The CEO's Regret: Darling, Don’t Leave Me novel Chapter 174

Chapter 123: An Open Door–1

Ethan

Her question stays in the air, I hear it… But I don’t answer right away.

Because it is not a light question, it is not something that I can answer with just any sentence.

I look straight at her.

Holding her gaze as she holds mine. And for a second… Really off guard.

“No,” I say finally, in a low voice.

I shake my head softly.

“It wouldn’t have been the same.”

My fingers squeeze theirs a little more, not hard, with intention.

“Seeing you,” I continue, “was what made me react.”

I pause briefly, searching for the right words. But I don’t want to embellish it.

I want her to understand it for what it is.

“It was like… open my eyes suddenly.”

I take a deep breath.

“I was living… but I wasn’t feeling anything.”

My gaze does not leave her.

“And when you came back- all that I had inside…”

I barely frown, as if I could feel it again.

“That emptiness…”

My voice drops a little lower, more intimate.

“Suddenly it had a name.”

A small pause came, but loaded.

“And it was you. Clara.”

I release the air slowly, as if I’ve been holding that back for a while.

“It wasn’t the house,” I add. “It was not routine… nor what we had before.”

I gently deny.

“It was you.”

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Chapter 124

My thumb gently brushes her hand.

“If you hadn’t come back…”

I look at her deeper

“I would have stayed the same.”

Maybe comfortable, maybe functional, But…

“Empty.”

*

The word comes out clearly, without hesitation, without hiding it.

I get a little closer.

Enough so that there is no space between us.

“So no,” I whisper, “I wouldn’t have remodeled anything.”

A faint smile appears on my lips.

But it is not light.

It is… honest.

“Because I didn’t know there was something to recover… Until I saw you again”

My hand slowly climbs up to her face, caressing it gently.

“You didn’t just go back to New York,” I murmured.

My eyes are fixed on her.

“You came back to me.”

And this time… It doesn’t sound like a coincidence.

It sounds like destiny.

I don’t turn away from her after saying it, I can’t. I don’t want to.

Her face is so close… that I feel her breath brushing mine.

And for a moment, it all comes down to this.

To us, to this space that, little by little, we fill again.

My thumb continues to caress her cheek, slowly… Like I still need to make sure she’s here.

That it is not an illusion, she does not move away. And that… It gives me calm.

But also… Something else sneaks into my mind. A short, quick image.

The car, that night. I barely frown.

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I don’t want to ruin the moment, I don’t want to put something in that maybe isn’t even real. But the doubt… it is. And it doesn’t go away.

I slowly lower my hand from her face, without letting go completely

“Clara,” I say, in a softer tone.

She looks at me, attentive.

“All right with Alexander?”

The question comes out more direct than I thought, I see the change in her expression.

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