The CEO's Regret: Darling, Don’t Leave Me novel Chapter 20

Chapter 14: The Event, Part 2.-2

We were briefly introduced. A correct greeting. Professional.

“We were just talking about Sinclair & Co.,” one of the men remarked.

“Wow, it makes me happy that you already know about it.”

“You’re the CEO of this new company, aren’t you?” I asked, joining the conversation.

He furrows his eyebrows and looks at me as if he doesn’t understand a question as simple as that.

“Aren’t you?” I asked.

He shook his head and a small smile.

“We thought you were the CEO.”

Alexander smiled, cocking his head.

“No,” he answered. “I am a strategic partner.”

Someone insisted.

“Then who…?”

Alexander turned his body slightly and pointed back to a point in the room that I had ignored until that

moment.

“Her.”

And then I saw her, a woman with her back to me, who had slowly turned her face so I could see her profile. I could recognize her, even though she hadn’t turned her body… Clara.

Her image hit my mind… Not immediately as a memory, but as a real, tangible presence. She was a few steps behind, talking to a small group of men. Dark dress. Firm silhouette. Hair… different. Deeper. More

determined.

She didn’t smile too much. She was not looking for attention. But she had it…

I felt something stop inside me, it wasn’t nostalgia, it wasn’t love… It was shocking.

r

“Clara Sinclair,” Alexander said. “She is the CEO.”

“Clara!” said the man, raising the volume of his voice.

She turned. And at that exact second, our eyes met.

The noise of the room became distant, I didn’t think anything coherent. I did not formulate a clear emotion. I only knew, with an uncomfortable certainty, that what I thought I had overcome… had just stood up in front of me… And this time, she wasn’t coming behind anyone, she was coming in front. Vanessa gently squeezed my arm, not realizing that I wasn’t quite there anymore.

Chapter 14-4Away Part 2

“Oh, she is familiar to me… Do you know her?” she asked quietly.

t didn’t answer right away, I kept looking at her… To Clara, to the woman I had let go, believing that her absence would not alter anything. And for the first time since she left, something inside me stopped being so sure of myself. But in the end, it doesn’t matter, nothing matters to me… That’s what I said to myself.

“Oh, she’s… is…”

Vanessa managed to recognize her behind those changes and clings to my arm then.

Alexander stepped forward, opening the circle naturally.

“Gentlemen,” he said with calm assurance, “let me introduce you to the person we are talking about.”

He paused briefly, just enough for everyone to turn their attention to her.

“She is Clara Sinclair, founder and CEO of Sinclair & Co.”

The name fell with weight.

Not as an exaggerated revelation, but as a truth that needed no explanation.

Clara took a step forward. Her posture was impeccable. Absolute serenity. No gesture out of place. She extended her hand first to one, then to another, greeting with measured politeness, with that security that

is not learned… is built.

“A pleasure,” she said. “Thank you for your interest in our work.”

Her voice was firm, clear, and unmistakable. And yet, different.

When she finally came in front of me, I felt the slight internal lag that I didn’t want to show. She looked at me as one looks at a potential partner, at one more contact within a room full of important names.

No surprise, no reproach, no visible nostalgia.

She held out her hand.

“A pleasure,” she said without further ado, as if it were the first time she had seen me.

I took it.

It was a brief gesture. Professional. Right.

r

As if we had never shared a house, as if she had never organized my days, my nights, my whole life. As if her absence had not left a void that I refused to name.

“The pleasure is all mine,” I replied, listening to my own voice from afar.

She nodded barely, with impeccable courtesy, and withdrew her hand without staying a second too long.

There was no trembling in her fingers, there was no doubt in her gaze. Clara continued to move forward, resuming the conversation naturally, explaining the vision of her company, the expansion plans, the values they defended.

< Chapter 14-vait Bort 2 2

Everyone listened. Everyone was looking at her.

And I stood there, with the uncomfortable certainty of having witnessed something I didn’t see coming.

It wasn’t just that she had returned to New York. It wasn’t just that she was the CEO of was beginning to compete in earnest. It was this…

company that

Clara hadn’t come back to claim anything, she’d come back… Without needing me and for the first time since she left, I understood that the real blind spot had not been her absence.

It had been believing that she would never be able to be exactly where she was now.

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