The CEO's Regret: Darling, Don’t Leave Me novel Chapter 70

Chapter 48: The Awakening.

Ethan

There is an exact moment in which pride stops holding you, it is not dramatic, there is no background music, there is no grandiose scene… It’s a void, a dry one in the chest.

I felt it when I saw her leave the boardroom, it wasn’t the fact that she didn’t respond to me the way I wanted, it wasn’t that Alexander was there. It wasn’t even that she refused to give me explanations.

It was something much more brutal.

Clara is not a woman that I am trying to conquer, Clara was my wife, my wife… Mine.

And the word “mine” was not possession. It was mutual choice. It was an alliance. It was a promise. It was a shared bed… It was home. That word only has four letters that weigh more than anything.

And I let her go.

Not because I didn’t love her, but because I assumed she would always be there.

I sit in my office now and close my eyes… And the memories come without permission.

Our room. The dim light coming in through the curtains in the mornings. Her bare back under

the sheets.

I couldn’t believe it, I had the absolute right to get closer, to put my arm around her, to kiss her shoulder without asking permission.

She turning around half asleep to look for my breast, the kind of intimacy that doesn’t build in months. It is built in years… And I had it.

I had the possibility of touching her without fear of crossing a line, of kissing her without thinking if I was invading her space. I could… I could make love to her because she was my

wife.

I didn’t have to measure distances, I didn’t have to calculate words. That place was mine and I just wasted it. Because while she waited for me in bed, many nights I chose the office.

While she tried to talk, I answered emails. While she was looking for time with me, I was looking for growth.

When my body craved that natural release, I would have sex with her until I was satisfied, and I didn’t stop to enjoy what I now want from her… now I feel like I’m begging, begging for even a simple kiss.

< Chapter 48. The Awakening.

+25 Points

I just wanted to be a relevant CEO, expand the company, be the best… I succeeded.

And now, sitting here, I understand something I didn’t want to see at the time; I made everything grow… except us.

I took her for granted.

I bit my lips and felt like a damn desperate.

As if marriage were an unbreakable structure. As if she couldn’t get tired. As if her patience had no limits… And Clara didn’t scream, she never screamed. Maybe she just started to fade.

If only she had given me a previous warning, but she didn’t. She just, suddenly… she… divorce…

I saw it, and I didn’t do anything.

I thought it was a stage. I thought that when I closed the next contract I would have more

time.

I thought that when I reached a certain level, then yes, I would dedicate myself to her. Always

after.

Always later… I thought maybe a few days, that she wanted space and she would come

back…

Until one day the “after” came… And she was no longer with me.

What hits me the most now is not that she is with another man.

It’s just that I no longer have that intimate space where I could touch her face without hesitation.

Today, when I put my finger on her lips so that she wouldn’t finish that sentence… I felt something I didn’t expect.

Her skin, her softness. I know that texture, the flavor… And my body reacted as if nothing had changed.

As if she were still my wife. But she isn’t.

I no longer have the right and that is the hardest blow of all. The emptiness in the chest is not jealousy.

It is absence, it is the realization that the place I once occupied effortlessly… Now I’m begging for it.

I, who have never begged for anything. I, who always had control. I’m about to ask you for

<Chapter 48. The Awakening

time. To return to her and ask her for a chance.

+25 Points

And the most humiliating thing is not to ask. It’s knowing that maybe it’s too late, because seeing her today was a trigger.

It is not nostalgia, nor is it wounded ego. It is awakening.

To understand that what I lack is not a woman, it is her.

Her way of holding me when I didn’t even know I needed support. Her intelligence.

Her calmness, her body fitting in with mine in the dark, her laughter in the kitchen, her

presence.

I exchanged hours with her for endless meetings, I exchanged nights of conversation for figures.

I exchanged intimacy for expansion… And now, when I see her walking away without looking at me… I feel like something inside of me is really breaking.

I tried to fill this void with pride, with ego, with the narrative that if I didn’t look for her in two years, I may never look for her again.

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