Dumped My Cheating Ex. Now I'm Sleeping Next to a Billionaire CEO novel Chapter 697

“James was only four,” Abriella whispered, tears slipping down her cheeks. “He was just a little kid, thrown into brutal training with teenagers. For more than ten years, the only people who ever visited him were Jamie and their grandma.”

She took a shaky breath. “Jamie… to bring James home, he started acting out on purpose. He made himself look like the real troublemaker, hoping their parents would finally believe the curse was him, not James. He thought maybe then they’d bring James back.”

“But it didn’t work. No matter how much Jamie messed up, their parents just smoothed everything over. They didn’t care, not really.”

Abriella’s voice broke, thick with pain.

“The year James turned eighteen, he risked his life for a top honor in the army, just so he could get a chance to return to the Capital and see Jamie, even for a moment.”

She wiped her eyes, her words coming out in gasps. “But that time he snuck back… Jamie wanted him to feel what it was like to be loved by their parents, just once. So they swapped clothes. Jamie dressed James up to look exactly like him.”

“No one expected the Nelson family would suddenly need to attend some huge government meeting. Their father was in a hurry, so he grabbed James, thinking he was Jamie, and rushed out the door.”

“On the way, James realized something wasn’t right. He knew his enemies were already in the Capital. He actually knelt down in the car, begging his father to turn around, begging him to go back for Jamie…”

Abriella broke down completely then, her voice lost to sobs.

“But his father… he cared more about that meeting, about his career, than about his son. He ignored James. He didn’t even look at him.”

“When the meeting was finally over and James ran back home like a madman… Jamie was already gone. Tortured, and then… burned alive…”

Emmy stared at Abriella, unable to process what she was hearing.

James, the man who had run into burning buildings to save strangers, had lost his own brother to the flames? And his father had just let it happen?

“After that, James convinced himself he was the curse. That it was his fault, that he’d killed the brother who loved him most.”

“He threw himself into mission after mission like he was trying to die. For four years, he pushed himself through the hardest training, the most dangerous assignments, anything to numb the pain. He just wanted to disappear, to pay for Jamie with his own life.”

“It wasn’t until the Nelsons found Jamie’s diary while sorting through his things that they sent it to the army. James read it and finally saw everything Jamie had done for him. Only then did he come back to the Capital.”

Little tragedy? His life was a thousand times more bitter than any sad story.

When Abriella saw Emmy crying, she lost it too. She pulled Emmy into a hug and sobbed so hard she could barely breathe.

“Emmy, I swear I didn’t mean to keep this from you. This is one of the Nelson family’s biggest secrets, I was too scared to say anything. James has already been through so much. Please, just be good to him, okay? Don’t blame him anymore, please?”

Emmy hugged her back, burying her face in Abriella’s shoulder. All the feelings she’d held in these past few days crashed down at once.

Her tears ran hot, her whole body shaking.

She didn’t even know if she was crying for James’s heartbreaking past or for her own pain and anger.

She finally understood. His silence wasn’t because he didn’t love her. He just couldn’t talk about it.

His secrets weren’t lies. They were scars cut so deep, he couldn’t find the words.