The Wife He Never Meant to Love (Lila and Damon) novel Chapter 281

Chapter 281

Chapter 281

“Mother… why are you apologizing?”

Lila’s voice trembled as she held Margaret’s shaking shoulders.

Margaret could barely breathe.

For weeks, the doctor had pleaded with her to finally tell Lila the truth.

“It is kinder to let her grieve properly,” he had said gently during one of his visits. “Dragging this longer will only destroy her more.”

And perhaps he had been right.

But every single time Margaret gathered enough courage to speak, she would see Lila waiting by the gates with hopeful eyes, clutching Damian’s little sweater to her chest as if her son might suddenly come running back into her arms.

Then Margaret’s courage would vanish completely.

How could she destroy the last fragile light keeping Lila alive?

How could she tell a mother that her child was never coming home again?

Margaret’s entire body trembled violently.

Her breathing became uneven, painful.

Tears streamed endlessly down her pale face.

“I’m sorry…” she whispered weakly. “I’m so sorry, Lila…”

Fear crawled up Lila’s spine.

The apology no longer sounded ordinary.

It sounded final.

“Mother, you’re scaring me,” Lila whispered desperately.

Suddenly, Margaret clutched her chest.

A broken gasp escaped her lips.

Her knees buckled beneath her.

“Mother!”

Margaret collapsed heavily onto the floor.

Lila screamed for help instantly, panic exploding inside her chest.

“HELP! SOMEBODY HELP!”

The butler came rushing down the hallway while maids cried out in alarm.

Margaret writhed weakly on the floor, one trembling hand pressed tightly against her heart as though trying desperately to stop the pain tearing through her chest.

“I’m sorry…” she kept repeating faintly. “I’m sorry..”

“Call an ambulance!” the butler shouted.

Everything descended into chaos.

Within minutes, Margaret was being rushed toward the hospital while Lila sat beside her inside the ambulance, clutching the older woman tightly in her arms.

Rain poured violently outside.

The flashing red emergency lights painted Margaret’s face in frightening shades of crimson.

Lila’s tears fell uncontrollably.

1/7

Chapter 281

“Mother, it’s okay,” she sobbed. “Please hang in there. Please don’t leave me…”

Margaret’s breathing grew weaker with every passing second.

Still, she continued apologizing between painful breaths.

“I’m… sorry…”

Lila shook her head desperately.

“No, no, don’t apologize. Please save your strength…”

But Margaret only cried harder.

Because deep inside, she knew she was dying before she could even ask forgiveness properly.

Dying before she could protect Lila from the truth.

Dying while carrying unbearable guilt.

The ambulance arrived at the hospital.

Doctors and nurses rushed Margaret inside immediately while Lila stumbled after them in terror, her entire body trembling violently.

“Please save her…” Lila begged helplessly.

The doors closed.

Then came the waiting.

Minutes stretched endlessly.

The sterile hospital hallway felt suffocatingly cold.

Lila sat frozen in her chair while tears slid silently down her face.

Her mind replayed Margaret’s apologies over and over again.

Why had she sounded so desperate?

Why did it feel like everyone around her was mourning something she still could not understand?

Then finally-

The doctor emerged.

One look at his face shattered whatever hope remained.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

Lila stared at him blankly.

Margaret’s heart had finally given up.

Years of grief, guilt, stress, and silent suffering had weakened it beyond recovery.

The pain became too much for her body to carry.

And so, her heart stopped.

For several long seconds, Lila could not hear anything.

The world around her faded into distant noise.

“No…” she whispered faintly.

The doctor lowered his eyes.

“She’s gone.”

Gone.

The word echoed mercilessly inside her head.

Lila walked toward the room numbly.

Her legs felt weak beneath her.

2/7

Chapter 281

When she entered, Margaret’s body lay peacefully beneath a white sheet.

Still.

Silent.

Gone forever.

Lila approached slowly.

With trembling fingers, she lifted the sheet covering Margaret’s face.

But suddenly-

Her mind screamed.

Instead of Margaret’s pale face, she saw Damian.

Blood covered his small face.

His lifeless eyes stared blankly upward.

Crimson stained his tiny clothes.

Lila gasped violently and stumbled backward.

“No!”

She shut her eyes tightly, breathing hard.

Impossible.

Impossible.

That was impossible.

When she opened her eyes again, Margaret’s frail face stared back at her instead.

Pale.

Thin.

Dead.

A horrifying sob tore from Lila’s throat.

The sound was not human anymore.

It was the cry of something wounded beyond repair.

She collapsed beside the bed and wept uncontrollably, clutching Margaret’s cold hand against her chest.

The grief suffocated her completely.

It pressed against her lungs until breathing itself became painful.

Outside the room, Simon stood silently near the doorway.

He listened to Lila’s broken cries with unbearable heaviness in his chest.

If they had told her immediately…

Would things have turned out differently?

Would Margaret still be alive?

Would she have survived if she had not spent months carrying grief and guilt alone?

Simon closed his eyes painfully.

No matter how he thought about it, there was no right answer.

Everyone had only wanted to protect Lila.

But perhaps protecting someone from grief too long only made the grief deadlier when it finally arrived.

Hours passed before Lila’s cries weakened into exhausted silence.

Eventually, Simon pushed the door open quietly and walked inside.

3/7

Chapter 281

Lila remained kneeling beside the bed like a lifeless doll.

Her eyes looked empty.

As if something inside her had already died too.

Simon gently helped her stand.

She did not resist.

She simply followed him silently out of the room.

He guided her toward the hospital garden where cold night air drifted softly through the trees.

They sat together in silence beneath dim lights.

Neither spoke for a long time.

Simon had told Damon countless times to tell Lila the truth.

But Damon never could.

Every attempt ended with him breaking down completely.

“I don’t have the courage,” Damon had whispered repeatedly. “You tell her instead… gently.”

But Simon refused.

It was not his place.

A husband should tell his wife something like this.

A father should mourn with the mother of his child.

But Damon had become trapped inside an endless cycle of grief.

He remained stuck in anger, guilt, denial.

He refused therapy.

Refused acceptance.

Refused reality itself.

And worst of all-

He refused to see Lila.

Damon spend his days cracking, killing, wipping them out in own hand completely turn himself into a killing

machine.

Even Mark was unable to stop Damon.

The silence between Simon and Lila stretched painfully.

Then finally, Lila spoke.

Her voice sounded terrifyingly calm.

“Simon…”

He looked at her slowly.

“Margaret kept apologizing to me.” Her empty eyes turned toward him. “What was she apologizing for?”

Simon’s chest tightened violently.

He could not answer immediately.

Instead, he looked away and clenched his trembling hands together.

Lila continued staring at him.

Then softly-

“Simon… is my Damian really okay?”

The question shattered him.

4/7

Chapter 281

Because even now…

Even after all the strange behavior.

Even after Margaret’s death.

A part of Lila still desperately clung to hope.

Simon realized then that delaying the truth further would only destroy her more.

It was time.

Even if it broke them both.

“Lila…” he began weakly.

His throat tightened painfully.

He struggled to continue while staring into her lifeless eyes.

“The truth is…”

His voice nearly failed him.

But finally-

“Damian is dead.”

The words landed like a fatal blow.

Lila froze completely.

Simon’s own eyes filled with tears.

“He died in the car crash in South City.”

Silence.

Absolute silence.

For one terrifying moment, Lila did not react at all.

Then suddenly-

Memories surged violently through her mind.

The hospital stairwell.

Damon’s hands on her body.

Their desperate passion.

Their selfish moment of escape.

While somewhere nearby-

Damian had been dying.

Lila’s breathing turned shallow.

Her chest tightened violently.

No.

No no no-

Her thoughts spiraled uncontrollably.

How could she have been so incompetent as a mother?

How could she have lost herself in pleasure while her son was terrified and alone?

While Damian was kidnapped.

While Damian was dying.

Her stomach twisted painfully.

“It’s my fault…” she whispered faintly.

5/7

Chapter 281

Simon immediately shook his head.

“No, Lila-”

But she could no longer hear him.

“If I returned immediately…” she muttered shakily. “If I just went back…”

Her hands trembled violently.

She remembered seeing Damian earlier that day.

Remembered Ethan too.

Two children who trusted her completely.

Two innocent boys who believed she would protect them.

And she failed.

Because she had been distracted.

Because she chose desire over responsibility.

“It’s all my fault…”

The guilt consumed her instantly.

This was the cruelest stage of grief.

Not denial.

Not anger.

But guilt.

The desperate search for something that could have changed the outcome.

Because blaming yourself feels easier than accepting helplessness.

Lila doubled over as sobs tore violently from her chest.

The world tilted around her.

Everything blurred.

Margaret was dead.

Damian was dead.

And suddenly every strange look, every avoided conversation, every hidden tear finally made sense.

Reality crashed over her mercilessly.

The hope she clung to for months shattered completely.

Gone.

Damian was truly gone.

Her son would never laugh again.

Never run into her arms again.

Never call her mother again.

A scream escaped her throat.

Raw.

Agonized.

Unbearably broken.

Simon quickly caught her before she collapsed onto the ground completely.

But Lila clung desperately to him while sobbing uncontrollably.

“I killed him…” she cried hysterically. “I killed my son…”

6/7

Chapter 281

“You didn’t,” Simon said firmly despite his own tears.

But grief does not listen to reason.

Especially a mother’s grief.

Lila’s mind became a prison of endless self-punishment.

Every memory now transformed into evidence of her failure.

Every second replayed endlessly.

What if she had returned sooner?

What if she had checked on Damian immediately?

What if she had ignored Damon?

What if?

What if?

What if?

The questions tore her apart from the inside.

And that was the true horror of grief.

Not just losing someone.

But losing yourself alongside them.

For Margaret, grief had destroyed her heart physically.

For Damon, grief trapped him between anger and denial.

And now for Lila-

Grief became guilt so unbearable it threatened to devour her entirely.

The garden felt impossibly cold.

Lila cried until no sound remained.

Until exhaustion replaced hysteria.

Until she sat trembling silently beneath the night sky.

Empty.

Broken.

And somewhere deep inside her shattered soul, the first terrible stage of acceptance began-not peaceful acceptance, but the horrifying realization that no amount of waiting, praying, or wishing would ever bring Damian back.

Her son was gone.

And nothing in the world would ever be the same again.

Subscribe

1 Likes