The Divorced Military Queen Awakens (by Sadie Baxter) novel Chapter 547

547 Love Long Gone

With each word Laura spoke, the color drained steadily from Weston’s face until he looked ghostly pale, almost translucent beneath the soft glow of the café’s overhead lights. His usual vibrant complexion faded into something fragile and worn, as if life itself was seeping out with every syllable.

The trophies that other women chased—wealth, status, pedigree—were meaningless to her. She dismissed them with the casual flick of a sleeve, as effortlessly as one would brush away a speck of dust. Those things had never held any sway over her heart.

Even the face and body that once captivated her attention now felt utterly replaceable. After all, handsome men were not a rare breed. With the income she earned now, finding a younger, more attractive companion would be hardly a challenge, she thought with a cool detachment.

“I—” Weston tried to speak, pressing his lips tightly together, but the words dissolved before they could ever take shape.

“Weston,” Laura said softly, her voice as calm and steady as a still lake, “we’re broken up.” She paused, letting the weight of her statement settle between them. “Since that’s our reality, I want us to part on good terms. I never want to reach a point where you become someone I despise.”

A bitter taste coated his tongue. She spoke with the quiet confidence of someone already moving forward, while he remained stuck, trapped in the past, unable to take a single step ahead.

After a long, heavy silence, he finally whispered, “So there really isn’t even the slightest chance for me?”

Laura offered a small, almost pitying smile. “Love is unpredictable. Sometimes it leaves and never comes back. You talked about marriage, children, a perfect home—but hearing those words didn’t stir anything inside me. That tells me, beyond any doubt, that I don’t love you anymore.”

The laugh that escaped him was jagged and hollow, like a dying sound forced into the shape of mirth. Rejection, he realized with painful clarity, was pure agony distilled to its cruelest essence.

From the moment he first fell for her, this torment had been lurking in the shadows, patient and inevitable.

Words, he understood now, could cut deeper than any blade, carving wounds no medicine could heal. Every calm, measured syllable she spoke flayed him slowly, piece by piece.

Weston rose unsteadily from his chair, his face pale as aged parchment, knees trembling beneath him as if ready to give way.

“Laura, I won’t ruin you,” he said, struggling to catch his breath. “I won’t leave you penniless or force you out of Jexburgh. Stay or go—it’s your choice.”

“What?” She stared at him, stunned. “Even after I said I don’t want to be with you?”

“Yes.” Weston’s smile twisted into something bitterly self-mocking. “I may be desperate, but I’m not cruel enough to destroy the woman I love.”

“Then…” Laura hesitated, gathering her courage. “Let’s end it here. And about that contract relationship we discussed—forget it.”

Given the way things stood now, any talk of a contract felt absurd, completely out of place between them.

He held her gaze, his dark eyes swirling with turmoil. “Fine. We’ll do everything your way.”

A quiet sigh of relief escaped from her chest. A stray strand of hair drifted across her lips, trembling like a loose violin string caught in a gentle breeze.

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