The CEO's Regret: Darling, Don’t Leave Me novel Chapter 10

Chapter 8: Clara Sinclair-2

Clara

Sometimes I would close my eyes and wonder if he noticed that my breathing wasn’t at the same pace as his, if he felt how tense I became, if he could see how my hands remained still, as if they didn’t know what to do. He never asked me what I liked, never asked if I was okay, never stopped.

It was as if his need was an urgency that had to be resolved, and once it was, it was all over. He would pull away, turn his back, and the silence would return to the room like a cruel reminder that even naked, even

so close, I was alone.

There were nights when I thought the problem was mine. That maybe I didn’t know how to surrender myself, that maybe I was broken somehow.

I remember one night in particular. He got out of bed almost immediately, went to the bathroom, and came back as if nothing had happened. I stayed there, barely covered by the sheets, with an

uncomfortable feeling in my chest. Not physical. Emotional. As if something inside me had been turned

off a little more.

I wanted to say something, I wanted to so many times, but what do you say when you don’t even know how

to name what’s missing?

It wasn’t just sex, it was the complete absence of connection. It was feeling not desired, but available. And that, with time, hurts more than any explicit rejection. Because rejection at least is clear… This isn’t.

It was just an ordinary night. One of those nights you don’t remember because of a date or a special event. I’d spent weeks adjusting to the house, to his routine, to his way of arriving late and moving as if the world had already been arranged before I even appeared in it.

That night I got ready with a clumsy hope. I’d put on a light robe, lingerie, let my hair down, used my best creams and lotions… I wanted to look beautiful for him, to feel beautiful for him… For my husband. For the man I had just married.

When Ethan entered the room, he didn’t look at me right away. He placed his watch on the table, unbuttoned his shirt with mechanical, precise movements. I watched him, sitting on the bed, waiting for that small gesture that would confirm he saw me… It didn’t come. The words “you look beautiful,” some compliment, nothing.

He came closer later, yes. He kissed me. But it was a proper kiss. Without pausing. Without exploration. As if he knew exactly what came next and didn’t need to stop and discover it with me.

At first, I thought he was nervous. That perhaps it was tiredness, stress, the novelty… any excuse would do to protect the idea that this was normal. That love would come later.

But something inside me tensed when I understood that I wasn’t being touched, but guided. That my body wasn’t a place he wanted to inhabit, but a means to reach something he wanted, an orgasm.

Lremember opening my eyes in the middle of it all and seeing his face. He wasn’t lost in me. He wasn’t focused on what we felt together. He was focused on himself. On finishing. In fulfilling my promise.

And it was there. There, kfelt that strange disconnection, as if I had left my own body. As if the bed were no longer mine, as if that moment didn’t belong to me.

When it was over, he didn’t stay. There were no caresses afterward, no gentle words. He turned over and closed his eyes peacefully. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling.

Listening to his calm breathing while mine was ragged, filled with questions I didn’t know how to ask.

A few days have passed, and my parents have been with me throughout the whole process. They didn’t pressure me. They didn’t question me. My father, especially, carried a silent guilt. I saw it in his eyes every time he watched me walk around the house like a stranger.

“We support you,” he told me one night. “In everything. Until the very end.”

And so it was.

A real divorce, a final one.

Not a break, not a pause. I got out of bed and went out into the hallway. The house was silent, enveloped in that deep calm of long afternoons. I walked slowly, and then I saw it.

The photograph. It was framed, hanging on the main wall of the hallway. Our wedding photo.

I stopped in front of it, and there I was, dressed in white, with a smile I now recognized as hopeful. Not

fake… It never was.

I remembered the weight of the dress. The bouquet of white flowers in my hands. The music. The glances. The feeling of starting something big.

I took the photo in my hands and took it down. I looked at it for a few more seconds. Not with anger. Not with resentment… With sadness.

“Thank you,” I whispered, not quite knowing to whom. “For showing me what I never want to be again.”

When one of the maids passed by in the hallway, I called out to her gently.

“Could you please take this down?”

She nodded without questions. Without judgment.

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