The Officer's Runaway Wife & Secret Son novel Chapter 3

Two months ago, a call from an unknown number came into Rhys's phone.

He was rarely off duty and was cooking in the kitchen, so Clara naturally answered it for him.-

Before she could speak, a girl's cheerful, coquettish voice came from the other end:

"I'm on a business trip and not in Brighton City lately, so don't come looking for me. You'll make a wasted trip."

Clara froze. Her hand trembled, and she hung up.

When Rhys came out with the dish, he saw her sitting on the sofa in a daze.

Clara wasn't someone who could hide things, so she immediately repeated exactly what she had heard.

Rhys picked up his phone, checked the call log, and said, "Must have been a wrong number."

He was wearing loungewear and an apron—Clara's favorite look on him.

It made her feel that this usually cold and reserved man was finally touched by the warmth of her domestic life.

So, Clara chose to trust him.

Who hasn't received a few wrong number calls in their life?

But soon, there was a second time.

The call turned into a text message. The content was more direct and ambiguous:

[Is it really necessary to be this sneaky?]

When Rhys came out of the bathroom, Clara asked him straight out.

He paused while drying his hair and asked her, "You went through my phone?"

With one sentence, she became the one invading privacy.

Rhys held her gaze for a few seconds, then, right in front of her face, long-pressed the message and selected "Delete."

No matter how she questioned him later, his answer was always the same: sent to the wrong person.

Clara came to a conclusion. Her husband was cheating.

Clara had a fiery temper, so she packed her bags that very day and moved into Simon's place.

Simon was a small-time model who was openly gay.

Rhys had initially been critical of Clara being close to him, until he personally witnessed Simon trying to hit on a young traffic cop newly assigned to his squad. Only then was he completely reassured.

For the first few days after she left, she thought Rhys would come to coax her back, to explain.

But he didn't.

Aside from a few lukewarm "when are you coming home" messages at the start—which Clara rejected—he couldn't even be bothered to text anymore.

Rhys frowned again. "Where are you going?"

"Simon's."

Rhys pressed his lips together. He wrapped his arm around her waist from behind and kissed her ear. "Still angry?"

"No."

"Then why leave if you're not angry?" He lowered his head, the tip of his nose brushing against the hollow of her neck, his voice slightly husky. "It's been two months. Don't you miss me?"

Clara was surprised by his sudden intimacy and talkativeness today.

That text message was still a thorn in her heart. Reason told her she should throw the phone in his face and demand an answer right now.

But she was afraid that just moments of warmth would descend into another argument, so she only pushed him away.

"Aren't you going for a run?"

Seeing that she finally turned to face him, Rhys took the opportunity to kiss her lips. "I don't have to go."

By the time Clara came to her senses, Rhys had already pressed her back onto the bed.

In her haze, she remembered something.

Because they had been trying to conceive, she had thrown away all the protection in the house long ago.