My Cold Infertile CEO Regretted Everything After Ten Miscarriages Chapter 12

My Cold Infertile CEO Regretted Everything After Ten Miscarriages Chapter 12

“He can regret all he wants. I don’t have to forgive him. Those are two separate things.”

Marnie looked at me and smiled. “You’ve changed.”

“Have I?”

“You used to swallow your pain, wipe your tears, and say it was fine. Now you know pain is just pain. You

don’t have to hide it.”

I looked down at the herb mortar in my hands and said nothing.

Yes. I’d changed.

After Elias left the hollow, he went back to the Voss Estate.

Elowen was bedridden, paralyzed.

She’d been broken by rage and shame.

The Voss empire was destroyed. The scandals Seraphina spread turned the family into a citywide joke.

People who once begged for their favor now crossed the street to avoid them.

Elowen lay half-paralyzed, mouth twisted, words slurred.

When she saw Elias, she struggled to sit up, making incoherent sounds.

Elias stood by the bed and watched her for a long time.

“She knows how to have babies,” Elowen forced out, tongue thick.”Go get her. Make her come back… make

her give the Voss family a child…”

Elias closed his eyes. “She’s not coming back.”

“Beg her! Kneel! Give her anything she wants-”

“I can’t give her what she needs,” Elias cut her off.”She wants the last three years back. Can I give her that?”

Elowen’s mouth hung open. She couldn’t speak.

Three months later, Elias returned to Pinecrest Hollow.

This time, he didn’t approach the gate. He stayed on a distant hillside, watching from far away.

Lights glowed in the hollow. Smoke curled from the chimneys.

He saw me step outside, carrying a tray of herbs to dry in the yard.

Autumn sun warmed my skin. I smiled softly.

He’d never seen me smile like that.

In those three years at the Voss Estate, I’d always smiled carefully, scared to displease him.

Now, even from across the mountain, he could tell the smile was real. Free. Unapologetic.

He didn’t come down.

He stood there and watched for a long time, then turned and walked away.

Behind him, children’s laughter rang through the hollow, clear as bells.

He didn’t look back.

He finally understood:Some people, once lost, are gone forever.

What he owed me wasn’t an apology. It was a past he could never give back.

He couldn’t give it.

So he didn’t deserve me.

The mountain wind blew hard, snapping his coat.

He walked down the slope, onto the leaf-covered path, and never looked back.

(The End)