Sweet Love 2x: Miss Ruthless CEO for our Superstar Uncle-Chapter 170: For Twenty Years

The car eased into traffic as the studio district disappeared behind them.

Franz settled back into the seat while the city moved slowly outside the window. The afternoon had already begun to fade toward evening, though the snow continued falling at the same steady pace.

The driver navigated carefully through the winter traffic.

Franz loosened the knot of his tie and rested his shoulder against the back of the seat. The quiet inside the car felt unusually welcome after the bright lights and constant conversation inside the television studio.

For several minutes he watched the passing streets without thinking about anything in particular.

Then he reached into his coat pocket and took out his phone.

The conversation with Arianne was still open.

His eyes moved naturally to the same line he had read twice already.

Have a beautiful face.

The words looked simple enough on the screen. Almost casual. Someone unfamiliar with the conversation would likely assume it had been written without much thought. A passing compliment sent between two people who knew each other well enough not to treat the sentence as anything significant.

Franz knew better.

He knew how rare those words were from her. How carefully she chose every syllable. How she would never write something she didn’t mean.

He scrolled upward slowly through the conversation.

The thread looked exactly the way it always did. Short messages. Direct. Practical.

Leo refused breakfast again.

Meeting moved to Thursday afternoon.

I’ll pick them up at four.

Lily insists the red boots match everything.

Anyone else would see coordination. Efficiency. Two people managing a household. Franz saw her voice in every line—the way she’d pause before sending, the way she never wasted words. He could hear her saying each one.

Anyone reading the conversation without context would assume the two people writing those messages were coordinating responsibilities. Perhaps colleagues managing shared work. Perhaps relatives discussing children.

Nothing about the thread suggested romance. Nothing suggested that the two people speaking were secretly married.

Franz closed the screen and leaned his head back against the seat.

The car slowed near an intersection while the traffic light ahead turned red.

Outside, the snowfall thickened slightly.

For a moment his thoughts drifted further back than he intended.

He had first met Arianne when he was eight years old.

At the time she was fifteen and already seemed impossibly grown in the way teenagers always appeared to children. She used to visit their house to see Alex, carrying books under her arm while speaking about school projects Franz barely understood.

Most of Alex’s friends ignored him.

Arianne never did.

One afternoon he had been sitting at the dining table struggling with a mathematics worksheet. The numbers refused to make sense. After several attempts he had already erased the same answer enough times to tear the paper.

Arianne passed through the room on her way to the kitchen.

She stopped beside the table.

"What are you doing?"

"Homework," Franz replied.

She leaned over the paper. "That doesn’t look like it’s going well."

Franz frowned at the worksheet. "It’s stupid."

Arianne pulled out the chair beside him and sat down without asking.

"Show me."

He pushed the paper toward her reluctantly.

She studied the problem for a moment before turning the page sideways. Then she began explaining the steps slowly. Not the way teachers did, rushing through the explanation as though the answer should already be obvious. Arianne broke the numbers into smaller pieces, writing each step carefully until the pattern became clear.

Franz stared at the worksheet.

"Oh."

Arianne smiled faintly. "See?"

When he finished solving the problem himself, she tapped the edge of the paper once before standing.

"You’re not bad at this," she said. "You just think too fast."

Then she walked toward the kitchen as though the moment had meant nothing.

Franz remained at the table for several minutes afterward, staring at the worksheet.

At the time he didn’t understand why the moment stayed with him. Now he did. She hadn’t fixed it for him. She’d sat beside him and made him understand it himself. That was the difference. That was who she was. Even at fifteen, Arianne didn’t rescue people—she taught them how to stop needing rescue.

She had seen him. Not as Alex’s little brother. Not as a child to be tolerated. She had stopped. She had sat down. She had explained something difficult until he understood.

That was the first time Arianne Summers had chosen to stay with him.

It would not be the last.

–

The car moved forward again when the light changed.

Franz opened his eyes and glanced briefly out the window. The snow had begun gathering along the edges of the sidewalks now.

His thoughts continued moving through the past almost without his permission.

When he was eleven, Arianne was eighteen.

That was the year she left Montclair to study overseas.

He remembered standing halfway down the staircase while she spoke with Alex near the front door. Two suitcases waited beside the wall while Alex argued that she should stay one more day.

"You’ll survive," she told him.

"You say that now," Alex replied. "You’ll miss my brilliant company."

"I’ll miss the arguments."

She turned then and noticed Franz standing on the stairs.

Before leaving, she walked over and ruffled his hair lightly.

"Take care of your brother while I’m gone."

Franz nodded.

At the time he believed she was stepping into a world he would never reach. The distance between them already felt vast. Soon it would be oceans.

He watched her walk out the door and told himself the ache in his chest was normal. That everyone felt this way when someone left.

He was wrong.

–

Years passed after that.

Arianne returned during holidays and summers, appearing briefly before disappearing again into her studies and later her work. Each time she visited, Franz noticed the distance between them felt slightly smaller.

He had grown taller. Older. Old enough to understand that the quiet admiration he carried for her had changed into something else.

He never said anything about it.

There had never been a reason to.

–

The car turned onto another street.

Traffic slowed again as several vehicles ahead waited at the next intersection.

Franz’s phone remained loosely in his hand.

When he was sixteen, Arianne was twenty-three.

That was the year Dominic appeared.

Franz remembered the evening clearly.

Alex had invited several friends to dinner. The house had been noisy with conversation while music drifted faintly from the living room. Franz stepped outside to escape the noise.

The garden lights had already been switched on.

Arianne stood near the steps speaking with someone he had never seen before.

Dominic Blackwood.

At the time Franz didn’t know his name. He only noticed the way Arianne listened while the man spoke. Interested. Relaxed.

Dominic said something that made her laugh.

Franz had heard her laugh before. He had stored the sound somewhere deep, the way people keep things they know they’ll need later.

But that night he understood something he hadn’t wanted to think about.

She was laughing at someone else’s joke.

She was looking at someone else the way he had always looked at her.

The door behind him opened.

Alex stepped outside. "There you are."

Franz nodded toward the garden. "Who’s that?"

Alex followed his gaze. "Oh. That’s Dominic."

"They look close."

Alex leaned against the railing beside him. "They’ve been seeing each other for a while."

After a moment he glanced sideways.

"You’ve always been terrible at hiding it."

Franz looked at him. "Hiding what?"

Alex gave him a knowing look. "You know what."

For a second Franz considered denying it. Then he didn’t bother.

Alex had known Arianne longer than anyone. She had been his closest friend for years. If anyone could recognize the truth, it was him.

"You’re sixteen," Alex said calmly. "It’s not a crime."

Franz looked back toward the garden. Dominic said something else that made Arianne laugh again.

He remembered the exact feeling. Not jealousy. Not exactly. Something quieter. An acceptance that settled in his chest like a stone dropping to the bottom of a lake. This was how the world worked. People found each other. And some people—most people—were not meant to be found by him.

At that age most emotions arrived loudly. His didn’t. He simply accepted what he saw.

Arianne’s life would move forward.

And it would not include him.

–

The car slowed again.

Franz glanced at the phone still resting in his hand.

Years passed.

The news of the engagement spread through Montclair almost overnight.

Arianne Summers and Dominic Blackwood.

Two families whose names already carried weight in the city.

Franz heard about it the same way everyone else did. Through conversation. Through invitations.

The envelope arrived several days later. Heavy paper. Formal print.

He remembered standing beside a hotel window while holding it.

At the time he had a choice.

Return to Montclair. Attend the engagement banquet. Stand in the same room while Arianne stepped into the future everyone expected for her.

Instead he declined.

The explanation he gave was practical. Filming schedules. Travel commitments. All of it true.

None of it the real reason.

The real reason was simpler. He couldn’t watch her promise herself to someone else. Not because he wanted her for himself—he had made peace with that years ago. But because he knew, somehow, that Dominic Blackwood would never understand what he had.

Then the story changed.

The phone call came from Alex late one evening.

"Arianne left," Alex said.

Franz frowned slightly. "Left where?"

"No one knows yet."

Alex rarely sounded uncertain. That night he did.

After a moment he continued. "Dominic made a mistake."

Franz waited.

"With Diana."

The rest of the explanation came slowly. A betrayal. A pregnancy. A broken engagement that Montclair would talk about for years.

By the time the story reached the public, Arianne was already gone.

No explanation. No farewell.

She simply disappeared.

Franz never tried to contact her.

Not because he didn’t want to. Not because he didn’t lie awake some nights wondering if she was safe, if she was eating, if she was sleeping.

But because he understood something Alex had told him long before.

Arianne always chooses her own direction.

If she wanted distance from Montclair, then distance was what she would take. Reaching out would be for him, not for her. And he refused to make her disappearance about his own need for reassurance.

So Franz waited.

Not expecting anything.

Not asking for anything.

Just... waiting.

–

The accident happened years later.

Alex and Layla’s funeral took place three days afterward.

The church was full. People spoke quietly as the ceremony ended and guests began leaving the courtyard outside.

Someone suddenly asked where the twins were.

At first no one worried. Then the staff began searching.

Leo and Lily had disappeared.

Franz walked toward the cemetery path behind the church while others searched the gardens. The narrow path led through a row of bare trees toward the Rochefort mausoleum.

That was where he saw them.

Arianne stepped out from the stone entrance.

She carried Leo in her arms.

The boy clung weakly to her coat while a faint cough shook his chest. His small face was flushed with fever, his eyes half-closed.

Beside her walked Lily.

The little girl held tightly to Arianne’s hand, her other fist pressed against her mouth as if holding back tears.

Franz stopped walking.

He had not expected to see her there.

Years had passed since the last time they stood in the same place.

Yet she looked exactly the same. Calm. Steady. Focused entirely on the children beside her.

She noticed him then.

For a moment neither of them spoke.

Leo shifted weakly against her shoulder. Lily refused to release Arianne’s hand.

"They were inside," Arianne said quietly.

Franz understood immediately. The twins had gone to the mausoleum. To the place where their parents rested.

"Leo has a fever," she added.

Franz nodded. "We should bring them back."

Together they walked toward the church courtyard.

Leo remained in Arianne’s arms. Lily stayed beside her.

And for the first time in years, Franz walked next to Arianne again.

He remembered the exact rhythm of their footsteps. Hers steady despite carrying Leo. His matching her pace without thinking. The rain falling around them.

He hadn’t known then that this walk would change everything. He only knew that she was here, that she was real, that for the first time in years he could breathe next to her.

He didn’t know then what would come. He didn’t know she would stay. He didn’t know the twins would become hers as much as his, that the house would fill with their voices, that the quiet ache he had carried since childhood would finally find its answer.

He only knew one thing as they walked through the rain together.

She was here.

She was real.

And for now, that was enough.

–

The car slowed again in traffic.

Franz unlocked his phone once more.

The conversation with Arianne appeared on the screen.

Short messages. Practical. Ordinary.

Nothing about the thread suggested the twenty years that stood behind it.

Nothing revealed the boy at the dining table, the teenager on the stairs, the young man watching from the garden while she laughed at someone else’s joke.

Nothing showed the years of waiting, the funeral, the moment she stepped out of the mausoleum with Leo in her arms.

Just words on a screen.

Have a beautiful face.

Franz allowed himself a small smile.

Twenty years.

Twenty years of watching, waiting, wanting.

And now she wrote him messages about deadlines and breakfast and red boots.

Now she told him he was her type.

Now she lived in the same house with him, with the twins asleep upstairs, waiting for him to come home every night.

The smile stayed.

Outside the window, snow continued drifting quietly across the city streets while the message remained open on the screen in his hand. The car kept moving. And Franz Rochefort kept smiling in the backseat like a fool.

He thought about the boy who had sat at the dining table, watching her walk toward the kitchen, not knowing why the moment stayed with him. He thought about the teenager on the stairs, watching her leave for overseas, the ache in his chest that he told himself was normal. He thought about the young man in the garden, watching her laugh at someone else’s joke, accepting that he would never be the one she looked at that way.

And now.

Now she was waiting for him.

The phone buzzed.

A new message.

Arianne: Traffic?

He smiled wider. Typed.

Franz: Snow. Be there soon.

Arianne: Drive carefully.

Franz: Always.

He looked out the window. The snow was falling heavier now. The city was quiet. And somewhere across town, his wife was waiting for him.

He didn’t close the conversation. He left it open on the screen, her words there, the proof that twenty years of waiting had led to this.

The car turned onto the last street before the estate.

Franz looked up. The gates were already opening.

He was almost home.