His Automated Reply Cost Him His Wife Chapter 14

His Automated Reply Cost Him His Wife Chapter 14

It was a typical Chicago winter morning.

The wind sliced down Michigan Avenue like a knife. Wrapped in my cashmere coat, holding a scalding black coffee, I walked toward my office building. And there, beside the newsstand at the entrance, I saw him.

Ethan.

He was curled up on the corner of a bench. The once-expensive Loro Piana coat he wore was wrinkled and stained, and his once-meticulous hair was a greasy mess. His chin was covered in scruffy stubble, his eye sockets were sunken, and he exuded the defeated air of a homeless man.

His eyes were closed, as if he had fallen asleep in the freezing wind.

Not a ripple of emotion stirred in me. I walked past him, the heels of my boots striking the frozen pavement with a crisp, steady rhythm.

That sound seemed to wake him.

Ethan’s eyes flew open. The instant he saw me, his whole body jolted as if shocked by electricity. He staggered to his feet.

But his legs, frozen stiff from the cold, gave out. He fell heavily to the ground, his knees hitting the concrete with a dull thud.

“Nora…”

His voice was a dry, sandpaper rasp.

“You… wait…”

He finally scrambled up and, without bothering to brush the dirt from his clothes, half-crawled, half-stumbled after me.

I had no intention of wasting time with him and instinctively reached for my phone to call building security.

But in the next second, he grabbed me from behind.

It wasn’t an embrace. It was a drowning man clinging to his last piece of driftwood. His arms locked around me like iron hoops, so tight it felt as though he wanted to crush my bones and press me into his body.

The cool cedar cologne I had once loved was now mixed with the sour sweat of days without bathing. The smell hit me, and my stomach churned.

I drove my elbow hard into his chest, trying to break free.

“God… it’s you… It’s really you.” He buried his face in the hollow of my neck, his voice trembling so badly he was incoherent. “Nora, I messed up. I messed everything up.”

His body shook violently as hot tears soaked my collar.

“Please… don’t… don’t look at me like I’m a stranger.”

“This whole year, all I did was look for you. I can’t… I can’t live like this.”

He held me so tightly it hurt, his voice carrying a near-death despair.

“I can’t breathe.”