The Wife He Forgot to Marry (Winona and Yule) novel Chapter 556

Seeing Winona with a soft smile on her face, fingers laced with Stefan's, one of them holding the dog's leash while the other carried fresh fruit—it was a scene of such mundane, domestic bliss that it hit Yulen like a physical blow.

He had never imagined that after leaving him, Winona could find this kind of quiet, simple happiness with another man.

He had spent weeks convincing himself that Stefan was just playing around with her. But seeing a man of Stefan's status looking so relaxed and domestic... it triggered a violent wave of insecurity.

Men understood how other men operated.

If a guy was just having fun with a woman, he threw money at her and kept the relationship strictly transactional. But seeing Stefan give Winona his time, his presence, and genuine emotional support—walking her dog, buying her groceries—proved this was devastatingly real.

Yulen stared at their intertwined hands, his chest tight with a suffocating ache.

Winona acted as if he were completely invisible, stepping into the elevator with Stefan.

Yulen couldn't bring himself to step in with them.

He was terrified of facing her new reality. Terrified of accepting the fact that she had entirely moved on.

*No, that's impossible,* he frantically told himself. *She's only with him to make me jealous. That has to be it.*

He repeated the lie in his head like a mantra, but the image of their hands locked together continued to torment him.

*

After four grueling days of data auditing and parameter iterations, Winona finally eliminated the variables. By targeting and optimizing the specific experimental conditions, the latest parallel tests yielded perfectly aligned results. Every critical metric fell exactly into the required quality control parameters.

At 10:00 PM, Winona emailed the final dataset to Jericho Harper. Only then did she shut down her computer and rub her exhausted eyes.

Walking out of the building, she expected to see Ezra waiting by the car, her mind already moving on to the next synthesis route.

Halfway through the drive home, she finally glanced at the rearview mirror and realized Ezra wasn't driving. It was Stefan.

She blinked in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

Stefan chuckled softly. "I was starting to think you wouldn't notice until we got home. What were you thinking about so intensely?"

"Just work stuff," she admitted. "But how do you even have the time to play chauffeur?"

"Where did you go just now?" he asked, pulling her from her thoughts.

"I was just thinking about how insanely smart you are," she said honestly. "If we ever had a messy breakup, would you just crush me like a bug?"

Stefan laughed out loud. "What kind of ridiculous hypothetical is that? If we ever fell out, you'd be the one effortlessly crushing me."

She looked at him skeptically. "Really?"

He kept his eyes on the road, his voice dipping into a smooth, resonant hum. "Obviously. Haven't you ever heard that cliché? Whoever falls in love first is always the one who loses the worst."

Winona dramatically rubbed her arms, pretending to shudder. "Please tell me you didn't just say that. I highly recommend you enroll in a better romance masterclass."

Stefan raised an eyebrow. "I read that in one of the romance novels Roxana lent me. I thought women loved that kind of dialogue."

Winona sighed heavily. "Mr. Goddard, at some point, I am going to have to review your reading material."

Stefan chuckled. "Absolutely not. Those are my proprietary courtship secrets. Highly classified."