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But it wasn’t just some altruistic form of guilt that kept me tethered to my former life for so long. There was also the fear. Even on the days I felt trapped, the alternative of making my own way was overwhelming. Frightening.
My stomach rolls just thinking about my past fragility.
“My parents found it hard to let me live my own life,” I finally say. “My mother carried a lot of guilt over my accident. I did, too, so I tried to keep the peace for a long time.” I shrug. “Then one day I realized I was unhappy with letting them make most of my choices.”
There’s no point in telling him about my mother dissolving into a fit of screaming hysterics at the thought of me traveling to Paris alone last year to visit my sister, an incident that resulted in me canceling my trip to make her stop and assuage my own remorse for even attempting something without her. It also dragged a deeply rooted resentment to the surface where I could no longer ignore it. My mother may have started out with good intentions with her obsessive control. But at some point she had become unhealthily fixated on her mission of keeping me shielded from any further harm.
Shielded and protected. Smothered and imprisoned.
My eyes flick to the glittering spire of the Eiffel Tower in the distance. After sunset, the tower lights up, a glimmering beacon every hour on the hour until midnight. Even though I can see the tower from my attic apartment, I’m constantly seeking it out. Some call it cliché, others boring or the most overrated landmark.
To me, it’s beautiful. A symbol of adventure and romance, of new beginnings and timelessness. It may have taken some horrible circumstances to force me to do something with my life.
But I did it.
“So my proposal came at an opportune time.”
I tap one finger against the base of my wineglass. Rafe won’t understand emotions. But intelligence, shrewdness? Those are qualities he respects.
“Yes.”
Another blink. “I see.”
Damn it, why do I feel guilty when he says that? Why does it matter one whit given that he married me for the company my father inherited after my grandfather and aunt passed away in a car accident earlier this year?
“So once you had your freedom from your parents, you left.”
“Yes.” A bald-faced lie. I left because I heard him telling his father the only reason he married me was to get his hands on my father’s firm. The company Rafe’s father, Lucifer, had tried to buy numerous times from my grandfather. A point Rafe made with a cold, cruel smugness that had stabbed me straight through my naïve heart.
My marriage, this potentially grand love affair I’d concocted in my adolescence, wasn’t just a business arrangement. It was revenge, all to one-up the man Rafe and Gavriil both hated.
I’d known I was nothing more than a means to an end. But to hear it stated in such callous terms, to realize revenge was more important than what I had thought was at least a friendship, had killed the girl I used to be.
But, I reminded myself as a couple passes by, the man’s arm wrapped possessively about the woman’s waist as he places a gentle kiss on her forehead, it was a good thing I overheard everything. Who knows how long I may have clung to the idea that our relationship could change? How long I would have gone without realizing all the other things that could be?
“You want children now?”
I look away from him. It’s too painful to look into his eyes. To remember how I once used to dream about a child with his eyes when my dreams were an escape. Before a doctor told me those dreams could be a reality.
If I’d needed any other sign that I needed to end my marriage, that had been it. I’d contacted the judge the next day.
“I’ve always wanted them.” A smile tugs at my lips as I remember the moment my new doctor finally answered the question I’d avoided asking for so long. “I just didn’t think I could for the longest time. Katie said a doctor told my mom I probably wouldn’t be able to have kids right after my accident. But my current doctor says I can.” Giddiness bubbles in my chest. “There have been a lot of advancements since my accident.”
“Why did your mother not follow up with a doctor sooner?”
My smile turns sad. “Because my mother and I are, or at least were, a lot alike. Not knowing the answer and living in her little bubble was safer than having her worst fears confirmed.”
Although it crossed my mind that maybe my mother hadn’t pursued anything because it made it easier to keep me by her side, to pretend like I would always need her. The only reason she agreed to my marriage to Rafe was because my father put his foot down for the first and only time.
The two things that seem to motivate my parents: money and guilt. I will break that pattern, starting now. I’m not touching the bank account Rafe set up in my name. And I’m not letting guilt keep me tied to a marriage I no longer want.
The sounds from the restaurant amplify as silence falls between us. Cutlery clinking on porcelain plates. The rise and fall of voices as several different languages drift on the air. The quiet creak of a chair as someone shifts in their seat.
And the sound of my own heartbeat thudding in my throat so hard it hurts.
“That is your only reason for asking for a divorce?”
Not even close. “Yes.” I swallow against the discomfort of lying. “There’s no one else. I’m not trying to alter yours and my father’s agreement in any way, although from what I can tell the sale is final. Nothing can change that.”