My Ex-Wife Will Regret Leaving Me

Chapter 006

The first thing that reached him was not a sound, not a voice, but a scent—

that faint, unmistakable fragrance that only seemed to linger around women, soft yet intrusive, like warmth that refused to dissipate.

Before his mind could properly catch up, his body reacted first.

There was pressure against his chest, sudden and full, soft yet undeniably real, as if two elastic cushions had been pressed firmly against him, flattening slightly under the force while still retaining an almost unreasonable resilience. They moved—not deliberately, but insistently—brushing and shifting against him in a way that made it impossible to pretend it was accidental.

For a split second, his thoughts went blank.

So big. So soft.

That was his first coherent reaction.

He was bare-chested, fresh from the heat of the bathroom, and the other person—whoever she was—clearly hadn’t put on anything structured either. No rigid barrier, no artificial distance. It was, for all intents and purposes, skin against skin, warmth against warmth, the kind of contact that left no room for misunderstanding.

If this was a dream, he thought dimly, then he sincerely hoped he would never wake up.

His body betrayed him instantly, responding with the blunt honesty of a grown man whose instincts had long since learned to act faster than his conscience. There was no subtlety to it, no ambiguity. The reaction was immediate, firm, undeniable.

He didn’t even bother pretending surprise.

This was the reaction of a normal adult male. Nothing more, nothing less. A biological reflex, unavoidable and almost insulting in how straightforward it was.

Some reckless corner of his mind even whispered that, if he leaned into it—if he followed that raw momentum—he could simply push the other person down, let gravity and impulse do the rest, and allow instinct to overrule sense entirely.

But that thought never made it past fantasy.

The embrace itself lasted no more than two seconds, perhaps less, but even in that brief window he caught enough detail to form an impression. The girl felt younger than Kristinav Johnson, lighter in build, with a narrower frame and a more delicate structure. Her body didn’t have the mature solidity of a fully grown woman; instead, there was a certain fragile elasticity to her, the kind that suggested youth, agility, and an almost dangerous softness.

Petite. Lively. Disarmingly light.

In more refined terms, one might call it supple, almost boneless—too easy to imagine how effortlessly she might fit into someone else’s space, how readily she might be maneuvered. His thoughts, uninvited and inappropriate, spiraled briefly into places they had no business going, assembling images that lingered far longer than the actual contact ever did.

He didn’t want the moment to dissolve.

But reality, as always, arrived without asking permission.

The girl stiffened.

Whatever she had expected—whatever familiar figure she had thought she was throwing herself into—clearly did not match what her senses were now telling her.

“Wait—what is that?” she blurted out, confusion cutting through her voice, followed immediately by startled disbelief. “Why is there something like that… there? And why is it so hot?”

A small, slender hand slid down from his shoulder, tracing an unthinking path along his neck, his chest, and lower still before either of them fully realized what was happening. The contact was fleeting, accidental, yet disastrously precise.

He sucked in a sharp breath, teeth clenched, barely managing to suppress an involuntary sound.

Then everything shattered.

“What the hell—who are you?!”

Her scream sliced through the air, sharp and piercing, and before he could even form a response, a hard shove landed squarely against his chest. The force sent him stumbling back a step, the sudden absence of warmth almost as jarring as the contact itself had been.

He caught a glimpse of her hand retracting in a flustered blur, fingers curling as if she’d touched something forbidden—or worse, something she hadn’t meant to discover at all.

“I—I’m Sean Barnes,” he said automatically.

The words slipped out with alarming smoothness, a testament to instincts honed in far more awkward situations than this.

“Who asked for your name, you jerk?” she snapped, face flushed crimson despite her attempt to compose herself. “Why are you in my aunt’s apartment?”

That was when it clicked.

Her “aunt.” The woman she’d rushed in to find. The only person that description could possibly fit.

So this was Eva White.

She looked about eighteen or nineteen at most, standing on that uneasy threshold between adolescence and adulthood. Her clothes, however, told a different story—deliberately styled to project a worldliness she hadn’t quite grown into yet. Tight black leather pants clung to her long, slender legs, accentuating their straightness, while the subtle contours beneath left far too much to the imagination.

A cropped leather jacket hugged her upper body, worn over a simple white T-shirt. The fabric stretched slightly at the chest, conspicuously unsupported, creating a visual contrast so stark it was almost aggressive.

He looked away too late.

“What did you just say?” she demanded suddenly, narrowing her eyes. “What was that word?”

“Uh—nothing,” he said quickly. “I meant… I’m friends with your aunt. Kristinav Johnson.”

She studied him with open skepticism, eyes sharp and appraising, before stepping past him into the apartment without waiting for an invitation.

“Friends?” she echoed. “You mean boyfriend?”

The word hit him harder than it should have.

Before he could respond, she snorted. “As if. My aunt has better taste than that. I mean, your body’s fine, I guess—but you look like some washed-up, try-hard uncle who still thinks he’s relevant.”

She didn’t even bother hiding her scrutiny, her gaze dragging over him slowly, deliberately, before lingering a second too long where it absolutely shouldn’t have.

Heat rushed to his face.

Being called an “uncle” was one thing. Being dismissed as a pathetic one was another.

If not for Kristinav Johnson, he might have actually said something sharp. As it was, he grabbed his pants from the sofa, pulling them on in a hurry, suddenly far too aware of how exposed he felt.

That was when the bathroom door opened.

Freshly showered, wrapped in a clean towel, Kristinav Johnson stepped out, rubbing her damp hair with another towel, only to freeze at the sight of her niece.

“Shasha?” she said, startled. “What are you doing here?”

The answer came immediately.

“I don’t want to live anymore!” Eva White wailed dramatically, launching herself forward and burying her face into Kristinav Johnson’s shoulder, clinging to her as if the world were ending.

Watching the scene replay from the sidelines, Sean Barnes felt an absurd sense of déjà vu—and an equally absurd flash of unwanted nostalgia.

“What is wrong with you?” Kristinav Johnson sighed, patting her back awkwardly before shooting him a sharp glare. “Did he bully you?”

He nearly choked.

Before he could protest, Eva White peeked over her aunt’s shoulder, smirking. “Oh, by the way, he said he was your boyfriend. Is that true? And you were showering—did you two already… you know?”

“Absolute nonsense!” Kristinav Johnson snapped, flustered. “He is not my boyfriend. Even if my taste got worse, it wouldn’t get that bad.”

He coughed pointedly.

Moments later, he was being unceremoniously dismissed.

As he searched for his phone, Eva White pulled it from between the sofa cushions, her expression changing the instant the screen lit up.

Her breathing hitched.

Her face flushed.

And Sean Barnes knew, with sinking certainty, that things were about to get even more complicated.

He swallowed, forcing himself to stay still, because reacting would only make things worse. The room felt suddenly smaller, the air thicker, as if the walls themselves were leaning in to observe the quiet standoff. 

Eva White didn’t say anything at first; she just stared at the screen, lips parted, eyes darting between the images and Sean Barnes’s face, curiosity and embarrassment tangling together in an awkward knot. Sean cleared his throat, breaking the tension at last, his voice low and strained, hoping—against all odds—that whatever misunderstanding was forming could still be steered back into something resembling normalcy.