Breaking Free, Loving Again -The Flash Marriage with Mr. CEO novel Chapter 248

Arwen didn’t say anything, but she could feel the knife he was carrying plunged into his heart. It was twisting painfully, carving wounds that had long scarred over but never truly healed. Yet he bore all the pain with a quiet resilience, as if he had mastered the art of enduring suffering over the years.

Reaching out, she held his hand in hers, her touch soft and deliberate. Slowly, she patted the back of his hand, her voice coming a gentle balm. "No matter how much power and pride the Winslow name carries, to me, it’s meaningless without you. It’s you who matters, Aiden —with or without the name. Just you."

Aiden froze, her words cutting through the bitterness that had clung to him like a second skin. His gaze which was shadowed with anger moments before, softened as he stared at her. "And it’s you who matters to me. You are the only family I have in this world. After my mother, it’s just you and no one else," he said, holding a serene moment with her.

Arwen wanted to feel warm from those words, but she could tell that his words today were not as simple as they seemed. It was not some promise he was giving to her, rather it was a wound he was unravelling for her to see —raw and unhealed.

All the while he spoke, her eyes not once left his face. She stared at him as if she were there, witnessing all his sufferings. It seemed more painful than she had imagined. To tell her everything, he looked like he was scraping the depths of himself, forcing himself to relive the agony he had long buried. She thought it would be fine, but now she no longer felt confident.

Not because she thought he would blame her, but because she knew that if he got hurt because of her, she wouldn’t be able to carry the guilt.

Pressing her hand over his lips, she shook her head, stopping him from continuing any further. "I am sorry," she said, feeling her eyes sting from the unshed tears. "I shouldn’t have asked you something that I knew would make you uncomfortable."

Aiden didn’t say anything. He just sat still, watching her. At that moment, he didn’t look like that powerful man she had come to understand he was, instead, he allowed her to see the vulnerable side of him that maybe no one has ever seen up until now.

She could no longer look at him like that. Before she realized it, her arms went to wrap around his neck, pulling him into a hug. "I don’t want to know your past, not anymore," she said, making herself understand the same. "Just knowing you in the present is enough."

Aiden still didn’t speak and finding his silence heartbreaking, she pulled away to persuade him. But before she could speak anything, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss on her lips. It was just a touch at first, but knowing what he wanted, she reached to interlace her fingers in his hair, deepening the kiss further.

This kiss was not of desire but of a promise that can’t be explained. And Arwen was willing to give it blindly to him. Not because he needed it at the moment, but because it was ’him’ who was asking her. As long as it was him who was asking, she would even willingly give away her life.

She didn’t know when he became so important to her, but after today, she knew he was someone she couldn’t see getting her. No matter what.

The realization scared her. She feared that she was overgiving herself, but when she noted all that he was willing to give her without her asking, she felt like she was still falling short in comparison to him.