The Officer's Runaway Wife & Secret Son novel Chapter 509

Felix finished the chicken wing in his hand, slid off his chair, and made sure to heave a heavy sigh as he walked past his father. He shot Rhys a look of profound disappointment before scampering off to watch TV.

Rhys sat in front of three barely-touched plates of food.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, pressing harder without realizing it.

Everything had been perfectly fine before noon.

He thought about it some more and realized that if he kept stewing in his own head, not only would he fail to fix the situation, but he might actually make it worse.

He pulled out his phone and did something unprecedented: he created a group chat with just Simon and Daniel.

He had absolutely no other choice.

Clara's best friend and her lawyer—one understood her better than anyone, the other understood pure logic. Between the two of them, they could surely piece together an answer for him.

[Rhys]: Quick question. Clara just asked me if I had any other plans before my time off ends. I told her no, and then she got mad. Why?

A few minutes later, Simon was the first to jump in.

He fired off three consecutive voice memos, each thirty to forty seconds long. Just looking at the duration, Rhys could feel the sheer volume of verbal assault waiting on the other end.

Rhys played them in his head, automatically imagining Simon's personal attacks, likely ending with a profound insult that didn't contain a single swear word but cut deeper than a curse.

He decided to skip them entirely.

Half a minute later, Daniel sent a voice memo too. Five seconds long.

Rhys thought to himself, *Daniel is a lawyer, after all. He gets straight to the point.*

Full of anticipation, he tapped play.

"Are you out of your mind?"

"..."

Rhys frowned and typed back: "Exactly which sentence did I get wrong?"

"Do you honestly think she spent the entire morning in the study pondering your lung transplant evaluation?"

Daniel was rarely this exasperated: "This morning on the video call, Emily asked Clara if you two were planning to remarry. Right after that, she asks you if you have any other plans before your vacation ends. What do you think she was asking?"

In the second half of the voice memo, Daniel laid it out plainly.

"Clara is waiting for you to ask. If you don't plan on doing it, then let her go before you string her along."

Simon immediately followed up with an aggressive, furious emoji.

When the audio finished playing, Rhys sat completely frozen for a long time.

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