When the Ice Refused to Melt Chapter 09

When the Ice Refused to Melt Chapter 09

The art exhibition was nearing its end. The crowd had thinned 

out. 

Kael finally summoned the courage to walk up to her. 

“Arden,” he said, his voice rough and strained after holding in 

so much emotion. 

She turned at the sound, and the smile on her face faded the 

moment she saw him. What remained was a polite calm, 

distant and detached. 

As if he were nothing more than a stranger she had bumped 

into by chance. 

“Mr. Varyn.” She gave him a small nod, her tone smooth and 

emotionless. “Didn’t expect to see you here.” 

“I came with the delegation,” Kael replied, his Adam’s apple 

bobbing as countless words stuck in his throat. In the end, all 

he could say was, “Your paintings… they’re wonderful.” 

“Thank you.” She curved her lips in a polite smile, but it never 

reached her eyes. 

A few remaining guests and staff nearby looked on with 

curiosity. 

Kael took a deep breath, then spoke softly. “Can we talk in 

private?” 

Arden looked at him for a few seconds, then leaned toward her 

assistant and whispered a few instructions. 

After that, she made a “this way” gesture and led him toward a 

quieter lounge off to the side of the gallery. 

“What do you want to talk about?” she asked, leaning against 

the floor–to–ceiling window. The sunlight cast a soft halo 

around her, but there was a chill beneath it. 

“I’m sorry.” Kael looked her in the eyes. Those three words 

had been buried in his heart for three years. 

But now that he’d finally spoken them, they felt pitifully weak. “Arden, back then… I was wrong.” 

She listened in silence, her face expressionless. There was no 

anger, no sadness, just calm. 

“I shouldn’t have lied to you. I shouldn’t have defended 

Serene again and again. And I never should’ve… walked away 

from you in the end.” His voice trembled slightly, each word 

peeling open a wound that had long festered. “I’ve regretted it every single day for the past three years.” 

“Are you done?” Arden spoke once he stopped, her voice light and even. “I’ve heard your apology. Anything else? I have a 

dinner to get to.” 

She said it so casually, as if his heartbreaking confession was nothing more than a breeze brushing past her ear. 

Kael felt a heaviness sink deep into his chest. “Arden, I really… 

know I was wrong. Can you… can you give me another 

chance?” 

She finally smiled, but the smile carried a trace of cold irony. “Kael, do you really think that’s possible?” 

She took a step forward, now standing close enough for him to see the icy determination in her eyes. 

“Some wounds heal, but that doesn’t mean the pain never existed. Some trust, once broken, is beyond repair. I might’ve been foolish once, but I don’t fall into the same trap twice.” 

“Your apology is yours to give. Forgiveness, however, is mine to decide.” She spoke each word with clarity, sharp and final. “And I choose not to forgive.” 

With that, she turned and walked away, heading toward the group of friends waiting nearby. 

Her laughter soon rang out again, bright, carefree, and in 

stark contrast to the silence that now surrounded him. 

The delegation was scheduled to stay in Valeron for a week. 

Kael was like a man possessed. 

He canceled all unnecessary group activities and spent every 

day trailing after Arden, like a pathetic voyeur, obsessed with glimpses of her life. 

He went to the café she frequented and watched her from afar as she sat by the window, sometimes lost in sketching, other times chatting animatedly with friends, her eyes glowing with 

life. 

He attended her art lecture, listening to her speak fluent French on stage, poised and radiant, her confidence lighting 

up the room. 

The applause was thunderous. The admiration, and even desire written on those faces made his chest ache. 

He even stood outside her apartment building, from dusk till deep into the night, watching the warm light flicker on behind her window, then go dark again. 

He saw her come home with different friends, sometimes in cheerful groups, sometimes with a suitor who walked her to 

the door. 

She always said goodbye with a smile, turned, and left. She never looked back, never lingered for anyone. 

That week, Kael was like a greedy spectator, scrambling to catch up on the chapters of her life he had missed. 

And in those chapters, he didn’t exist. 

She was still brilliant, maybe even more dazzling than before. 

He had witnessed her rebirth, and in doing so, fully realized 

his own foolishness and loss. 

It was never her who couldn’t live without him. 

It had always been him who couldn’t live without her.