Sweet Love 2x: Miss Ruthless CEO for our Superstar Uncle-Chapter 183: The Empty Chair

Three nights.

No one said it out loud. They just let the meeting sit. Like if they waited long enough, the whole thing would settle into something they could step back into without it cracking.

It didn’t.

The bar looked the same. Same lighting. Same tables. Staff moving through, carrying glasses, avoiding interruption, like the room hadn’t gotten the memo that something was wrong.

Arianne’s chair sat empty.

It threw everything off. Not like a missing person—like a missing tooth. The space around it felt wider. Colder. Not temperature cold. The kind of cold that sat in your chest when something was supposed to be there and wasn’t.

Nate poured a drink anyway. Didn’t think about it. Just filled the glass halfway and set it in front of the empty seat.

Then he saw what he’d done.

His hand hung there for a second. He almost picked it back up. Almost poured it out. Instead he let his arm drop and left it sitting there like a reflex he couldn’t take back.

Julian was already there. Hadn’t sat. One hand on the back of a chair, but he wasn’t leaning. The easy slope he usually carried was gone. Every time he moved, it looked like it cost him.

His drink sat in front of him. Full. His fingers touched the base once. Once. Then stopped. Like touching it would make something real he wasn’t ready to face.

Gilbert had noticed. Of course he had. He was sitting with his back to the wall, same as always, the spot that let him see the door and the table and everything in between. His hands were flat on the table. Palms down. Fingers spread. Not nervous. Just present. Waiting. His eyes kept drifting to Julian’s glass, lingering, then moving away.

Nate leaned against the table. Arms crossed. One foot kicked out. He looked relaxed. His jaw was moving—chewing on nothing. He did that when he was sitting on something he didn’t want to say first.

No one started it. Not yet.

Franz arrived last.

The door opened without making a sound, but his presence did. He stepped in without pausing, his gaze moving across the room once—quick, precise. He took in the arrangement. The positions. The empty space. The way Julian was standing instead of sitting. The glass Nate had poured for no one.

His eyes stopped on Arianne’s chair.

Then moved to Julian.

He crossed the room and took his seat. The movement was quiet, but it landed like something clicking into place. He didn’t look at anyone else. Didn’t ask why they hadn’t started. Just sat, his arms resting on the chair, his breathing even, his presence settling into the space like it had been waiting for him to fill it.

The room adjusted around it.

Gilbert leaned forward.

He rested his forearms on the table, hands loosely clasped. His posture sat somewhere between easy and intent. His attention fixed on Julian in a way that didn’t push, but didn’t leave any room to hide.

"Start from the beginning," he said.

Julian exhaled through his nose, not sharp, just enough to reset. His hand moved against the chair, fingers adjusting before settling again. He pulled the chair out—not sitting, just moving it. Creating space. Or buying time. Hard to tell which.

"There was a convention. Four years ago."

His voice was steady. He was choosing each word carefully.

"Green energy," he added after a moment. "She was on the medical advisory panel. I was there for the investment side. Different tracks, but the networking sessions overlapped."

Nate moved his weight, one hand dropping to the table’s edge, but he didn’t interrupt. His foot stopped tapping.

Julian’s gaze moved across the table—not meeting anyone, just passing through—then fixed on a point somewhere in the middle. The grain of the wood. A scratch he’d never noticed before.

"We met after one of the sessions. It wasn’t planned. We spoke for a while."

He paused. Not hunting for words. Just deciding how much needed saying.

"Then again the next day. It didn’t feel... temporary."

"It lasted a week. Same hotel. Same schedule."

His hand moved again—left the chair, touched the table, pulled back.Like he couldn’t decide whether to hold on or stay loose.

"It was easier not to separate it," he said. "We were in the same building. Same floor. Same rhythm. It didn’t feel like a choice. It felt like momentum."

"No expectations," Julian continued. "No follow-up. That was understood."

"You agreed to that," Gilbert said.

Julian nodded. "Yes."

No hesitation. No deflection.

Franz leaned back, one arm resting on his chair, his attention sharper now. He was watching Julian the way he watched everything—like he was reading the spaces between the words. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"You’re certain it’s her," Gilbert said.

Julian paused.

Small. But there. A beat that stretched just long enough to feel.

"I wouldn’t know her name," he said.

Nate let out a short breath, somewhere between a laugh and something he decided not to finish. His hand came up, rubbed the back of his neck, dropped again.

"That’s efficient," he said, glancing at Gilbert, then back at Julian. "You sleep with a woman for a week and you don’t catch her name."

No one followed it. The joke landed flat, and Nate knew it. His mouth pressed into a thin line, and he didn’t try again.

Franz’s gaze stayed steady.

"You didn’t look into it after," he said.

Julian met his eyes.

"There was no reason to."

The answer held.

Franz didn’t move. His face didn’t change. But something in the way he held himself went tighter.

"That’s an assumption."

Julian didn’t respond right away.

"I considered the possibility," he said after a moment. His voice was lower now. Not softer—just lower, like it had dropped into a different register.

A pause.

"I used protection."

The statement sat there.

Nate straightened, pushing off from his lean. His arms uncrossed, his hands going to his hips, then dropping.

"How come you never know?" he said.

His tone was lighter than the question, but not careless. Nate had a way of sounding like he was joking when he wasn’t, and sounding like he wasn’t when he was. This was the second one.

Julian glanced at him, something dry passing through his expression. A flicker of the old ease, there and gone.

"Do you check on each woman you spend the night with? You ask them, ’Do you happen to have my child?’"

Nate snorted.

"Of course not," he said. "I’m very careful."

He moved his stance, his weight from one foot to the other. His hands found the table edge again.

"You make it sound like I sleep around."

Franz didn’t look at him. "You don’t?"

Nate pointed at him immediately. His finger came up fast, almost reflex.

"Hey," he said. "I understand you’ve yet to water the flowers, Franz."

A beat. Just long enough for the words to land.

"Don’t turn this against me."

The room loosened.

Not much. Just enough. A crack in the pressure, something to let the air move again. Nate’s finger dropped, but the corner of his mouth twitched. Franz didn’t react, but he didn’t press either.

Gilbert didn’t follow it.

"Arianne has a point," he said, his tone unchanged. He didn’t need to raise his voice. The room came back to him without effort.

He leaned forward a little more.

"We wouldn’t be surprised if you were the one with a child out of wedlock."

A beat. Gilbert’s eyes stayed on Nate.

"Not Julian."

Nate exhaled through his nose, shaking his head. His jaw tightened once, then released.

"That’s not the point."

"It isn’t," Gilbert agreed. His hands unclasped, palms flat on the table again. "The point is that Julian was the one who got caught. And Arianne found him first."

The moment closed.

The room settled again. The bartender had stopped looking their way. The noise from the other tables had resumed, but it felt farther away than it should have.

Franz moved his gaze back to Julian.

"That explains why you didn’t know."

A pause. Long enough to let the distinction settle.

"Not why it stayed that way."

Julian didn’t answer right away.

His hand moved to the table’s edge, fingers curling—not gripping, just holding. He was looking at the wood grain again. The scratch he’d noticed earlier. The small imperfections that had always been there but never mattered until now.

"I understand why she reacted that way," he said.

The shift was subtle, but it turned the room. He wasn’t defending himself anymore. He was explaining someone else.

Gilbert’s gaze sharpened.

"Do you?"

Julian nodded. Slow. Not agreeing with Gilbert—just confirming what he’d said.

"We grew up around the same side of the family. The Conway side."

The name landed without explanation. It didn’t need one. They all knew the Conways. The money. The walls. The way they turned blood into obligation and obligation into something that crushed whatever got caught underneath.

"I’ve seen how she was treated."

He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to. They’d all seen pieces of it—the way Arianne talked about her family when she talked about them at all. The distance she kept. The things she didn’t say.

"She kept to herself. The others didn’t include her."

No one interrupted. Nate’s arms were crossed again, but his hands had curled into loose fists against his sides. Franz was motionless. Gilbert waited.

"She doesn’t tolerate that kind of situation."

His voice didn’t change. It was steady in a way that cost him something.

"She wouldn’t let a child grow up like that if she could prevent it."

That line stayed.

Franz inclined his head. A small movement. Barely there.

"That’s true."

Nate glanced once toward the empty chair, then away. His throat moved. He didn’t say anything.

"So what now?" he said.

The question landed.

No one answered.

Julian finally reached for his glass.

He lifted it, the condensation pressing against his fingers. He held it there for a moment—not drinking, just holding. Looking at it like it might tell him something.

Then he set it back down without drinking.

Across the table, the untouched glass at Arianne’s place caught the light, the thin ring of water beneath it spreading, no one reaching to move it.

Franz watched it for a moment, then looked at Julian.

"You need to talk to her."

It wasn’t a question.

Julian’s jaw tightened. "She doesn’t want to hear from me right now."

"She wanted to hear from you years ago," Franz said. His voice was even. No heat. "She didn’t get the chance."

Julian’s hand was still on the glass. His fingers had gone white at the tips, the way they did when he was holding himself back.

"She found out about her own nephew in a clinic waiting room," Franz added.

The room went very quiet.

Nate stopped breathing for a second. Gilbert’s hands, flat on the table, went motionless.

Julian closed his eyes.

Not long. Just a blink that lasted too long.

When he opened them, he looked at the empty chair again.

"I know," he said.

The words came out rough.

No one spoke after that.

The bar noise had become something distant, something happening in another room. The four of them sat in the space Arianne had left behind, the glass still full, the chair still empty, the weight of what came next pressing into the silence between them.