Dumped My Cheating Ex. Now I'm Sleeping Next to a Billionaire CEO novel Chapter 395

The door closed with a quiet click.

Dean didn’t look back. He just headed straight for his study, VR headset in hand. The thin walls did nothing to keep out the sounds of the city, or the tension twisting through the apartment.

Evelina hurried after him, catching up just as he reached the door. Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, holding tight like she could keep him from slipping away.

“Dean, will you marry me?” she blurted out, her voice shaking. “I don’t want to marry Juan. I love you. Let’s go get our marriage license. Please…”

Dean peeled her hands off his waist, one finger at a time, his expression unreadable. He turned to face her, looking down with eyes that were cold and distant.

“Evelina, you already agreed to marry Juan. You should stay loyal to him,” he said, his voice flat. “He and I are friends. When you and I were together, he never got in the way. Now that you’re with him, I won’t interfere either.”

“I really do wish you two happiness.”

Evelina stared up at him, stunned, tears spilling over and streaming down her cheeks. “No… You love me, Dean. I know you do. How can you say something like that?”

Dean pressed his lips into a thin, hard line.

Love? What even was love anymore?

He used to think he loved Evelina—so much that he’d pushed away the woman who meant everything to him, hurting her deeply, all for Evelina. But after Evelina was rescued from Shadow Core—after he found out what she’d been through there—the love he thought he had for her just couldn’t survive the harsh reality of his own hang-ups. It shattered in an instant.

And really, what kind of woman cries about loving him, but lets Juan propose to her? Was that really someone worth loving?

Now, all he cared about was finding out the truth behind his mother’s death. He needed to know if every choice he’d made since his second chance at life had been wrong from the start.

He turned and gripped Evelina’s shoulders, feeling her shake with quiet sobs. He couldn’t even hide the disgust that flickered across his face.

“Eve, I don’t like seeing you cry,” he said quietly. “Let’s do something that actually matters.”

Evelina froze, hope and confusion warring in her eyes.

She opened her mouth to start, but Dean cut her off.

“Put the headset on first. Then tell me,” he said. “And while you’re at it, ask my mom if she wants me to avenge her.”

Evelina’s eyes flickered. After a moment, she put on the headset. She’d already set up her character—logging in was automatic now. But she was careful; just before entering, she made sure to clear the cache, not wanting to leave anything behind.

She thought she knew every function of this headset, but she didn’t realize that as soon as she powered it on, a hidden program—encrypted by Emmy—was quietly running in the background.

Evelina began her story, her voice trembling with sorrow as she described the car crash in all its brutal detail. When she finished, she paused for a few seconds, eyes closed, as if listening for a voice from another world.

Finally, she took off the headset. Her eyes were red and puffy, almost raw.

“Dean, your mom said… she said her death was unbelievably painful,” Evelina whispered. “If you can, she wants you to get revenge for her. She said she was still so young, she never got to see you get married or have kids. She… she didn’t want to go.”