The CEO's Regret: Darling, Don’t Leave Me novel Chapter 179

Chapter 128: I’m Not the Same and That Changes Everything.

Clara

“For nonsense, only nonsense…”

The words come out of my mouth… but they don’t feel entirely mine. Ethan doesn’t respond right away.

And that… It makes me more aware of what I just did.

Minimize it, reduce it. As if it didn’t matter, as if it hadn’t affected me:

I feel his gaze on me, I don’t need to turn to know.

“It didn’t seem like silly things,” he finally says.

His voice is still calm, but there’s something underneath. Something firmer… I purse my lips slightly, looking straight ahead.

“Really, Ethan… It’s nothing.”

I insist. And now yes… I feel it.

That small internal break, because it is something. And a lot.

But I don’t want to take it there, I don’t want this… becomes something else, not now. Not when everything

starts to feel good.

Silence settles in the car, but it is no longer the same as before.

This… It weighs a little more.

“Clara…”

My name in his voice sounds different, lower, more serious.

“If someone made you feel bad… it is “nothing“.

I close my eyes for a second, there is that. That way of seeing it so direct, so clear.

And for a moment… It makes me want to tell him everything.

What Alexander hinted at, how he spoke to me, how he tried to make me feel small.

୮

But I also know what that would provoke, Ethan is not Alexander, Ethan is not insinuating. Ethan acts.

And right now… I don’t want that.

I open my eyes.

“I handled it,” I finally reply.

I turned my face a little towards him.

That Chang

“Seriously

Thold his gaze. Trying to make him understand without having to know everything.

“It was just a bad time.”

He watches me for a few more seconds, too many. Like he’s deciding whether to believe me or not.

And I think he doesn’t quite do so. But he doesn’t insist either; he nods slightly.

“Okay.”

But his tone says something else, he is not convinced. And I know.

I look back at the window. The city passes in front of us… But my mind is still somewhere else.

In the office, in Alexander’s words. In that way of getting into where he does not belong.

And then… in Ethan.

In how he arrived, in how he asked, in how… stopped.

I exhale slowly.

I’m in the middle of something, something that’s just beginning to take shape. And for the first time… I

don’t know how to balance it all.

“Do you still want me to pick you up tomorrow?” he asks suddenly.

I blink, returning to the present.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes,” he says. “Or you prefer to come with me early.”

My chest barely tightens, that’s it again.

The routine forming, without asking permission.

I look at him, and this time I don’t hesitate so much.

“Yes,” I answer. “You can pick me up.”

A small smile appears on his lips. Not big, but real.

“Good.”

And that’s it, no more is needed. But as the car moves forward… I can’t help but think about it again.

This is no longer accidental, this is no longer momentary. This… It’s becoming a constant.

And the most dangerous thing… I’m just not sure I want to stop it anymore.

The suitcase is open on the bed, and I… I am still standing in front of it.

Sad That Changezverything.

Without moving. without deciding where to start

exhale slowly, crossing my arms by inertia, as if I could contain all this that is moving inside me. It’s just a weekend, nothing more

I repeat that to myself in silence… but it doesn’t change anything. Because it’s not the journey, it’s the place.

I look down at the suitcase… and finally I get closer. I take a blouse, fold it, leave it inside.

Then another. And another.

Automatic movements, without thinking too much. Because when I think.. Everything gets complicated.

My fingers stop on a piece of clothing, and then… I bite my lower lip lightly. There it is.

That small, but constant nerve.

I barely frown, leaving my clothes on the bed.

“Why am I like this…?” I murmur.

I know that place, every corner. Every space.

I lived there, I was happy there… and yet… I don’t feel it as mine anymore.

That idea settles in my chest… uncomfortable, strange.

I slowly plop down on the bed, right next to the open suitcase. I close my eyes, and breathe.

Because I need it, because if I don’t… This is going to get out of hand.

“Can I really go back…?” I whisper.

The question is not light, it is not superficial, it is deep… Too much.

My mind starts to move on its own… as always, remembering, comparing, protecting myself.

And then fear appears, clear and direct.

“What if everything is as before…?”

My fingers tighten on the sheet.

“What if I come back… and I am the ignored wife again?”

There it is, the real wound, not the house, not the past. That… That version of me.

The one that waited, the one that justified, the one that stayed… even when she shouldn’t.

My chest tightens. And for a second… My body reacts before my mind.

Defense, distance, closure. As if it wants to tell me: Don’t go. Don’t expose yourself again.

I purse my lips, take a deeper breath, because I feel it. That impulse to go back.