Chapter 250
The winter garden was quiet, the air laced with the faint scent of cherry blossoms. Snow drifted down in soft flurries, melting the moment it touched Charlotte’s hair.
She stood in the cold wind, barely steady on her feet.
Her flu hadn’t fully passed, and the chill was starting to bring back a dull, throbbing ache in her head.
When Sean gave his excuse, Charlotte lifted her eyes to meet his, the sorrow in her gaze quickly tucked away.
“Got it,” she said calmly. “Just… remember to take it off next time.”
Sean’s throat tightened.
Her voice was soft, carried by the wind, and underneath the calm was a fragile edge that cracked like glass.
“I know,” she said, voice trembling. “When you love someone, it’s real. And when you stop loving them, that’s real too.”
A shiver ran down Sean’s spine and spread like ice through his whole body.
There was a heartbreaking calm in her eyes, like someone who had finally accepted something too heavy to fight.
“At first, I couldn’t understand,” she continued quietly. “You said you’d always stay by my side. Then one day, it was like all of that meant nothing. I tried to come up with excuses for you. I tried to understand. But you just told me I was imagining things.”
She smiled faintly, a soft curve with no warmth. “Now I get it. There’s no logic to love.”
Sean’s chest ached. He flinched at her words.
“Promises only matter when you’re still in love,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. It was so soft it was almost lost in the wind.
Watching her speak, watching the pain on her face, a wave of fear crept through him.
Suddenly, he was scared.
Scared that even after he dealt with Joseph, there would be no going back.
Scared of a future without Charlotte in it.
Across the drifting snow, Charlotte looked quietly into his eyes.
After a long pause, she gave him a soft smile, her tone deliberately light.
“Sean Jasper, I hope you find happiness.”
His pupils shrank. Instinctively, he reached out as if trying to catch something slipping away, but Charlotte had already turned to leave without the slightest hesitation.
The fringe of her wine–red scarf brushed against the back of his hand–light, barely there, but it lingered.
A pained expression crossed his face. Without thinking, his body moved forward. He took two steps after her.
And in the end, he couldn’t hold back.
“Charlotte…”
She froze for a moment but didn’t turn around.
She just kept walking, steady and unhurried.
Not once did she look back.
Sean stopped dead in his tracks,
He told himself he couldn’t follow her.
Not now.
the chased her down, all the effort would be for nothing.
All the pain she had endured would be wasted.
He had to get rid of Joseph first.
Only then could he earn his way back to her side.
Sean returned to his private villa.
1/2
Chapter 250
The house was cold. Too quiet. Too empty.
He sat on the edge of the couch, unmoving, as if the air had been knocked from his lungs.
Outside, the sun dipped low. The last streaks of sunset cast long shadows across his face.
He didn’t move.
He just sat there like a statue, staring at nothing.
Night fell slowly. Darkness crept in.
Eventually, Sean’s gaze dropped to the watch on his wrist.
The one she gave
him.
After a long silence, he gently unfastened it and placed it into its original box. He shut the lid with care.
And then, as if a dam had broken, his eyes burned.
The feeling was sharp, unfamiliar.
It hit hard, without warning, and he didn’t know what to do with it.
Drip.
A single tear landed on the metal box.
The darkness hid the redness in his eyes, but the moonlight outlined the lonely figure he had become.
A few days later, the Jaspers had visitors.
