I Was His Secret Genius, Now I’m His Biggest Regret Chapter 19

I Was His Secret Genius, Now I’m His Biggest Regret Chapter 19

Clayton’s throat felt as if it were being squeezed by an invisible hand. He couldn’t say a word.

“Dad?” Beau’s voice trembled as he sat up. “Does Mom… not want us anymore?”

The question was an icy dagger, driven into Clayton’s heart and twisted. He looked at his son’s pale face, then at his daughter in the neighboring bed, her eyes open and full of fear. Guilt rose like a tide and swallowed him.

He remembered how he had locked Ava in the freezing cellar because of one careless provocation from Savannah.

“Mom never used to keep us out of the cellar,” Beau said softly, as if stating a long-forgotten fact. “She would let us smell the sweet mash in the fermenters and taste a little on her finger.”

Clayton could barely remember those scenes. In his memory, Ava was always working, always carrying the scent of yeast and oak, always quiet as a shadow. A shadow he had grown used to but never truly seen.

Now that shadow was gone, and the entire estate felt hollow and cold.

“Did she leave because of us?” Beau’s voice grew lower, thick with unshed tears. “Because I… broke her things?”

Clayton’s heart clenched. He finally understood that what the children had destroyed that day was not just a bottle of whiskey. They had destroyed Ava’s last and most cherished connection to this family. And he, as a father and a husband, had allowed it. He had even indulged it.

He had to say something. He couldn’t let his children live in fear of being abandoned, and he couldn’t let himself be consumed by regret.

“No,” he heard himself say, his voice terribly hoarse. “Mom just… went out to find inspiration.”

The excuse couldn’t even convince him, but he clung to it like a drowning man.

“You know she’s a genius.” Clayton tried to make his voice firm, strong. He looked at his children, as if persuading them, but mostly, as if hypnotizing himself. “The best distillers need to travel, to experience different water, different air… She loves her work so much. She would never give all this up.”

By “all this,” he meant Montgomery Distillery, the oak barrels branded with the family name, the business empire of which he was so proud. Even now, he arrogantly believed that Ava’s talent could only exist in connection to the Montgomery name.

Beau and Daisy looked at him, some of the fear in their eyes fading, but the confusion remained.

Looking at their fragile faces, a new resolve rose in Clayton from the ruins of his regret. He couldn’t wait any longer.

He bent down, gently wiped the tears from Daisy’s face, then looked straight into Beau’s eyes and made a promise.

“Dad will find her.”

“I’ll bring Mom home.”