A Divorce He Regrets (Alissa Nexus) novel Chapter 377

By dessert, I couldn’t take it anymore, the air felt too tight, the guilt too heavy, so I excused myself early, muttering something about needing rest.

When I got back to my room, I paced around because sleep wouldn’t come, not when her silence echoed in my head.

I owed her more than a half finished apology, I owed her the truth and if she hated me after, fine. At least she would know that I wasn’t hiding anymore.

When the house went quiet, I slipped out of my room and the floorboards creaked softly under my steps, the faint hum of the heater filling the stillness. I felt a strange sense of deja vu like the last time I had sneaked down these halls, when everything between us had been chaos, but this time, I wasn’t here for that. I just wanted to talk.

Halfway down the hall, low and familiar voices stopped me. So, I edged closer to the study room, the faint night spilling out through the crack.

Dominic’s voice was the first, clipped and angry. “Are you two out of your minds? Letting the enemy’s son stay under your roof?”

Raina’s tone was firm but weary. “He’s a boy, Dom. Not his father.”

“That boy’s father nearly destroyed you,” Dominic shot back. “Do you think I forgot to what Nathan put you through? And what he did to Alexander? Do you want that trauma repeated?”

Heavy silence followed, then Alexander life broke it softly. “We tried to warn, Ava,” he murmured. “But you know her… her kindness gets her into trouble.”

“She wouldn’t listen,” Raina added, the exhaustion she was feeling obvious in her words. “She insists that the boy is innocent and that he was just… misled.”

I leaned against the wall, my breath catching. So that was what they thought of me. A misguided child, a mistake waiting to happen, not trustworthy and not worthy. Well, they aren’t wrong.

A part of me wanted to turn back and craw into my room, pretend like I hadn’t heard any of it, but my feet moved anyways… past the study, down the hall and to the door I had memorized too well.

The light under Ava’s door was off and I knocked once and waited, but nothing.

The slap landed across my face and it wasn’t hard, more of a sharp jolt than real pain but it startled me awake.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Ava’s voice cracked through the morning air, filled with half outrage and half disbelief.

I blinked, disoriented, then looked up at her. Her hair was messy, her cheeks flushed and her eyes blazing with that familiar fire that I had missed.

“Morning,” I mumbled, still half asleep.

“Don’t ‘morning’ me!” She yanked the blanket around herself, glaring daggers at me. “Why are you in my bed?”

“Because,” I murmured, rubbing my eyes, “you wouldn’t look at me, let alone talk to me.”