The Officer's Runaway Wife and Secret Son novel Chapter 354

"Scared that you hate me." Emily replied.

Clara's hand, which was crushing a can, froze. She turned her head.

Emily didn't speak, instead reaching for a nearby bottle of vodka, twisting the cap off, and preparing to chug it.

Alarmed, Clara quickly stopped her. "Are you crazy?"

Emily didn't fight back, simply clutching the bottle to her chest as tears began to fall, splashing onto the back of her hands.

"Clara, I'm so sorry."

Emily cried without a shred of composure, a complete mess of snot and tears.

"For these past four years, I've regretted it every time I think about it. Why did I have to make that phone call? If you hadn't known Rhys was here, would everything that happened later have been avoided?"

"If you hadn't come that day, you wouldn't have bled so much... If you had really lost Felix back then, how much pain would you have been in..."

Clara was stunned.

She had always thought of Emily as carefree, the most blithely happy person she knew. She never imagined that the boisterous socialite had been carrying such a heavy stone in her heart.

"Sometimes I have nightmares where you're on an operating table, covered in blood. And I just think, if only I hadn't run my mouth, if only I hadn't meddled... Even if he'd kept lying to you, at least you were happy back then."

It wasn't just Clara who had been suffering; the people around her had been suffering with her.

A sharp pang of sorrow shot through Clara's heart.

She put down her drink and pulled Emily closer, letting her rest her head on her shoulder.

"It had nothing to do with you," Clara said, gazing out the window. "I was the one who decided to come. Even if you hadn't made that call, I would have found out sooner or later. Something bad would have happened eventually."

"That was a debt Rhys owed, a sin Margot Johnson committed. It was my fate, not your fault. Emily, it's not your fault."

She stroked Emily's hair, unsure if she was comforting her friend or herself. "Don't take the blame for other people's mistakes."

Emily cried even harder. "Why should you two have to suffer so much? You're so good, and Felix is so sweet. And Rhys... Rhys, he..."

Halfway through her cursing, she remembered Rhys's injuries and couldn't continue.

Clara finished the sentence for her. "He's not doing well either."

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