I Was His Secret Genius, Now I’m His Biggest Regret Chapter 27

I Was His Secret Genius, Now I’m His Biggest Regret Chapter 27

The truck climbed steadily along the Blue Ridge Parkway, finally stopping at an overlook with a wide, sweeping view.

Ethan turned off the engine and took a small metal flask and two cups from the back seat. He unscrewed the cap and poured two cups of amber liquid—whiskey they had made themselves. In the Tennessee sun, its color was as warm as melted gold.

He handed one cup to Ava.

She accepted it, her gaze caught by the view before her.

The sun was setting.

Endless mountains spread below them, layer upon layer, moving from dark green to blue-gray, finally dissolving into a hazy purple where they met the sky. And the sun, that enormous burning sphere, was pouring out its final light. The sky shifted from gold to orange-red to a magnificent violet, changing with every second.

It was grand, vast, almost miraculous.

Ava held her breath. All the irritation and exhaustion from Harris, Clayton, and the business war that was sure to come seemed, in that moment, to be swallowed by the boundless view.

“What is a distiller’s final work?” Ethan’s voice was very soft, as if he were afraid to disturb the quiet.

Ava didn’t turn her head. “Flavor… balance, finish,” she answered instinctively.

“No.” Ethan stood beside her, also looking into the distance. “Freedom.”

Ava froze.

“We choose the grains, control the fermentation, select the barrels,” Ethan said slowly. “We do all that, thinking we’re creating flavor. But what truly determines a barrel’s fate are the years it spends in the warehouse. It’s the mountain air, the temperature difference between day and night, time itself.”

He paused, his voice filled with something close to reverence. “A legendary distiller once said that we don’t create flavor. We only find the best way for flavor to express itself. Once we seal it in the barrel, we should let go and let it become what it will be.”

“Our final work is freedom.”

The words were like lightning, splitting through the chaos in Ava’s mind.

She turned to look at Ethan, then back at the burning sky.

Yes. She had been clinging to those stolen formulas, those flavors that belonged to her. She wanted to prove herself, to reclaim what was hers. But when had she tied her own worth so tightly to her past work?

Something in her heart, along with the last fading ray of sunset, finally loosened.

The bitterness, the unwillingness, the sting of betrayal—it all suddenly seemed so small before the vastness of nature and time.

And she herself was not so small.

She, too, was part of this universe, a person who could find the best expression of flavor. She could let go. She could also begin again.

Ava’s eyes gradually brightened.

It was a light completely different from before. Not endurance, not strength, but something wider. A freedom that belonged to the mountaintop, the sunset, and the boundless world.