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His stare was on me.
I didn’t know what to say, so I sat there in silence.
“I would apologize again, but I don’t think another apology is what you need to hear.”
I wasn’t sure what I needed to hear to make this right.
“I miss you.”
I turned my head and looked at the other wall.
“You’re my best friend. I realize that now that I don’t have you.”
I continued to give him the cold shoulder.
“I love the restaurant. It’s far more beautiful and grander than I expected…and I already expected so much. And the food… I definitely ate my carbs that night.”
He tried to pull at my heartstrings, but I refused to let him.
“You’re still angry with me.”
“Did you expect me to forget everything in a couple weeks?” I turned to look at him head on.
“No,” he said calmly. “But I hoped you would realize how sorry I am. You would realize that I’ve changed—for good. I’ve made amends with your husband, not just for you, but because I’ve grown to respect him. If I could choose any man in the world for you, I would choose him.”
My arms crossed over my chest because a draft had filled the room after Axel stepped out. It took a minute for it to reach me, but when it did, the bumps formed.
“You’re my entire life,” he said, his eyes filling with emotion, his voice matching it. “And now that I don’t have you…it hurts everyday. I should have let Axel take the business and opened that restaurant with you. I should have taken you on a trip to Paris so we could visit all the bakeries you like. Instead of breaking necks and doing backdoor deals, I should have spent my time with you. I should have shielded you from this life rather than tried to groom you for it. If you can never forgive me for what I’ve done, I understand that. But could you please accept this is who I am now…and give me another chance.”
“I—I feel like I don’t know you. Everything we had before was a lie. How can I trust anything you say?”
His eyes flinched in pain before he retreated and looked away.
“Lies after lies…after lies.”
“That’s not who I am anymore?—”
“Then I’m meeting you for the first time,” I snapped. “I’ve never really known you.”
“I may have lied about things to manipulate events, but I’ve never lied about my love for you. All of that was real. You know that.”
I looked down at my hands again.
“Sweetheart…please.”
“I’m glad Axel has started a new relationship with his parents. I’m grateful that you gave that to him, and I appreciate everything it took to make it happen. But I’m not sure if that’s right for us.”
My father inhaled a deep and painful breath, the kind that nearly made him choke, like he sucked on his cigar too hard and directed the smoke into his sinuses instead of his mouth. Asheen moved over the surface of his eyes, and instead of being the strong man he always displayed, he succumbed to quiet tears.
He bowed his head, doing the best he could to hide them.
It killed me to see him like this. It hurt so much that I couldn’t tolerate it anymore. I left the couch and moved around the opposite way, avoiding his stare as much as possible until my back was to him. Then I walked out the double doors and joined Axel on the wet pavement.
He looked at me, and with just a single glance, he figured out what had happened. “I hope you change your mind.”
I lay in bed beside him, waiting for him to speak his thoughts on what had happened with my father. It’d been a quiet drive home, the air heavy with tension, and when we got into the bedroom, it became worse.
Now we were in bed, lights off, lying together in the dark.
