After Seven Empty Chairs, I Took My Daughter and Left Chapter 22

After Seven Empty Chairs, I Took My Daughter and Left Chapter 22

After putting distance between themselves and the two suffocating figures, Ava almost immediately released Elias’s arm. The false intimacy retreated like a tide, leaving behind only a faint, awkward warmth.

“Thank you for just now,” she said quietly, her voice carrying a trace of distance.

Elias looked at the arm that had suddenly become empty, and a faint sense of loss swept through him. He knew their united front had only been a temporary alliance. In Ava’s heart, that line of defense remained firm. Suddenly, he no longer wanted to keep this slow simmer going. The encounter with Noah had made him realize he didn’t want to continue playing the vague “ally,” a backup who could be classified as a “friend” at any moment. He needed a legitimate identity, one that would let him stand beside her openly and rightfully.

“Ava, I—”

Ava wasn’t stupid. Through their time together, the perfectly timed “chance encounters,” the subtle acts of protection, she could clearly sense that Elias’s feelings for her had crossed the boundaries of friendship. After all, no one treated another person this well for no reason.

She had considered bringing it up, but he always used gentle jokes or an irresistible charm to cleverly move around the issue, making it impossible for her to issue a clean rejection. It wasn’t that she felt nothing for him, but it was too soon. The marriage she had just crawled out of had been hell, and it left her terrified of any intimate relationship. She wasn’t ready.

So she instinctively interrupted him.

“Why don’t we go buy Lily her favorite ice cream? The weather is so nice. She’ll love it.” She tried to use the child as a shield and steer the conversation into safer territory.

Faced with her deliberate interruption, hurt flickered in Elias’s eyes, but he didn’t follow her lead. The elite education he had received had taught him to handle matters as cleanly as a Wall Street acquisition. Once he had decided to speak plainly, he wouldn’t drag it out.

He had already missed her for too many years. He didn’t want to wait any longer.

“Ava, I like you.”

The confession, direct and unadorned, was like a stone dropped into a calm lake, instantly stirring thousands of ripples in Ava’s heart. She froze, her mind blank, while silence spread between them.

Seeing her at a loss, Elias didn’t give her a chance to escape. He continued.

“I fell in love with you at first sight during that freshman seminar at Harvard. You were sitting by the window, the sunlight falling on you. You were writing something in your notebook, so focused and so alive. I wanted to go over and meet you, but at the time, I had just begun taking over the family’s affairs in Boston, and I was buried in work. When I finally caught my breath and wanted to look for you, I found Noah already at your side.”

His voice was low and steady, as if he were telling a story unrelated to himself, yet every word carried the weight of time.

“I thought a college romance wouldn’t last, so I kept waiting. I waited for you to graduate. But then you accepted his proposal by the Charles River. I saw the passionate, certain love in your eyes when you nodded. In that moment, I retreated.”

“I thought it would be enough if you were happy. So after you two registered your marriage at City Hall, I deliberately stopped paying attention to your life. I thought that would erase you from my heart.”

Ava’s heart was struck hard by this sudden, deeply felt history. Those gazes from the past, the ones she had never noticed, now passed through time and landed on her.

“But this time, you reappeared in my world on your own. When I saw the divorce agreement you signed in the foundation documents, I can’t describe how happy I was. So I began creating those ‘chance encounters,’ pretending I didn’t understand your distance, stubbornly staying by your side.”

“At first, I thought it would be enough to keep you company as a friend, enough as long as there was a place for me in your world. But people are greedy, Ava. Now I want more. I don’t want to stand beside you as a friend anymore.”

He took a step forward, his blue eyes locking tightly on hers, filled with years of suppressed emotion.

“I want a rightful identity. One that allows me to stand with you openly.”

“Ava, I like you. I love you.”