?Chapter 363:
Kristian’s grip on the phone tightened, his knuckles turning white as images he’d long tried to suppress came flooding back in a relentless tide. He managed to ask through gritted teeth, “Where are they?”
Gerard paused, the silence stretching between them. He recalled Melvin’s earnest expression earlier, which made him hesitate. Finally, he asked, with a hint of caution in his voice, “Why do you want to know?”
Kristian’s expression turned colder by the second, the frost in his eyes enough to chill the room. Seriously? Freya was his ex-wife! Why the hell wouldn’t he want to know?!
“I know this might rub you the wrong way, but I think it’s something we need to talk about,” Gerard replied, his tone earnest, believing deeply that Freya, Melvin, and even Kristian himself were inherently good people. Despite Kristian’s rough edges, Gerard felt that he was just a man who hadn’t yete to terms with his emotions.
All Gerard wanted was for Freya to find real,sting happiness. Kristian’s jaw tightened, the vein in his temple twitching. His patience was thinning fast. “Say it.”
“Do you… love Ms. Briggs?” Gerard asked, the question slipping out in a rush.
Kristian didn’t answer right away. His deep eyes gave nothing away, as if they were bottomless wells, impossible to read.
As the silence hung heavy, Gerard pressed on. “If you’re unsure about your feelings for her, then perhaps it’s best not to interfere with her life.”
Kristian’s voice was low and dangerous as he asked, “What exactly are you trying to imply?”
“She is a wonderful person, and Melvin is serious about her.” Gerard always believed that happiness came before anything else. “If you haven’te to terms with your own emotions, you shouldn’t interfere with their rtionship,” he advised, his tone tinged with sincerity.
Kristian had coasted through life with ease—showered with love by his family, praised for his academic brilliance, and steadily rising in a rewarding career. He seldom encountered real struggles. In boardrooms, he was apuded; in daily life, he was envied. With his striking looks, athletic build, and enviable wealth, admiration followed him wherever he went.
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Naturally, all that ease had molded him—into someone proud, a little too used to getting his way, and frustratingly set in his opinions. If he didn’t break through these traits, even if he remarried Freya, they wouldn’t find happiness together.
“Address!” Themand came from Kristian in a tone as icy as the winds of the harshest winters. His emotions might have been a tangled web, but his resolve was clear—he could not let Freya slip away from his life.
In the mncholy days that followed their separation, Kristian had been lost in the echoes of their past. Each memory of Freya, no longer his, constricted his heart with a sharp pang of pain and a deep, gnawing regret. He was a man unacquainted with true affection, yet filled with remorse over their divorce. In his heart, Freya belonged to him—forever and always.
As Gerard observed Freya and Melvin quietly dining, he took a moment to gauge the time it would take for Kristian to reach them. With a reluctant sigh, tempered by a sense of inevitable resignation, he finally disclosed the address.
Kristian mmed the phone down and stormed out of the office without uttering another word about the contract. Gerard stared at his phone, his brows furrowed and jaw tense, a storm of mixed emotions flickering across his face.
The restaurant was quite a ways from thepany—far enough that getting there quickly was out of the question. By the time Kristian made it over, Freya and Melvin would probably be long done with dinner and on their way out. That thought brought Gerard a strange, quiet relief—as if a weight had been lifted off his chest, even if just slightly.
Sure enough, half an hourter, Freya and Melvin had polished off their meal. Melvin stepped forward and offered Freya a ride home, his keys already in hand, while Gerard lingered awkwardly in the background, quietly observing the exchange.
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