The CEO's Regret: Darling, Don’t Leave Me novel Chapter 9

Chapter 8: Clara Sinclair-1

Clara

I woke up in the room where I grew up.

It took me a few seconds to understand where I was. The white ceiling, the antique lamp, the light

curtains that my mother never wanted to change because she said the most beautiful light in the house

came through them. Everything was the same… and, at the same time, I was completely different.

I stared at the ceiling, breathing slowly, with that strange feeling of having returned to a safe place with a

shattered heart.

Separation is also a kind of grief, even if no one tells you. Even if you decided it yourself.

I turned my head and my eyes fell on the desk, the same one I had used during my university years. I sat up slowly and walked toward it, as if afraid of stirring up memories I wasn’t yet ready to face.

I opened the first drawer; notebooks, journals full of notes, ideas underlined with youthful enthusiasm.

My projects…

I felt a lump in my throat; I had forgotten how much I used to dream. How clear I was about who I wanted to be before I became Ethan Blackwood’s wife. Before my name was always mentioned alongside his, like an elegant, silent, decorative appendage.

I picked up one of the notebooks and opened it. I recognized my handwriting immediately. Rounder. More vibrant. There were plans, sketches, ideas that never materialized because, at some point, I decided that sustaining a marriage was more important than sustaining myself.

I sat on the bed, the notebook in my hands, and that’s when I felt it with its full force.

The pain… Because yes, I had made the right decision… but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

I closed my eyes tightly as I remembered the exact moment everything became real for the world.

The press, the speculation, began as whispers. Articles disguised as curiosity. Awkward questions. Conspicuous absences. And then, the confirmation.

Ethan, impeccable as always, sat across from a journalist who smiled with feigned neutrality.

“Is it true that you and Clara Blackwood are separating?”

He didn’t hesitate, didn’t waver. He confirmed the divorce as if he were talking about a failed business

merger.

That day I understood something that pierced my heart; he handled even the end of our relationship with the same coldness with which he had lived the marriage.

I cried that day. I cried like I hadn’t even cried the night I left.

Leried because, although I knew there was no real love, my heart was also losing something. An illusion.

Why Is it that what hurts the most is what we idealize?

I struggled to understand what life was like, people… men.

A foolish hope that insisted for years on believing that if I endured a little longer, if I were better, more

patient, quieter… something would change.

There were nights when I wondered if I’d done the right thing. If I hadn’t given up too soon. If I wasn’t exaggerating. If I shouldn’t go back.

But every time that doubt surfaced, all it took was remembering how I felt by his side: invisible, alone,

numb.

I tried to see reality from that perspective, from what was real, not from anger. I focused on what I was experiencing so my mind wouldn’t get confused and make me feel guilty for something I hadn’t done. Feeling bad for leaving, feeling bad for not giving my heart that illusion that I knew was destroying me.

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