Unmasked My CEO Ex-Husband’s Regret novel Chapter 69

Melody didn't rush him, nor did she angrily blow up his phone.

Ever since he got involved with Vivian, this was exactly the kind of peace he had craved. When Elara and Melody constantly bombarded him, he was forced to scramble for excuses to pacify them, all while tiptoeing around Vivian to protect her feelings.

But now that his wish had finally come true, Julian realized he wasn't happy in the slightest. Instead, an agonizing, bizarre sense of loss gnawed at his chest.

Within the quiet bedroom, a married couple who had loved each other for ten years and once shared every fleeting thought now existed in total isolation. One lay idly scrolling through her phone, while the other stood on the opposite side of the mattress obsessively analyzing chat logs. Separated by nothing more than a bed, they remained completely undisturbed by one another, failing to exchange a single word.

Finishing his scroll through the messages, Julian slowly raised his head to look at Elara across the mattress. His gaze was impossibly complex. Unable to endure the suffocating silence any longer, he broke it. "I'm sorry."

It took Elara roughly thirty seconds to process the sound. She turned to look at him, an expression of total confusion etched on her face. "Huh? What did you say?"

Julian was stunned.

He sank onto the edge of the bed, turning his body toward her as he clarified, "I'm sorry that I couldn't make it back tonight before Melody's bedtime."

"Oh," Elara said, as if a minor mystery had just been solved. She spoke with maddening indifference. "Melody is already asleep. You can try explaining yourself to her when she wakes up tomorrow morning."

That was obviously going to happen, but Julian hadn't apologized to Elara just to hear her deflect his guilt onto their toddler.

"I'm..."

Julian kept his eyes locked firmly on her face, desperate to catch even a flicker of raw emotion. "I'm apologizing to you, too. Work has been incredibly chaotic lately. I'm sorry for neglecting both of you."

Hearing this, Elara finally lowered her phone. She tilted her head, met his intense stare, and let out a soft laugh. "And then?"

Julian's brain completely short-circuited. "What?"

"You just said you felt incredibly guilty for neglecting us. So, how exactly do you plan on compensating for your massive screw-up?"

Driven by his massive ego and a desperate need to avoid being labeled a nepotism baby, Julian had refused to work for Beckett Corp after graduation. Rejecting Maddox Beckett's generous venture capital, he obstinately chose to launch his own startup instead.

Understanding his fragile pride and sympathizing with the brutal struggle of building a business from scratch, Elara had always prioritized their long-term future. In all their years of dating and marriage, apart from her diamond engagement ring, she had never once accepted a gift worth over six figures.

The way Julian framed his excuse made her sound like a greedy gold-digger who threw tantrums over anything under a million dollars.

Elara absolutely refused to be gaslit.

Julian visibly blanched, clearly having just remembered that exact fact himself. Scrambling to save face, he stammered, "If that's what you want..."

"I always thought your memory was pretty sharp. Why on earth would you suddenly assume I'm demanding a million-dollar apology?"

Elara cut him off smoothly. "Or... did you recently buy another woman a spectacularly expensive gift, and accidentally get us mixed up in your head?"