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He sighed and shook his head. “Honey, it’s just not like that. You see, my father and her father have set this… marriage… in motion. It is something that the two of them have been planning for a very long time… for years, I guess, since she and I were children. We’re bringing together much more than just the two of us. We’re combining our families and our businesses; we’re continuing a legacy that has been being built since this country was founded. I don’t feel like I can break that bond, that I can go against what my father is expecting of me. I have a responsibility to him, to the grandfathers that came before him, and to the future generations of her family and mine to carry on with this and do what’s right, and what’s right is that I marry her.”
Eva stared at him and felt her heart pound and her chest tighten as he spoke, explaining why it was not going to work for the two of them. She could barely get her mind around the words that were coming into her ears.
“I don’t love her. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with her. I want you. I want you always, but that’s not a viable option for me. It isn’t just about me, it’s about both of our families—hers and mine, and the future of those families. You and I… well, we weren’t supposed to happen. We were unplanned… unexpected, and you were never part of the equation, no matter how much I wish you could be.” He felt miserable saying any of it to her. He knew how much he was hurting her, and he hated it.
“You mean I was a mistake?” she asked sharply, hoping that she was wrong, and feeling in her core that she wasn’t. Every negative word that had come from Jamie about Derrick came flooding into her mind. A wave of panic told her that Jamie might just be right about everything that she had said.
“No! No, please don’t say that. I didn’t say that, and that’s not what I mean. You and I are not a mistake. Nothing that we have done has been a mistake. I wouldn’t take any of it back, not for the whole world. The issue is that we just can’t go forward with it, not with anything. Our time is coming to a close, and fast. We’re almost to the point that we can never be together again, and even though I wish I could change that, even though I want to be with you, it’s just not a realistic option. It’s a dream, honey. A very sweet, wonderful, unrealistic dream. It can’t happen. I’m going to have to say goodbye to you that way and let you go, and I’m going to have to marry a woman I don’t want to be with and spend the rest of my life with her out of sheer duty. There’s no way around that. If I thought for a single moment that there was, then I would do all that I could to get out of it, but there’s just not, and there’s nothing that I can do about it.”
He slipped his finger beneath her chin and held her face up so that she would look at him, and the moment that he did it, he regretted it. There were tears in her eyes, and they had begun to spill down her cheeks. He had never seen sorrow like that in her before, and it tore at his heart. He felt wretched even having to continue speaking about it to her.
“Baby, if I could change it I would, but there’s no way. It’s not about me. It’s about the future and about too many people for me to act in a selfish way and do what I want for myself. I hope you can understand that. I realize that it’s not going to make any of this any easier. I want you as long as I can possibly have you, but we both have to understand that that’s going to come to an immediate halt when I have to walk down the aisle and marry her, and that day is coming much too soon. In fact, it will be at the end of this week. We’re nearly there.” He wiped at a few of her tears and kissed her forehead.
“I wish so much that it could be different. I do love you so much,” he whispered and kissed her mouth again tenderly.
“You said you loved me,” she spoke in a low voice, sitting up and looking seriously at him.
“I do love you!” he answered, sitting up beside her and reaching for her hand. “I just… can’t change this.”
“You can change this. You have free will. If you wanted to be with me, then you would be with me. It’s that simple. It’s your life. You are in charge of your life. I don’t understand what all this legacy business has to do with you and me. I don’t really understand why you think you can’t just walk away from that all and be with me. We’re in love. We want each other. We want to spend the rest of our lives together, and
you’re willing to walk away from all of that and be with someone you don’t love for the rest of your life. I don’t understand that, Derrick. It makes no sense at all to me.” She shook her head and pulled her hand from his, crossing her arms over her chest and doing her best to hold in the tears that would not stop falling from her thick lashes.
He shook his head and sighed in exasperation. “I’ve tried to explain it to you!” he told her desperately. “There’s nothing I can do. It’s about everything in my life. It’s about what my father wanted for me and for our family and for my future. It’s something I can’t break. It’s something that the men in my family have been building up for a couple of centuries, and I can’t tear that down. I can’t undo what all of the members of my family have built up getting to this point. I have inherited much more than just money and a business and an excellent reputation. I’ve inherited a legacy, a responsibility to myself, my family, all the people who work in our businesses, all the people who came before me, and the people who will come after me. I owe it to my father’s best friend and all the years and work that they have put into building this solid foundation that I was born into and that I must carry on. I’m not an owner of all of it, I’m a caretaker of all of it, and I have a duty to much more than myself. If I could make you a part of that, then I would, but that’s not what my father wanted, and it’s not what the future holds for me, as awful and heartbreaking as that is. Please, baby, please try to understand that!”
She shook her head. “I can’t. All I can understand is that you have a choice between her and me, and you’re choosing her! You’re choosing money and a loveless marriage over me. You’re walking away from real love, true love, and you have every opportunity to take it, but you are busy worrying about everyone else. You’re not thinking of me at all. You’re not thinking of yourself or our future. You’re only thinking of her and your father and her father and everyone else. That puts me so far out of the equation that I guess I shouldn’t even be here at all because there’s no place for me.”
Rising from the sofa, she reached for her clothes and pulled them all on. Tears were rolling in rivers down her cheeks, and she would not look at him. He tried to reach for her, but she pulled away from him, fastening the last of the buttons on her dress.
“Please, Eva, please… try to look at it from my-” he began, but she spun on her heel and glared at him, holding her hand up.
“No! Don’t even ask me to try to see it from your point of view. I can’t. I’m looking at it from the point of view of love. I’m looking at it with you and me at the center of it, at the heart of it, and I’m the only one looking at it that way. Your priorities are somewhere else, so far from me and so far away from us. There’s nothing I can do to change that. There’s nothing more than I can do for you or give to you that might make you love me more. There’s nothing more than I can say that will change what you’re thinking or planning or doing. You know the deal, and you made your choice. You’re choosing what everyone else wants over what you want, and I don’t even come into the equation with it. I don’t matter in that. I can’t stay here if I don’t matter. I know that. So that’s going to be it for us. That’s going to be the end of everything we’ve discovered and made. I’m going to love you for the rest of my life, but that doesn’t mean that I am going to have to stay here on a shelf and watch you as you marry her and build your future with her. I can’t do that. I won’t do that, and if you love me you won’t ask me to do that.” She turned away from him and walked toward the door, looking back at him with a broken heart written all over her face.
“Please!” he stood up from the sofa and pleaded with her. “Please, don’t go! Don’t leave me… I can’t begin to look at the rest of my life without you!” He meant it. The one dim light of hope and happiness that he had held tight to when thoughts of his future had darkened his heart was that Eva would at least still be in his office, and he would still be able to see her every day. He knew that they could never be lovers again, that he could never touch her or kiss her again, never feel her in his arms, but she would still be there, near him, and he could at least have that.
“You chose a life without me. That was all you.” She turned and walked out of the door, feeling her heart shatter into countless pieces as she closed the door behind her, picked up the few things on her desk that she wanted to keep, and walked to the elevator.
It was done.
*
The knock on the door was sharp, and when Jamie opened it, she could see why immediately. “Oh, honey! Oh, honey… what on earth is the matter with you! Come on in! What is it that’s got you so hurt?” Jamie reached her arms out and wrapped them around Eva, pulling her into the house and holding her as Eva broke down and sobbed in her embrace.
Jamie didn’t ask any more questions; she only rubbed Eva’s back and soothed her until Eva was able to take a few deep breaths and they moved to the sofa where they sat side by side. Jamie took Eva’s hand in hers and looked intently at her.
“Now, what on earth is going on? What’s got you in such a state?” she asked, searching Eva’s face for any kind of clue to her question.
Eva rubbed her free hand over her face, brushing away the tears and trying to calm herself as much as she could. “It’s Derrick…” she began, and Jamie’s face contorted into a look of sheer disgust.
“I should have guessed that. I knew it. I knew that man was going to hurt you. What happened, did he fire you?” she asked, looking skeptical.
Eva shook her head. “No… much worse than that. I know I told you that I wasn’t going to be with him anymore the last time I saw you, but the truth is that we’ve still been seeing each other, and we’ve still been lovers, and he’s still getting married to that other woman.”
Fresh tears filled her eyes and fell, and Jamie pursed her lips and shook her head in aggravation. “I knew it! I knew that man was no good. I knew that it was going to happen like that! He’s just a rich white man who wanted a hot-looking woman on the side, but he isn’t willing to give up his image in the public eye… not willing to give up his rich white wife for you. I knew it. I knew that this was going to happen. That son of a bitch.”
Eva could only sob. She wanted to argue with Jamie. She wanted to defend Derrick to her best friend and try to take his side and say that everything that Jamie had said wasn’t true, and that it wasn’t going to be that way, but she couldn’t. There was no defense. Everything that Jamie had said to her was true, and there was nothing to argue about it.
She cried until there were no more tears to cry, and Jamie just held her and rocked her and calmed her down until she could breathe again, and she was still and silent. Jamie looked at her seriously then.
