The CEO's Regret: Darling, Don’t Leave Me novel Chapter 38

Ethan

The office was silent when I got home, that silence that I enjoyed so much, but now I only see it as a damn silence… It didn’t demand anything. It didn’t ask for explanations, it didn’t demand attention, it didn’t ask uncomfortable questions/It was an orderly, almost clinical silence. Like me… but today, especially today,

it hinders me.

I left my keys on the desk and took off my jacket without turning on the main light. Only the side lamp, enough so that I don’t feel in the dark, but not exposed either, I poured myself a drink. Just one. I wasn’t even thirsty, but out of nowhere I get that need to feel the bitter, strong heat of alcohol break my throat.

I sat down and then, without warning, the memory returned.

Not the whole event, not the music, not the speeches, not the toasts… The details returned, it is always

the details that betray.

The way Alexander walked half a step in front of Clara, not to mark territory. To make room for her. His hand on her lower back, brief, functional, precise… That image repeats itself over and over again.

A gesture that I knew all too well because… it had once been mine.

I closed my eyes for a second, it wasn’t jealousy, it wasn’t anger; it was something more uncomfortable; what do you call it? recognition.

Alexander wasn’t acting, he wasn’t trying to impress. He was comfortable with her.

And Clara… Clara did not tense with that contact. She did not avoid him. She didn’t analyze it.

She just accepted it, that’s what messed me up.

I rested the glass on the desk without drinking, looked at it and suddenly the desire to drink it began to

fade.

Was it my imagination? No, of course not. Vanessa had seen it too.

I remembered her voice, almost casual, like someone making an observation without any real intention to

hurt.

“I think the man who is with her is her partner.”

In a romantic way.

Something like that she mentioned, I don’t remember it in detail, but… but she mentioned something like that. And she didn’t say it with malice, she said it as if she were verifying a fact.

At that moment I responded well, as always, with the right phrase, the right tone. And it was true… in part.

I got up and walked to the window. I saw the lights on, other people’s windows, lives that didn’t stop to

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wonder what I was feeling.

thought of Clara talking to that businessman, of the security of her voice. In how she held his gaze without harshness, without insecurity

It wasn’t the Clara who sat in front of me waiting for me to validate an idea.

She was a different woman and I couldn’t say she didn’t deserve it.

“I must stop thinking about it.”

I ran a hand over my face, as if that erased the thought that now consumes me. What disturbed me the most was not seeing her advance, it was understanding that she was doing it without looking at me.

For years I believed that, if one day we crossed paths like this, there would be something pending. An inconclusive conversation. A gesture. A crack… Something that confirmed to me that what we had had left a mark on both of us, but no.

She was… light, and I was still carrying things that I didn’t know where to leave. Things whose weight I’m only now beginning to feel, why?

I sat down again and this time I did take a sip.

I ran my finger over the rim of the glass and I felt like I wasn’t losing ground, I wasn’t falling behind. But for the first time, someone was walking beside me without me setting the pace.

I thought of Alexander saying something in her ear and she leaning over just to hear him better.

I thought about how they laughed, the way she looked at him and how he pushed her hair aside.

What was he saying? Was it a joke?

I ask about that kind of laugh she gave him, a laugh that is not rehearsed.

I took a deep breath, I didn’t want to compete with it anymore. I didn’t even know if I should.

The easy thing would have been to harden up, move pieces, force scenarios, remind myself that I had always been the man with the most resources, the most experience, the most power.

But that was not what worried me, what worried me was that, even though I had all that…

There was something I couldn’t touch anymore.

I remembered the way she responded to me in the hallway when I complimented her. Educated. Direct.

Neutral.

Not cold, worse… normal. Like I’m just someone else in the room.

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, I didn’t want to do anything impulsive, I never did.

All I wanted was to understand at what exact point I stopped being part of her equation, Vanessa was right about something. Clara had rebuilt her life, and I… I kept telling myself that it was okay because everything was still working. But that night, sitting in my office, I understood something I didn’t like to

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admit it wasn’t losing her that hurt, it was knowing that she wasn’t trying to win me back.

And that, for the first time in a long time, left me without a clear play.

I don’t know at what moment 1 finished drinking my drink, I got so lost that even time went in front of my

nose.

I sighed in anguish, not because I didn’t know what to do, but because I wasn’t sure what right I had to do

My office has always been a place of cold decisions, numbers that fit, strategies that leave no room for error. Tonight, on the other hand, there is nothing… Nothing that I can turn into a formula.

Nothing to order in columns. Nothing to control.

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