The Officer's Runaway Wife & Secret Son novel Chapter 194

Rhys frowned. “She doesn’t have some guy like that in her life.”

Zachary laughed in exasperation. "It’s just an example. You’re missing the point. You took care of Margot, so what about Clara? Did you just ignore her?"

Rhys lowered his eyes.

Ignore?

He had thought of it as understanding, as trust.

Clara didn't need him constantly monitoring her medication, didn't need him rushing her to the emergency room in the middle of the night. He had naturally directed his energy toward the person who "needed care."

Even though, in the end, it turned out to be a deception.

He could no longer distinguish how much was true and how much was false.

"I thought she would understand," Rhys whispered. "That was a responsibility."

Zachary asked, "So you have no responsibility to your wife? What did the wedding vows say?"

After asking, he remembered that their wedding hadn't even reached the vows part before the groom ran off halfway through.

Zachary patted him on the shoulder and stood up.

"It says in sickness and in health, you have to put her first. You had it the wrong way around."

His phone vibrated on the table.

Zachary made a gesture and left first.

Rhys picked up his phone, hesitated for a few seconds, and slid to answer.

"Rhys, are you busy?"

"It's okay. Is something wrong?"

"Nothing major." The sound of Liam flipping through documents came through the line, his tone casual. "Come home for dinner on the evening of the 8th. Remember to bring Clara. Grandfather's orders."

Bring Clara back? Where was he supposed to get her from?

"I'm afraid I can't. I'm on duty."

"On duty?" Liam paused. "You're the Captain; don't you set the schedule? Mom said Clara was treated unfairly during the holidays and hasn't been back in a long time. She wants to make it up to her with a gift during this dinner. Grandfather has prepared something too."

Rhys was speechless.

Everyone in the family was thinking about how to make it up to Clara.

Grandfather, his aunt, his sister-in-law, even Ezra Huntington knew Clara had been wronged.

What right did he have to ask? What good would asking do?

Liam heard the strangeness in his tone but didn't expose him. "Alright then. Since you say she's unwell, forget it. You figure out how to explain it to your aunt."

The call ended.

Rhys slowly put down the phone, his heart aching with an empty hollowness.

He had sat in the monitoring center all day, his eyes blurring from staring, and hadn't caught a single glimpse of her.

Yet Liam just went for a meal and ran into her.

She was living well in this city—shopping, eating, having her own life trajectory.

He was shielded from all of it.

Rhys looked at the surveillance screens.

Brighton City was so big, full of people everywhere.

The whole world could see her.

Except him.