One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- - Chapter 5: Chapter 5

It was the final notice.
Arielle sat at the kitchen table, the pale morning light creeping across the cracked linoleum floor. Her fingers clenched the wrinkled piece of paper so tightly the edges dug into her skin. Past Due. Balance Owed: $1,462.32.
She’d read the number five times, and it still didn’t look real. Her electric bill was overdue. The rent was two weeks late. And the fridge? Practically empty.
The kids had cereal for dinner last night. No milk—just dry flakes and juice. And even that had been a stretch.
She buried her face in her hands.
It had only been three days since she lost the diner job. Three days since she saw Damien Kingston again. Three days since she applied at Kingston Holdings. She hadn’t heard back. She wasn’t expecting to.
The job market didn’t wait for single mothers with eight kids, no matter how willing they were to work double shifts.
The knock on the door startled her.
“Rent,” came the sharp voice from the hallway.
Mr. Ferris, the landlord. Punctual as a tax collector.
Arielle sprang up, smoothing her shirt and hoping the panic didn’t show on her face as she opened the door.
“Morning, Mr. Ferris,” she tried to smile.
He didn’t return it. “I’ve been more than patient, Miss Summers. If I don’t have payment by the end of the week, I’ll have no choice but to begin proceedings. You understand.”
She nodded quickly, shame burning her throat. “I do. I’m… I’m waiting on a job call. I promise, I’ll find a way.”
He didn’t say anything more. Just walked away.
She closed the door and leaned against it, eyes closed.
“Find a way,” she whispered to herself.
She had no choice.
That afternoon, while the kids were at school and Rosita was running errands, Arielle did something she hadn’t done in years.
She opened the top shelf of the closet and pulled down a dusty old jewelry box. Inside were a handful of things—tokens of a life she barely remembered.
A pearl necklace her mother gave her before she passed.
The engagement ring from a man who promised forever, then disappeared when the pregnancy test turned positive.
A charm bracelet she’d bought for herself when she turned twenty-one, back when she believed life was still hers to shape.
She set them all on the table. Her hands shook.
An hour later, she stood in front of a pawn shop two blocks from the apartment. The neon sign buzzed overhead. Inside, a man with thick glasses and a nicotine-stained beard squinted at the items under the yellow light.
“This one’s plated,” he muttered, pushing the bracelet aside. “But the ring’s decent. And this necklace…” he examined it. “Real pearls. Small ones, but still real.”
Arielle said nothing. Her throat was dry.
“I’ll give you two hundred,” he said.
She blinked. “Two hundred? That necklace alone—”
“Lady, it’s a pawn shop. Not Sotheby’s. Take it or leave it.”
She looked down at the ring.
Then she took the money.
The next day she sold her microwave.
The day after that, the stroller.
By the end of the week, she was down to her last twenty dollars, and Rosita was beginning to ask questions.
“You haven’t bought diapers this week, mija,” the older woman said gently. “Is everything alright?”
“I’m managing,” Arielle said, forcing a smile.
“Managing isn’t surviving.”
“I’ll survive. I always do.”
But even Arielle wasn’t sure how much longer she could.
That night, she cried in the bathroom. She couldn’t do it in front of the kids—not when they still smiled and laughed and believed everything would be okay.
She pressed her forehead to the door and whispered, “God, please. Just give me something. A sign. A chance. Anything.”
Her phone buzzed.
She looked down, breath catching.
From: Kingston Holdings Subject: Interview Invitation – Administrative Assistant Position
Her hand flew to he
r mouth.
It wasn’t salvation.
But it was something.
And right now, something was everything.