Breaking Free, Loving Again -The Flash Marriage with Mr. CEO novel Chapter 354

Ryan didn’t understand. His brows knitted in confusion.

Seeing his expression, she elaborated.

"If I really loved you, I wouldn’t have moved on as easily as I did." She met his gaze, her voice unwavering. "Since I did … it means I was never in love with you."

Ryan’s breath hitched.

It was a simple statement —calm and unemotional. But it felt like shattering him … all over again.

She didn’t love him. But how can that be possible?

Didn’t she draw him in her diary —wrote all those emotions and feelings? If that wasn’t true, what else was?

How could she deny the emotions she once had for him?

"You loved me," he insisted, his certainty faltering but his hope still alive. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have done all you did back then. You agreed to our engagement without showing any reluctance. If it hadn’t been your wish, how could you have agreed to it readily?"

Arwen let out a quiet chuckle, though there was no amusement in it.

"Just because I agreed with that decision doesn’t mean it was my wish," she countered smoothly. "I agreed because I couldn’t bring myself to disappoint my mother then. I decided to compromise. And compromise doesn’t mean love."

Ryan’s jaws tightened. He wasn’t ready to accept that answer. "You gave up your passion, your dance for me," he reminded her, his voice almost desperate.

At the mention of her dance, Arwen’s lips curled up in a bitter smile.

"That’s my biggest regret," she said quietly. "The greatest pain I had to endure, just to accommodate people I never should have." Her voice dropped lower, carrying the guilt she had never been able to erase. "I gave up my dance, my passion —the one thing I held more precious than life itself —because of you."

"I —" Ryan shook his head. He hadn’t meant to wear her pain as a proof of her love. He just wanted her to acknowledge that she had once cared.

As long as she accepted that, he could ask for her forgiveness …

But Arwen cut him off.

"You got to understand it wrongly, Ryan." Her voice firm. "I gave up dance because of you. But not for you." She let out a small, self-deprecating laugh. "Believe me when I say you never held that kind of importance. You might have been the reason I had to give up my passion, but I didn’t do it for you. I did it for my mother."

She exhaled sharply, her expression filled with bitterness. "She had this obsession with the idea of me marrying you. And in an attempt to make it happen, she stripped me of everything I held dear. My dance, my dreams, my pride —myself." her eyes darkened. "Do you think, after sacrificing so much because of you, I would still have the heart to love you?"

The question hit Ryan like a collapsing world.