Billionaire's Match (Khloe and Nick Hunt) novel Chapter 899

Chapter 899

“Your parents…” Charlotte’s eyes flickered, and for a moment, words failed her.

“I didn’t want to come alone, and I don’t really have any better friends… so I forced you to come with me,” Ethan said quietly.

Before Charlotte could respond, he added, almost as an afterthought.

Charlotte pressed her lips together and nodded in silence.

Two hours later, the car pulled up in the outskirts, in front of a quiet, modest cemetery.

It was small. Ethan’s parents shared a single, narrow headstone. Wild grass had overrun the area, and a thick layer of ice clung to the stone, grime seeping into the surrounding ground. (1)

It looked… as though no one had been there in decades.

At the gate, Ethan bought a small bouquet of fresh flowers and set them down beside the path. Then, with difficulty, he knelt, pulling out tools to clean the dirt and ice off the headstone.

Charlotte followed behind, wanting to steady him, but he moved too quickly, already absorbed. His emotions seemed to plummet to the bottom of a pit; he was entirely focused on the grave, as though nothing else existed.

Charlotte crouched beside him, helping as best she could. Though he was quiet, the sheer weight of his sorrow radiated from him, pressing down on her chest. (1)

After a while, Ethan grew frustrated with the tools and tossed them aside, trying to scrape the grime with his bare hands.

The centuries-old filth was stubborn, and soon his patience snapped. He dug at it furiously, and Charlotte’s heart jumped when she saw blood mingle with the ice and dirt. She grabbed his hand instantly.

“Ethan. Enough,” she whispered.

She pressed her palms against his icy wrist with all her strength, her voice softer than she intended. “Anything that doesn’t come clean now, we’ll finish once the weather warms and the ice melts.”

Ethan lifted his gaze to hers. Charlotte finally saw it: his eyes were rimmed red.

His long, pale, aristocratic hands were now a map of scratches, blood smeared across dirt and ice alike. His body was already fragile; if infection set in, it could be serious.

“They’ll blame me,” he murmured, his gaze wandering.

“No,” Charlotte said firmly. “They’d be happy just knowing you came. They wouldn’t blame you.”

“This is only the second time I’ve come to see them,” he said, a trace of humor in his voice. “The first time was after Clarice adopted me. She brought me here… so I could say a final goodbye.”

He was only five at the time. Out of fear-or perhaps because he was always a careful, weak spirited child- he had been terrified.

Orphaned, he had been afraid of being abandoned again. Afraid that even Clarice might leave him. To prove his loyalty, to show he accepted her as his only mother, he had never returned to his parents’ grave for all these years. Thinking about it now, he couldn’t forgive himself.

Charlotte seemed to read his thoughts. She lowered her head, pulling out a tissue to carefully wipe the blood from his hands, letting the dried traces fade.

“Ethan… I’m not just trying to comfort you. I think… you weren’t wrong about your parents,” she said softly.

He froze, looking at her in sudden surprise.

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