The Wife He Dumped, The Queen She Returned As novel Chapter 136

Chloe stiffened. "...N-no, not at all. I was just going for a walk."

Eleonora noticed Chloe's strained expression, her gaze turning thoughtful.

Even though both Preston and Chloe had personally denied the divorce rumors, she wasn't blind. She could see perfectly well that something was deeply wrong with their marriage.

She had been too worried to just sit at home, so she decided to move in and observe them for a few days.

If it was just a misunderstanding, she wanted to help them work it out.

But if things were truly past the point of no return, she didn't want to be the reason they felt pressured to stay trapped in a dead marriage.

"Is that right? Perfect. Walk with me, then." Eleonora hooked her arm through Chloe's and called for Preston to join them.

Winter had arrived, leaving the stubborn evergreens as the only splashes of color in the bleak landscape.

As they strolled down Sycamore Avenue, Eleonora kept her arm affectionately around Chloe's shoulders, chatting constantly. Preston followed behind them, his dark, unreadable gaze locked onto Chloe's back.

A tense, delicate silence hung in the air.

After a while, Eleonora slowed her pace and brought something up casually.

"Chloe, do you remember your first time visiting Cloudrest Manor?"

"You two scared me half to death that night."

Preston seemed to recall the memory, a soft smile tugging at his lips. He was just about to speak when Chloe's voice cut in first.

"What?"

She kept her eyes lowered, her expression indifferent. "It's been so long. I don't remember."

The smile on Preston's face instantly froze, his tone dropping heavily.

"Then what do you remember?"

Chloe looked up, her gaze washing over him calmly. "The important, happy things, naturally. Anything I forgot obviously wasn't important, so there's no reason to hold on to it."

Preston's expression turned outright ugly.

The atmosphere grew even heavier, suffocating in its tension.

None of them were in the mood to enjoy the scenery anymore.

Eleonora found a quick excuse to turn them all around and head back.

That night, after retreating to the master bedroom, Chloe laid a spare blanket out on the floor.

Preston walked out of the bathroom, still damp from his shower. Seeing the makeshift bed on the floor, he paused. "What is this?"

Chloe ignored him.

It had been overcast.

She had been anxious in the massive estate, so Preston had offered to take her for a walk. But a sudden, violent storm had trapped them inside The Cave at Cloudrest.

Their clothes had been soaked through, their phones had no signal, and they were completely cut off. A bone-deep chill had slowly begun to gnaw at her.

Just as hypothermia had started to set in, a warm embrace had wrapped around her tightly.

How could she forget?

She remembered clearly how Preston had stripped off his shirt, using his own body heat to shield her from the freezing wind howling outside the cave.

And she remembered how, in his feverish delirium, he had spent the entire night mumbling "I'm sorry."

Who was he really apologizing to?

Through the haze of her dream, a faint beep echoed in the room, but the sleeping Chloe didn't notice a thing.

Preston had shut off the AC.

He looked down at the woman curled tightly against his chest, a soft smirk on his lips.

"You're the one who crawled over here. You can't blame me."