The CEO's Regret: Darling, Don’t Leave Me novel Chapter 90

Chapter 68: The Desire–1

Ethan

Since that day in the garden have not stopped thinking about what she said.

Not in the kiss, not in Alexander.

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In what she said… Because there was something in her voice when she told me about the two years,

something that didn’t just sound like a reproach… It sounded like something deeper.

In addition to that, her words continued to resonate in my head, what she said in the hallway of her

apartment the first time I dared to look for her and stole a kiss from her.

So, I quoted her… I summoned her to see each other without an event, without teams, without spectators.

A neutral place, a discreet coffee shop, away from our offices.

When she arrived, she was simple. Without an impeccable suit or gala dress. Loose hair, light makeup.

Real.

The truth is that I didn’t think I would accept, but now it’s more comfortable to treat us, to look at each

other…

She arrives and smiles. That always disarms me more than any elegant dress.

We sat face to face, there was a moment of awkward silence.

Not because of romantic tension, but because of history.

“Since that day we spoke,” I said at last, “I have not stopped thinking about what you said.”

She looked up.

“What? I don’t remember anymore.”

She did remember.

I knew it by the way she held my gaze.

“You said it wasn’t just because of what you mentioned. That there was something else you left for. Something I never quite understood.”

I leaned slightly forward.

“I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it was. But I know there’s something I’m not seeing.”

Clara was silent for a few seconds.

Too many.

And then she said a name I didn’t expect to hear with that burden.

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“Vanessa.”

I felt a little internal shock.

“What about Vanessa?”

“She made me insecure.”

She said it without drama, without shouting. Without victimizing herself… Just as a fact.

“And I think you knew it.”

I blinked.

“There was never anything between us.”

“I’m not saying there was anything physical,” she replied calmly. “I’m saying you never set a clear

boundary.”

That phrase hit me harder than I expected.

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“Your lack of character with her,” she continued, “and your lack of boundaries made me feel displaced.”

I was left without an immediate response.

No one had ever accused me of lack of character.

“Clara, I…”

“Let me finish.”

I nodded.

“It wasn’t just that she was always there. It was that you allowed things. Looks. Comments. Proximity.”

Her voice tightened slightly.

“And every time I mentioned it, you minimized it.”

I tried to remember.

I tried to reconstruct scenes.

“That doesn’t mean I prioritized her.”

She bowed her head.

r

“Do you remember the event that night? The night I left before you finished your speech.”

I do remember.

Perfectly.

An important event. A business award. I was elated by the recognition.

“That day,” she continued, “I was already broken inside.”

<Chapter 68 The Desire 1

swallowed hard.

“You never mentioned me.”

The air became heavy

“In your speech you thanked your team. To the members. To the people who supported you.”

She paused.

“You mentioned her.”

I felt a small emptiness in my stomach.

“You said that she had been a fundamental pillar.”

I remember saying something like that, it was true. Vanessa was efficient. Dedicated. Professional.

But at the time I didn’t think about what it would sound like.

“You never said my name,” Clara whispered.

Of course, I did not remember.

“I was sitting in the front row. Your wife.”

The weight of that image fell on me like a stone.

“And while I wondered if I was still important to you… you exalted her in front of everyone.”

I didn’t know what to say, there was no intention.

But that doesn’t change the impact.

“That’s not why I asked for a divorce,” she added. “It was the accumulation.”

I stared at her.

“I discovered things.”

My body tensed.

“What things?”

Her gaze became harder.

“One day you came home with lipstick on your shirt.”

The memory did not come immediately.

“Deep red,” she said. “That red that only she uses.”

I tried to mentally go back, meetings, events. Greeting people.

“I don’t remember that.”

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Chapter 68 The Desire 1

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Chapter 68 The Desire–2

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Chapter 68: The Desire–2

“I do.”

Her voice did not break

“I saw it when you left your shirt on- I don’t remember what you left it on, but there it was. I tried to

convince myself that it wasn’t what it seemed.”

I ran my hand over my face.

“I never had anything with Vanessa.”

I said it with absolute certainty, because it was true.

“But what she did- and what you allowed… it made me feel that there was something.”

I tried to reconstruct the scenario, Vanessa used to greet with a kiss.

She was close, too close. And I never said anything.

I never distanced myself, I never thought it was necessary. Because in my head there was no betrayal.

But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t carelessness.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the lipstick?” I finally asked.

“I hinted at it.”

I responded with logic, with arguments. With timeshare statistics… Never with emotion. I understood the

same way, not with insinuations.

“I thought it was baseless jealousy,” I admitted quietly.

“It wasn’t jealousy,” said Clara. “It was intuition mixed with insecurity that you nurtured.”

That hurt.

Because she was right, I didn’t betray her. But I didn’t protect her emotionally either. And that, in a

marriage, weighs the same.

I came home that night with a lump in my chest.

I poured myself a drink, whiskey. I held it without drinking it for several minutes.

I remembered scenes that seemed insignificant before, Vanessa entering my office without knocking.

Staying up late, making comments like, “Without me you’d be lost.”

Laughing too close, and Clara looking at me. Waiting for something… A correction, a limit, a clear phrase.

I never gave it.

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Not because I wanted something with Vanessa, but because I liked to feel admired. Recognized.

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Because at work I was powerful. I admit that… Her actions were not entirely insignificant, they were

flattery.

And at home… Clara was just as strong as I was. I never needed to validate her publicly because I

assumed she knew it. And in that mistake I built distance.

I finally took the drink, it burned. But not enough.

I remembered the speech, the lights. The applause… I remember seeing Clara get up before the night was

over.

I thought she was tired, I never asked if she was hurt. Two years, two years believing that the divorce was

just pride. Or incompatibility.

And now I understood something brutal, I didn’t lose her because of infidelity. I lost it by default.

For not protecting her place, for not making her feel chosen when she needed it most.

I rested the glass on the table.

And for the first time since all this started, I didn’t feel like a victim of the past. I felt responsible.

I never had anything with Vanessa while I was married to Clara, she was part of my past, and that’s true.

But in my present with Clara I didn’t set limits either, and that absence was enough for Clara to begin to

feel lonely being married to me.

I closed my eyes.

If I want to get her back… It’s not enough to say I love her. I have to correct what I never wanted to see.

And that starts with a conversation I’ve avoided for far too long. With Vanessa.

Because this time I am not going to allow Clara to feel displaced again.

Not because of my silence, not because of my comfort. Not because of my ego.

Not this time.

r

I wanted to rest, I needed to give order to my procedure… So, I went into the bathroom, turned on the

shower.

The water began to fall hard, filling the space with steam and white noise. As the water fell, I slowly

undressed, not by intention, but because my head was too busy.

I went under the hot water and rested my hands against the marble wall. I closed my eyes.

The water ran down my back, my shoulders, my chest. I took a deep breath, tried to collect my thoughts.

But it wasn’t the mistakes that appeared first, it was her.

Clara sitting across from me in the cafeteria, Clara looking at me in the garden. Clara whispering my name

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between my lips.

topened my eyes, the steam was already fogging up the mirror.

I slid my hands over my face, over my neck, over my chest, as if trying to return to the present.

But my body wasn’t interested in logic. He was reacting.

Just imagining her, her skin under my hands that night. The way she responded to my kiss.

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