Revenge Wears My Ring novel Chapter 179

Gwyneth pushed open the front door, letting herself into the house as the soft, golden glow of the entryway lamp chased away the chill and pretense she’d brought home from Skyward Taste.

Almost instinctively, her gaze drifted upstairs toward the study. A thin beam of warm light spilled through the cracked door.

He’s still up?

Is he waiting for me?

Bennett’s words—“I’ll be waiting for you at home”—echoed unexpectedly in her mind, weaving a sense of calm she hadn’t even realized she needed.

She tiptoed upstairs, paused at the study door, and gently nudged it open.

Bennett sat with his back to her, behind his spacious desk. The pale glow from his computer screen carved out the sharp lines of his profile and filled the room with a tense, almost oppressive energy.

But he wasn’t working. He wasn’t reading a file. Instead, he just sat there, uncharacteristically still, eyes locked on the screen, so lost in thought that he hadn’t even noticed her come in.

Gwyneth was taken aback.

She’d never seen Bennett like this—so absent, so deeply distracted. He was always the picture of composure: cool, incisive, in control of everything.

What on earth could shake him like this?

She masked her surprise, stepped inside, and spoke in a gentle tone, “You’re still up?”

Bennett’s shoulders flinched, almost imperceptibly, as if she had startled him awake from some heavy reverie.

He turned suddenly, those deep eyes reflecting the glow from the screen—dark, intense, and swirling with a cold, predatory sharpness. For a moment, his gaze was so piercing, so guarded, that it bordered on hostility.

But when he saw it was her, the storm in his eyes retreated as quickly as it had appeared, vanishing like a tide sucked back into the sea. Gwyneth’s heart skipped a beat.

Even more surprising, the instant her eyes flickered to his laptop, Bennett shut it with a snap—quick, almost forceful, the sound slicing through the room and cutting off both the light and her view.

A knot tightened in Gwyneth’s chest.

What’s on there that I can’t see?

Company secrets?

Bennett smoothed over any trace of agitation, but beneath his composed exterior, something turbulent still simmered. He looked at Gwyneth, his voice low and unreadable: “Yeah. I was waiting for you.”

Those three simple words—waiting for you—struck her again, softer but deeper this time.

She looked at him. Only a single floor lamp lit the study, its amber light blurring the edges of everything. Bennett sat half in shadow, half in light, the planes of his handsome face caught between the two—dangerous, magnetic.

She hovered in the doorway, torn.

Gwyneth caught the surprise in his eyes, and a small, secret pride bubbled up in her chest. She let the moment linger, lips curving into a playful, mischievous smile. “Of course I said—sure thing!”

Bennett watched her, taking in the rare brightness in her expression, and felt some of the darkness inside him begin to lift. His eyes softened, almost imperceptibly, touched by a warmth he didn’t even recognize in himself.

The corner of his mouth lifted in a half-smile, half-smirk. “I see.”

Gwyneth: “…”

That’s it?

She’d expected surprise, maybe a barrage of questions, or even annoyance. But all she got was “I see”?

She felt a flicker of irritation.

Not even a hint of emotional reaction?

She couldn’t help herself. Her voice took on a teasing, almost petulant edge, “Aren’t you going to blame me? Aren’t you afraid I might actually betray you?”

Bennett gazed at her—half annoyed, half hopeful—and the warmth in his chest deepened. His voice was low, steady, filled with a quiet conviction and a trust he never needed to explain. “I think my wife wouldn’t want to hurt her husband, would she?”

The words wife and husband hung in the air between them, electric, hitting Gwyneth with a jolt that left her breathless.