He Sent Me Away for Three Years. Now My Divorce Has Him Panicking. novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: There Is No Mrs. Aldridge
Monica walks into her husband's press conference to find him presenting another woman and her son as his family, denies she exists, and serves him with divorce papers on stage. He answers: I will not sign this.
The press conference had already started when I reached the atrium of Aldridge Holdings.
I had come straight from the airport, my carry-on bag still in my hand.
Forty cameras faced the stage, and my husband stood at the podium in a charcoal suit.
It was the first time I had seen Dalton in three years.
I had texted his assistant from the taxi: "Where is he? I'm home. My lawyer filed this morning and I want to tell him to his face."
The reply came back in seconds.
"Mr. Aldridge will be so glad you're here! Wait by the side door and he'll bring you out at the end. It's a surprise. Please don't text him, he's on air."
It was a very friendly message.
I read it twice anyway, because in three years Dalton had never once been glad I was somewhere.
At the side door a woman in a cream dress was waiting with a little boy on her hip.
She had a dog tucked under her other arm, a brown terrier in a tiny bow tie.
"Biscuit," I said.
The terrier threw himself out of her arm and into mine, and I held his whole shaking body against my chest.
I had left him behind the day after my wedding because Dalton said Harbor City apartments didn't allow pets.
"You must be Monica," the woman said. She smiled and she meant it. "I'm Belinda. He's been so well looked after, I promise. Come stand with us."
The boy buried his face in her neck.
Belinda was warm, and beautiful, and she knew my name.
I should have asked how.
Instead I followed her to the edge of the stage, because I was holding my dog.
On the podium, Dalton lifted a hand and the room went quiet.
"Three years ago I told this company I'd build something that lasted," he said. "Tonight I want to thank the people who made that possible."
He turned and held out his arm toward us.
Belinda stepped onto the stage with the boy on her hip, and the cameras swung to follow her.
I stayed in the wings, holding Biscuit.
"My son, Archie," Dalton said, and his voice cracked on the name. "And Belinda, who has waited for me longer than any man deserves."
The boy reached for him, and Dalton took him and kissed his hair.
Belinda put her head on his shoulder.
They looked like a family, and the whole room could see it.
I stood there with the dog in my arms and all the pieces falling into place at once.
The wedding the day he sent me to Harbor City.
The apartment that didn't allow pets.
The lab envelope he had carried into the courthouse in his jacket, forty minutes late, and told me was a contract.
The boy on his shoulder had his jaw.
A reporter in the front row raised her hand.
"Mr. Aldridge, there's a rumor you married quietly three years ago. Is there a Mrs. Aldridge?"
I waited for him to look toward the wings.
Dalton didn't look anywhere near me.
"No," he said into the microphone. "There is no Mrs. Aldridge."
Somebody laughed, and the cameras clicked.
Belinda's smile slipped for half a second, and then it was back.
I thought about my mother in her hospital bed, fighting to sit up and asking me to go.
I thought about the day I had begged him for two weeks of leave, and the sentence he had answered with.
"She's not dead yet, is she?"
I had put down the phone and gone to her anyway.
So I stepped out.
I carried Biscuit across the stage in front of forty cameras, and I did not hurry.
Dalton saw me and went white.
"Monica," he said, away from the microphone. "Not here."
"Here is where you said it," I said.
I took the microphone off the stand and the room went completely silent.
"My name is Monica Aldridge," I said. "I married Dalton Aldridge at the Cook County courthouse three years ago. I have the license in my bag."
Belinda's hand tightened on the boy.
"I also have these."
My lawyer had pressed a folder into my hand in the lobby.
I pulled the papers out and held them up so the cameras could read the top page.
"Petition for dissolution of marriage," I said. "Filed this morning. A process server is standing right behind you, Dalton."
The man in the grey jacket stepped out of the front row and held out the envelope.
Dalton didn't take it.
His hand was shaking.
"Monica, wait. Please," he said, loud enough for every microphone to hear. "I will not sign this."
I put the papers in his son's little hand and walked off the stage.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend