Everest's Guardian Hubby Watched Me Freeze My Ghost Knows Where He'll Burn novel Chapter 33

Chapter 20

This was the first occasion Nicholas witnessed this darker side of Valentina—unrestrained, bitter, and harsh.

The woman he remembered from the day they first met had always been the embodiment of lively grace, a polite young woman brimming with the vibrant energy of someone freshly graduated.

Her movements, her speech, the way her eyes sparkled when they met his—all of it echoed a happier, more innocent time long past.

No one offered sympathy for what had happened to Elara. Instead, everyone pointed their fingers at Nicholas, expecting him to rise above it all, to take responsibility, to sacrifice everything for the sake of duty.

Nicholas wasn’t just burdened with his own future or Elara’s—he carried the crushing weight of everyone’s judgment, their unspoken, relentless scrutiny.

Since the accident, restful sleep had become a stranger to him. Nights were either consumed by haunting nightmares or spent lying awake, staring blankly at the ceiling until dawn.

Leaving Elara had never crossed his mind. He never once contemplated shirking his responsibilities.

Not before the crash. And certainly not after.

But life, as it often does, cared little for plans or promises.

One tragedy after another crushed Elara beneath its weight. And Nicholas found himself powerless to stop the unraveling. All he could do was watch as his own spirit sank deeper into despair with every passing day.

Their marriage felt less like a partnership and more like a tombstone marking a life that had long since died. Each day blurred into the next, a monotonous grey loop with no escape.

Nicholas caught himself longing for the sunlit days of his youth, for the Elara that existed before she turned eighteen, for all the fragments of a past that could never be reclaimed.

—

He didn’t truly like Valentina—not in any genuine way.

What drew him to her was what she symbolized: a spark of life, a fleeting sensation of feeling alive again, even if only for a few stolen moments.

Being with her was the only time he could truly breathe, a brief reprieve from the suffocating weight of his reality.

He was fully aware of the potential consequences. He had imagined the upheaval it would cause, agonized over how Elara might react if she could.

But after the waves of guilt, anxiety, and shame washed over him, he’d always return. Convincing himself each time that it would be the last.

After countless “last times,” numbness settled in. The escape became an addiction he no longer controlled.

Until finally, it was far too late to undo any of it.

“Elara may be gone, but she’s still part of this family. You don’t get to speak about her like that,” the woman said, her voice icy and cutting. “My son will NEVER marry again. And I will NEVER allow someone like you near him. Leave. Now.”

The harsh words and the humiliation inflicted by Nicholas’s mother left Valentina flushed with shame and pale with anger.

Without uttering another word, she scrambled to her feet and fled the room.

Once she was gone, Nicholas’s mother turned slowly to face her son.

For a long moment, she simply stared at him.

Then, raising her hand sharply—

Crack.

The sound of a slap echoed through the hallway.

A vivid red handprint blossomed across Nicholas’s gaunt, hollow face.

“That woman,” his mother whispered, her voice trembling with emotion. “Elara gave up because of HER, didn’t she?”