The Officer's Runaway Wife & Secret Son novel Chapter 519

The two of them stepped into the elevator side by side. He was walking so fast that Clara practically had to jog in her heels just to keep up.

Clara stole a covert glance at him.

His eyes were locked dead onto the elevator's floor display, looking at it but seeming to process absolutely nothing.

This was a side of Rhys that Clara had never seen before.

Anger, self-loathing, bewilderment, and the hollow desolation of a man who had suddenly lost all his bearings in life.

The one thing Rhys had mastered in this life was enduring.

Enduring the pain others inflicted, and then enduring his own suffocating emotions.

As they reached the car, Clara instinctively reached for the passenger side door.

Right as her fingers brushed the handle, a sharp click echoed from behind her.

Rhys hadn't gone to the driver's side. He had pulled open the rear door, leaning his right arm against the frame as he cast his gaze down at her.

That look in his eyes immediately brought back the memory of him kneeling in the hotel room, begging her not to leave.

Her heart softened. Letting go of the front door handle, she turned around, ducked her head, and slid into the back seat. Rhys climbed in right after her.

The second the door slammed shut, he lunged forward, dragging Clara fiercely into his arms.

He held her so tightly it almost hurt.

His heart was hammering wildly against her chest, the frantic rhythm making her own chest ache in response.

"Clara... Clara..."

He chanted her name over and over in a hoarse, broken voice, his rapid, heavy breaths searing against her skin.

If tonight's accidental truth hadn't come to light, he would have spent the rest of his life shoveling his soul into a bottomless pit.

Bent over, head bowed low. Even after cutting ties with Margot, he would have forever lived carefully within a cage, pretending to be free.

Because of that lie, he had missed Clara's pregnancy. He had missed Felix's birth. He had missed an entire decade that should have been perfectly, flawlessly happy.

Nothing in the world could ever buy that time back.

"I was so stupid... How could I have been so goddamn stupid..."

Rhys's muffled voice came from the crook of her neck, bringing a thick lump to Clara's throat.

She raised her hand and gently stroked the short hair at the nape of his neck.

"You're not stupid," Clara murmured, turning her head so her lips brushed his ear. "You're not stupid. You just wanted to protect everyone too much. It wasn't your fault."

"People who get conned shouldn't waste time agonizing over why they fell for it. The blame belongs entirely to the monster who used their empathy against them.."

She had been formulating these exact words for a very long time.

But Clara was long past the stage where hearing him apologize would make her cry and say that she didn't blame him.

The weight of the word sorry only mattered back when she still needed his apology.

And she didn't need it anymore.

Clara sighed, deliberately wiggling her right hand. "Ah... let go of me for a second, my hand really does hurt."

The second he heard her say she was in pain, all of Rhys's spiraling emotions slammed to a halt.

The devastating grief evaporated, the self-loathing vanished, and the metallic taste in his throat was forced into the background.

He instinctively pulled back.

"Where does it hurt? Let me see."

Rhys flipped on the rear reading light, taking Clara's right hand and carefully inspecting it from every angle.

It was genuinely just a bit red, but it was enough to show how much force she had put into that hook across Owen's jaw.

Clara's hands were naturally slender and fair. That angry patch of red on such delicate skin created a jarring contrast that tugged painfully at his heart.

Pressing his warm lips against her knuckles, Rhys gently traced over the irritated skin.

Starting from her index finger, then the middle finger, and finally, the ring finger.