I Walked Away Seven Years Too Late But Right on Time novel Chapter 218

She stood there silently, watching the water fill the tub as he stood behind her, stripping off his clothes one by one.

When she turned around, she didn't even glance in his direction, attempting to walk right past him.

He caught her arm. "Join me."

"I already showered. Wash yourself," she replied, her voice still quiet, but she stubbornly wrenched her arm out of his grasp.

His desire for a relaxing soak evaporated. He stayed in the tub for barely a minute before wrapping a towel around his waist and stalking out.

She had just gotten into bed. Seeing him, she immediately rolled over, presenting her back to him.

"Turn around."

The dark, frustrated energy pooling in his gut demanded an outlet. Abandoning all gentleness, he grabbed her shoulder and forcefully flipped her to face him.

"I'm tired," she said, dodging his mouth.

She rarely refused him and almost never defied his wishes, but today, she had pushed back relentlessly.

Driven by a heavy, almost desperate need to reclaim her, he abandoned all pretense of being a gentleman. He pulled at her, his grip turning demanding, snapping the delicate strap of her nightgown.

When she shoved at his chest, his kisses only grew fiercer, bordering on punishing.

She fought back wildly at first, her nails digging into the muscles of his back, bringing her knee up in defense.

He trapped her leg with his own, using his weight to pin her down and cutting off any chance of escape.

"What is wrong with you?" he demanded, breathless.

Instead of answering, she stared up at him, her eyes shining with unshed tears. After a few deep breaths, a startling, hollow smile broke across her face, and she pulled him down into a fierce, breathless kiss.

She went from resisting to aggressively pulling him closer, her eyes rimmed with red, refusing to utter a single sound. Even in the height of their passion, she bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, refusing to cry out.

The sheer desperation and finality in her eyes sent a cold spike of terror through his veins.

Neither of them spoke. It was as if the only way to communicate was to desperately crash into one another, trying to blur the lines between their bodies.

But that night, a suffocating wave of dread washed over him. Every time he tried to pull her closer, the paralyzing fear of losing her amplified.

At the climax of it all, she bit down on his shoulder so viciously he thought she was going to tear the skin right off his bone.

Afterward, she shoved him away and rushed to the bathroom to throw up. When he followed and tried to hold her hair back, she slapped his hands away.

By the time they finally went back to sleep, it was already past six in the morning. He had barely two hours before he needed to be at the office.

When he woke up, she had already made breakfast, acting as if the explosive intensity of the night before had never happened.

He walked into the kitchen and stood beside her. "If you're tired, just stay home today. I'll call in sick for you."

"No need," she murmured, her gaze fixed firmly on the counter.

He wanted to smash his keyboard against the wall. He would rather have her screaming at him in person than deal with this suffocating, silent disappearance.

He paced outside his office. Her desk sat right outside his door, everything left exactly as it had been.

He had refused to hire a new assistant and rejected the company's offers to transfer someone else to his desk. Deep down, he convinced himself that she was just acting out and would eventually come back to him.

"Come get the stuff from your desk yourself," he typed, determined to force her into a confrontation. Even a screaming match was better than this agonizing silence.

But she was resolute, coldly telling him to throw everything in the trash.

He aggressively swept all her belongings into a cardboard box. Once he dragged it into his office, he started pulling the items out one by one, until his hands froze on a piece of paper. It was an ultrasound report. She was five weeks pregnant.

They had always been careful. Before the St. Moritz trip, he had been in Cabinda for a week. When he got back, he immediately flew to Boston for three days. By the time he returned to San Francisco, she was already pulling away from him.

Did she leave him without a word because she was carrying some other man's child?

"Whose is it?" he typed out furiously, his jaw clenched tight. Then he deleted it, rewriting it before hitting send: "Mine?"

"Yes, yours. Don't worry, it's already been taken care of."

His heart seized in his chest, the phantom pain ripping him out of his sleep.

It was a dream, but it wasn't just a dream. He had seen those exact emails sitting in his inbox. It was the memory he had forcefully buried.