The CEO's Regret: Darling, Don’t Leave Me novel Chapter 30

Chapter 20: It was mine, mine alone.

Clara

I left the meeting room without looking back. Not because I wanted to avoid something… simply because I didn’t need it. The decision had already been made. The signatures would come later, the legal details, the deadlines, the numbers. But the essential, what really mattered, was already ours.

The contract was from Sinclair & Co.

I walked down the hallway with calm steps, holding the folder to my chest as if it were something fragile,

even though it wasn’t. I wasn’t. I felt an inner clarity so clean that I was almost surprised

No overflowing euphoria, no disbelief. It was a solid, profound certainty.

I had won.

I didn’t hear footsteps behind me. I didn’t notice any absences. I didn’t even record the moment Ethan left the room before me. By the time I walked through the building’s glass doors, he was no longer part of my

scene. And that… That was also a victory.

The air of the city received me with its constant noise, with that pulse that never stops. I got into the car that was waiting for me and told the driver the address of the building where the new headquarters would operate. Our building. Still in phase one. Still dusty, open plans, unfinished walls… but full of promise.

As I advanced, I leaned my head against the backrest and closed my eyes for a moment.

I remembered the meeting… I remembered the exact moment I presented the solution. Not with grandiosity. Not with a need to impress. I spoke like someone who knows the problem from the inside. Like someone who doesn’t improvise. I saw their expressions change, their bodies lean forward, the

attentive silences.

I didn’t have to raise my voice. I didn’t have to justify myself… When I finished, I knew it was done.

I opened my eyes just as the car pulled up in front of the building

Alexander was there. Standing, with the jacket hanging from his arm, checking something on his phone. He looked tired-he had traveled too much those days-but he still had that serene energy that always accompanied him.

As soon as I got out of the car and saw him, something inside me overflowed.

I didn’t think about it. I didn’t measure it. I didn’t leak it.

I ran to him.

“Alexander!” I said, and hugged him tightly, wrapping my arms around him as if I needed to anchor myself to something real.

It took him just a second to react before he hugged me back, surprised.

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mine inic alone

“Clara…” he laughed softly. “What’s wrong?”

tlet go of him, almost embarrassed, and took a step back.

“Excuse me,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I’m… excited. I shouldn’t…”

He looked at me intently, that genuine attention he always had with me, as if he knew something important had just happened.

“Excited about what?” he asked. “How was the meeting?”

I looked at him. And I smiled.

Not a discreet smile. Not a contained one. A real one.

“We succeeded.”

He blinked.

“What?”

4

“The contract,” I repeated. “It’s ours. Our first big contract in New York. They elected us.”

Alexander was silent for a few seconds, processing the information. I watched as his expression changed from curiosity to disbelief, then to something akin to pride,

“Wait… are you serious?”

I nodded.

“Quite seriously.”

He let out a short, incredulous laugh.

“I can’t believe it,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Clara, that’s huge.”

“I know.”

And I really knew it.

r

We enter the building. The echo of our footsteps echoed through the wide, still unfinished space. There were boxes, planes leaning against the walls, half-installed cables. It smelled of concrete, of work in

progress.

“I knew you were good,” Alexander continued as we walked. “I knew you had vision, talent… but this…”

He stopped and looked me straight ahead.

“You were competing with people who have been doing this for years. Companies with a long history. With heavy names.”

I swallowed, knowing exactly who he was referring to.

“Yes,” I said. “I know.”

Chapter 204

The alone

“Ethan Blackwood’s company,” he added, “has been around for a long time. I thought…”

He paused when he noticed the change in my expression.

“God, no,” I said immediately. “Don’t mention it. This moment is perfect, not to mention.”

He frowned, confused.

“Is there anything wrong with him?” he asked. “Because… I noticed it. From the day of the event. And not for you. For him.”

I stopped.

The echo of the building seemed to intensify, as if the space itself was listening.

I sighed.

“Yes” I replied honestly. “Something happens.”

Alexander waited, without rushing me.

“Ethan is… my ex-husband.”

The silence that followed was dense.

“Your ex…?” he repeated, incredulous. “Are you saying that the guy you competed with for this contract…?”

I nodded.

“Yes.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.

“It can’t be…”

“It is.”

He ran his hand over his face, visibly shocked.

“Clara… that changes everything.”

“No,” I said calmly. “It does not change it. It just explains it.”

I walked a few steps further, resting my hand on one of the still bare walls.

“For a long time, I was part of his world,” I continued. “Of his structure. Of his order. I organized, sustained, facilitated. But I never went… oh, just forget it.”

Alexander watched me in silence.

“I can hear you, Clara. Not as a partner, but as a friend.”

I lowered my head, sighed, and saw him again.

“When I left,” I continued “it wasn’t because I couldn’t stay there. It was because I understood that, if I

stayed, I was never going to discover who! was outside of that system.”

“And now-” he murmured.

“Now I’m here,” I said, turning to him. “And I won without using any of the person I was with him. I won by

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