The Officer's Runaway Wife & Secret Son novel Chapter 520

He pressed lingering kisses to her hand.

As he kissed her skin, a sudden thought struck him.

Clara used to hit him, too.

Back then, her slaps would land on him—neither too hard nor too light. She would be trembling with anger, yet unable to bear using full force, and her own eyes would turn red before she even finished.

The punch she had leveled at Owen today was heavier than any blow she had ever landed on him.

Rhys stared at the reddened skin on her hand for a long time.

And then, he felt a strange flutter of joy.

The moment the thought surfaced, he felt entirely absurd.

Conned for over a decade, betrayed by someone he thought was close to him for years—he should have been blinded by rage.

Yet, simply because Clara had hit someone else harder than she had ever hit him, he was happy.

"Next time something like this happens, let me handle it."

Clara laughed at him. "You? You're a cop. Even if you transferred positions, you're still bound by the badge."

She spoke lightly, and her smile was just as breezy.

In the soft glow of the reading light, the profile of Rhys bowing his head to gently massage her hand filled her vision.

A delicate chain rested around his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt.

She gazed at the man in front of her.

His power—he had handed it over himself. Transferred every last bit of it into her name.

His status—he had voluntarily surrendered it. The SWAT captain was now a tactical dispatcher in the command center. He chose not to care about the inevitable whispers from his peers.

His health—that had been gone for a long time.

He had peeled away everything about himself, piece by piece, until he had backed himself into a corner with nothing left to lose.

And today, even the psychological shackles that had suffocated him for over a decade had finally snapped cleanly in two.

The only things he had left in this world were the ring hanging around his neck and the head he now bowed before her.

Both of those things belonged to her. And only her.

He was a completely clean slate now, possessing nothing but her.

Clara blinked hard, deciding she didn't want to wait for him anymore.

The distance he was supposed to cross—she had already walked most of it for him.

If he was still going to stay frozen in place, then she might as well bridge those final few steps herself.

After all, Clara had never been afraid of making the first move in her life.

"Rhys."

She was the one driving things forward every single time.

And ten years later, she was still the one making the first move.

She had chased the exact same man twice in one lifetime.

She must have been a relentless debt collector in a past life.

She fully expected Rhys to be too overwhelmed to speak, or to just burst into tears again like he had several times lately.

Truth be told, Rhys looked incredibly handsome when he cried.

The corners of his eyes would turn red, his wet lashes hanging heavy as he struggled to form a coherent sentence.

Contrasted against his sharp, stoic features, it gave him an inexplicably devastating sense of vulnerability.

The last time he had sobbed while holding Felix in the living room at Riverside Court, if they hadn't been in a private floor unit, the neighbors probably would have knocked on the door to ask if she was running a torture chamber for her partner.

But this time, she wasn't met with tears or a suffocating embrace.

Rhys just stared at her blankly. A few seconds later, the shock and disbelief slowly faded from his eyes, and he let go of her hand.

The instant his fingers slipped away, a chill washed over her hand. The skin that had just been warmed by his palm was suddenly exposed to the cold air.

"No."

The smile on Clara's face froze.