The chaos hadn't stopped since that day.
Isabelle had stood in front of everyone, her voice ringing with triumph as she announced she was his wife… and that she was pregnant.
The words had been a dagger to his chest, but she twisted it deeper every time she used the baby as her shield—her excuse for keeping him from leaving, for keeping him from going home. She wielded that unborn child like a chain around his neck, forcing him to stay tethered to a life he no longer recognized.
It made him lose his grip on himself.
And then… Nerissa was gone. Disappeared without a trace.
The day he realized she was missing was the day something inside him broke. The world became colorless, meaningless. Every morning was just another sentence in the prison of his own mind. He worked like a machine, moving through the hours without thought or feeling, his heart and soul somewhere else—searching for her.
Days bled into weeks. Weeks into months. Until the day Isabelle gave birth.
They told him it was a boy. A son.
But when he stood there, looking at the tiny, fragile child, his heart didn't swell with joy the way he thought it should. Instead, he felt a strange, aching hollowness. There was a baby… but there was no bond. No connection. The boy was innocent—yet George couldn't help but feel that the circumstances of his birth had stolen something sacred from him.
He named the boy Jedee, but the name felt foreign in his mouth.
Isabelle, however, basked in her triumph. Even in the hospital, she clung to him, smiling in that way she always did when she thought she'd won. And then, as casually as one might talk about the weather, she brought up divorce.
The word unsettled him more than he expected. Not because he loved her—he didn't—but because it made him wonder what game she was playing now. That night, he couldn't sleep. He lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, feeling the gnawing emptiness of a life that had slipped completely out of his control.
Then, it happened.
His phone lit up.
A voice he knew by heart. One he had memorized not just with his mind, but with his soul.
He answered on the first ring. "Hello?" His voice cracked, unsteady, raw. And then… he heard her.
"Nerissa?"
The sound of her voice made his knees weaken, his heart twist painfully in his chest. For months he had imagined this moment—hearing her, knowing she was alive. And now, here she was, whispering his name.
Emotion surged in him so violently he had to grip the edge of the desk to keep from collapsing. "Nerissa… is that really you?" he asked, his voice breaking.
In that instant, the emptiness inside him was replaced with something fierce, desperate, and unrelenting. She was out there. She was alive. And he was going to find her—no matter what it took.
George was still standing there, the phone limp in his hand, his mind spinning in a thousand directions. Nerissa's voice still lingered in his ears—her sobs, her fear, the quiet way she said his name. He could barely breathe through the storm of emotions swelling inside him.
The sound of footsteps broke through his thoughts. Isabelle entered the room, her expression carefully composed, Jedee bundled in her arms.
"Here," she said lightly, placing the baby into George's arms. "You should hold your son."
George automatically cradled the child, his eyes softening for a brief moment. Jedee stirred and whimpered, and George rocked him gently, though the hollow ache in his chest remained. His mind wasn't here—it was with Nerissa.
But Isabelle didn't notice, or perhaps she didn't care. She folded her arms and leaned against the doorway, her tone deceptively casual. "George, I've been thinking… about the divorce. Weshould discuss it, you know."
He finally looked at her—really looked at her. And for the first time in a long time, he didn't bite his tongue. His voice was low but steady, cutting through the air between them.
"I'm not your puppet, Isabelle."
Her smirk faltered. "What?"
"You've been pulling my strings since the day you announced that pregnancy," George said, his gaze locked on hers. "Using Jedee as a chain. Controlling every move I make, dictating who I can be, where I can go.I will not discuss any divorce with you. You pretended to be my wife and that's what it caused you, your peace of mind."
She blinked, clearly taken aback by the steel in his voice. "I wanted Jedee to be your legitimate son!!"
"There's no divorce." he said firmly. "I am not your possession. I am not your prize. And I am done playing the part you wrote for me."
Isabelle's eyes narrowed, her voice sharpening. "Careful, George. You forget who you're talking to.I am the mother of your only son! "
He shifted Jedee gently in his arms, his gaze unflinching. "No, Isabelle. I remember exactly who I'm talking to. And that's the problem."
For a moment, the room was heavy with silence. Then George handed Jedee back to her with surprising gentleness. "Take care of him," he said quietly. "Because I have something I need to take care of too."
And with that, he walked past her, not waiting for her reply. Inside, his mind was already made up. Nerissa needed him. And nothing—not Isabelle, not her threats, not even the walls she'd built around his life—was going to stop him from finding his wife.
The phone rang sharply in the quiet of George's office.
He glanced at the caller ID—The Investigator. His stomach tightened.
He answered.
"Mr. Carroway,"
The investigator's voice came low but urgent, "we've found something you might want to hear."
George straightened in his chair. "Go on."
There was a pause, as if the man on the other end was weighing the weight of his words. "It's about Nerissa."
George's heart thudded. He gripped the edge of his desk. "What about her?"
"She's… in London," the investigator continued. "And just a few days ago, she passed the Bar exam there—one of the highest ratings recorded in years.Look at what i had emailed you."
The room seemed to shrink around him.
"It was in The London Times," the man added, his voice carrying the faint rustle of a newspaper. "Her name. Her photo. Her smile."
George could almost see it in his mind—Nerissa's determined gaze, the quiet fire in her eyes. She looked different in his imagination now—stronger, untouchable, far from the woman who once stood trembling in his arms.
The investigator's voice broke his thoughts. "She's doing well, sir. Very well. But… there's one thing you also need to know. She is living with a man, she had a son. We are not sure if it's the father of her child because the timeline on her arrival her doesn't match on the birth of her son. She was one month pregnant before arriving in London."
George leaned back, the news flooding through him like a mix of relief and raw longing. His Nerissa—brilliant, unstoppable—was alive, thriving… and completely out of his reach.
"And a son? " His heart ached and George sat frozen, the investigator's words still echoing in his mind. A boy… Nerissa's son.
But instead of the burning anger he had expected, something else began to stir inside him—something warmer, something that almost hurt in a different way.
A smile, faint and unbidden, touched the corner of his lips.
"Sir?" the investigator asked, as if unsure of the silence on the line.
George cleared his throat. "You said… she might be pregnant before arriving in London?"
"Yes. Very much so," came the reply.
George leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes for a moment.Deep down, in the place where truth speaks without words, George knew.
The boy was his.
And in that realization bloomed a strange, bittersweet joy. Nerissa had left him, yes… but she hadn't taken everything away. She had carried a part of him with her. A part of them.
The thought alone warmed the cold edges of his heart. For the first time in years, George felt something close to hope. He had a son—their son—and one day, he would find a way to see him. To hold him.
He looked out the window at the fading afternoon light, his fingers drumming lightly on the desk. The world suddenly felt different, as if every mile between him and London had just become a path he was destined to cross.
There was one thing left to do.
George couldn't shake the unease that had been gnawing at him for months—every time he held Jedee in his arms. He tried to love the boy, tried to convince himself that blood or no blood, it didn't matter. But there was a hollowness in the way Jedee clung to him, a gap that no fatherly instinct could fill.
Something was wrong.
And now, with the news of Nerissa's son echoing in his mind, the truth was pressing harder than ever. He remembered the first DNA test—done under Isabelle's watchful eye, the results handed to him neatly folded, her smile just a little too sweet. He had accepted it then, too tired, too defeated to question it. But now… now he couldn't ignore the whisper in his chest any longer.
He needed the truth. The real truth.
He would do it again. Quietly. Without Isabelle's interference.
That night, he sat alone in the dim light of his study, Jedee asleep in the next room. He thought of Nerissa's boy in London—his boy. The resemblance the investigator had described haunted him. It was more than just physical; it was a connection, a certainty his heart refused to let go of.
When he held Jedee, there was only a careful distance. But when he pictured Nerissa's son, he felt something alive in him—something that belonged.
George poured himself a drink, staring into the amber swirl in his glass. He would arrange for another test, discreetly. No more shadows, no more carefully crafted lies. If Jedee wasn't his… he needed to know.
He is now having a ray of hope for everything that happened.
"Wait for me, love."