Please Come Back, My Love novel Chapter 362

Please Come Back, My Love

Chapter 362

Sophia’s POV

The rage that had been building since he’d announced my “resignation” finally exploded, and I threw myself at him, my fists hammering his chest with all the fury of four years‘ worth of bottled–up grief and humiliation.

“You have no right!” Each word punctuated by another blow. “No right to quit my job without asking me! To lock me up in this+thi fucking mausoleum like I’m some kind of-”

He didn’t even flinch. Just stood there absorbing my attacks like they were raindrops, his expression maddeningly calm.

That detachment only made me hit harder, my knuckles aching as they connected with the solid wall of his chest.

“That job,” he said quietly, catching my wrists mid–swing with an ease that made me want to scream, “was mine to give. Which means it was mine to take away. I decided you no longer needed it, so

So you just erased it?” I wrenched my hands free, stumbling back. “Like you erased everything else? My freedom, my choices, my entire goddamn life?”

His jaw tightened, but his voice remained level. “I gave you that position when your father’s company collapsed. Funded your entire division. You were there because I allowed it. When I decided the situation had changed-

“The situation.” I laughed, the sound bitter and broken. “You mean the pregnancy you’re forcing me to carry? The baby you’re using as an excuse to turn me into a prisoner?”

Lucas’s eyes flickered–something dark and possessive crossing his features. “I’m protecting what’s mine.”

“What’s yours?” The words tasted like poison. “Is that what this is? Some twisted ownership claim? Well congratulations, Lucas- you’ve successfully reduced me to property. Hope that makes you feel powerful.”

For a moment, we just stared at each other, tension crackling between us.

“What about Claire?” I asked, my voice dropping to something colder, sharper. Your fiancée? The woman you’re supposedly going to marry? You think she’s going to be thrilled about you keeping me locked up here, pregnant with your child?”

He went very still, his expression unreadable. The silence stretched between us like a taut wire, ready to snap.

“Because I guarantee,” I continued, pressing the advantage, “she’s not going to accept this. Some other woman carrying your baby while she plans her wedding? She’ll make you choose, Lucas. Her or me. And we both know which one you’ll pick.”

The muscle in his jaw jumped. Then, after what felt like an eternity, he spoke, his voice quiet but absolute: “I’ll marry her. And you’ll have this baby.”

The words hit me like a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs. I’d expected him to deny it, to claim he’d break things off with me, to at least pretend there was some moral line he wouldn’t cross.

But no. He was going to have it all–the respectable wife, the secret mistress, the illegitimate child hidden away like some Victorian scandal.

“You fucking bastard.” The rage exploded out of me again, and I kicked out, my foot connecting solidly with his shin.

He grunted but didn’t move, didn’t even try to stop me as I rained blows on his shoulders, his chest, anywhere I could reach. “You want both? You want to play happy families with her while I’m locked up here like–like some kind of broodmare you visit when it’s convenient?”

The thought crystallized into something sharp and terrible–a future stretching out before me like a prison sentence.

Years of watching Lucas build a life with someone else while I waited in the shadows. Watching our child grow up wondering why Daddy only visited at night, why they couldn’t tell anyone who their father was, why they weren’t good enough to be part of his real family.

“Well, if that’s how it’s going to be-” I turned toward the stairs, my vision blurring with tears I refused to acknowledge. The ornate wooden banister gleamed in the fading light, solid and unforgiving. “If we’re just going to be your shameful secret forever-

I didn’t plan it, not really. But suddenly death felt like the only escape. Life had lost all meaning, and I couldn’t bear this crushing emptiness anymore.

My feet carried me toward the wooden railing with terrible inevitability. In that moment, I couldn’t see any other way out, and slammed my head against the banister with desperate force.

The impact sent stars exploding across my vision, but before I could pull back and strike again, his arms locked around me from behind, yanking me back with enough force to knock the air from my lungs. “Don’t.” His voice was raw, almost panicked. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

I struggled against his grip, but he was too strong, his arms like iron bands across my chest. “Let me go-”

“No.” He dragged me away from the stairs, his breath harsh against my ear. “You want to die? Too bad. I won’t let you. You don’t get to escape that easily.”

“Then what?” I was sobbing now, the fight draining out of me as exhaustion crashed over me in waves. “What do you want from me,

Lucas? You’ve taken everything else my job, my freedom, my future. What’s left?”