Page 229 of My Husband’s New Fiancée

Then another.

Closer and closer.

I stand abruptly and head toward the cockpit.

Outside… police vehicles surround the jet. Lined up. Organized. Relentless.

The pilot turns toward me, pale-faced.

A voice echoes through a loudspeaker.

“Shut down the engines and exit the aircraft.”

I remain perfectly still.

For the first time in a long while, I realize the game is over.

Checkmate.

63. A heartbeat

Dante

Saturday, March 18

Wald is out of the game now.

His assets have been frozen, and the charges against him keep piling up: industrial espionage, fraud, money laundering, attempted murder.

The Wald empire has collapsed, and with it, the suffocating threat that had been hanging over our heads.

Now that we’re safe, we can focus on what truly matters.

Today is the first-trimester ultrasound.

I thought I was prepared for this moment.

I was wrong.

The second we step into the office, something inside me tightens. Maybe because after everything we’ve been through, part of me still expects someone to rip this happiness away the moment I start believing in it.

Valeria settles onto the examination table while I sit beside her. My hand finds hers almost immediately.

Instinctively.

As if I need to feel that she’s really here, real and alive.

The doctor spreads cold gel over her still barely rounded stomach before gliding the probe across it.

The screen lights up. A blurry image appears. Then the sound comes.

A heartbeat, fast and steady.

Our baby’s heartbeat.

The sound hits me like a physical blow.

Beside me, Valeria’s fingers tighten around mine. She slowly turns her head toward me, her eyes already shining.