontrollable dance. "You're fucking sweet," he groans, his voice rough and breathless. "I can't get enough of you... not after that night, Sol," he growls, slamming into me harder. The force of his words and his thrusts make my body shake. "Come for me," he commands, his voice low and full of heat. And just like that, my body trembles. Waves of pleasure crash over me. I cry out, shaking with the force of my orgasm. "Mine," he growls again, louder this time. His voice is feral, wild, like a beast claiming what belongs to him. The sound sends a shiver down my spine. *** Solene was betrayed, humiliated, and erased by Rowan Brook, the man she once called husband, Solene is left with nothing but her name and a burning hunger for revenge. She turns to the one man powerful enough to destroy the Brooks family from within: Rowan's estranged and dangerous uncle, Antonio Rodriguez. He's ruthless. A playboy who never sleeps with the same woman twice. But when Solene walks into his world, he doesn't just break the rules, he creates new ones just for her. What begins as a calculated game quickly spirals into obsession, power plays, and secrets too deadly to stay buried. Because Solene isn't just anyone's ex... she's the woman they should've never underestimated. Can she survive the price of revenge? Or will her heart become the next casualty? And when the truth comes out, will Antonio still choose her... or destroy her?

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book