Page 41 of Broken Bonds

I definitely don’t trust this girl, but this is the game we are going to play. “Thanks, Hadley.”

“Did you bring what I asked for?” Lionel intervenes, cutting the tension that certainly hangs over us.

She pulls out some documents from her briefcase and hands them to Lionel, who drops onto one of the stools in front of the breakfast bar and sifts through them without giving the girl a second glance.

No, there is no interest there, at least not on his part.

“You want me to take the rest to the office, sir?” Is it hope? Gah, jealousy is bitter on my tongue.

“Put the contracts here on the counter, Hadley. My wife and I are going to have lunch soon.”

Again, some kind of emotion flashes through her eyes.

“My favorite is still roast beef,” I say to Lionel as we eat the sandwiches I’ve made for lunch, accompanied by tomato soup.

“Lamb is so much better, it’s not as stringy and it’s not as boring as chicken.”

I roll my eyes, these silly discussions make me smile. And they also mark many others that Lionel intends to win. Like the fact that the computer is here and so is the phone.

“It’s the same number,” he tells me as soon as he takes the gadget out of its box, while I try to study a little more. I must hire an online tutor, doing it by myself is turning out to be more difficult than I thought.

“I have to work for a while,” he informs me. “Do you think you can manage on your own for a few more hours?”

I roll my eyes again, I’m not a needy girl who craves his attention twenty-four hours a day, and, although I don’t want to admit it, the computer will help me organize my inventory and manage my orders.

“Don’t blame me if you come back to find the house on fire,” I reply playfully.

Lionel kisses me on the lips and then on my wrist before returning to his cave, leaving me in the kitchen, listening in silence to the echo of my heartbeat.

After downloading my files from the cloud to the phone, my contacts and all those things, I stand looking at everything I’ve been saving, wondering what I should delete. Starting with a few photos, those are memories that I prefer not to have, and as Lionel said, we are writing a new story. One of the images is especially painful. After one of our fights, Lionel left the house furious. He returned later that night with a bouquet from the supermarket. I was on the sofa trying to distract myself with a movie when he entered the house asking for forgiveness. He gave me the flowers and insisted that the reconciliation be properly recorded. And obviously posted on Instagram, too.

I keep checking all my files when a little sound notifies me that I’ve got a new message.

Sender: Lionel Kral. A lump forms in my throat when I see the time the message was sent, around the time we were in the closet. Not to mention that the words that appear there take my breath away.

No, not in a good way.

You should remember you are mine.

Those words make my mind travel to Carrollton, more than that, to one of our weekends at home.

Fuck.

Chapter 14

Two and a half months before

“This all looks delicious, Stella,” he praised me as soon as he saw the dinner trays that I put in front of him at the table in our small, cheerful yellow kitchen. The house was tiny and old, but it was cozy and pristine after my mother, Valerie, and I spent a weekend cleaning every nook and cranny.

When he smiled, my husband was the most handsome man to ever walk the face of the Earth. I wished he would do it more often, but the last few days he hasn’t come back in a good mood. “Well, you went out of your way to welcome me home.”

A special dinner. That’s what I thought when carefully choosing the vegetables in the store. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, right?

The time had come to share my dreams. I was sure that Lionel would support me in my decision. He was my husband, the man I had decided to share my entire life with. I supported his dreams, so I hoped he would do the same with mine.

We were making great efforts to stay afloat, moving into the rental—Lionel said that every newly married couple needed their own space, and I agreed—my expenses increased. Lionel was saving every penny from his salary to buy the old vineyard by the river as soon as possible.

A dream that perfectly complemented mine, since my idea consisted of expanding the small beekeeping company I inherited from my father. Bees and vineyards mix well. I did some research and it turns out that to check the plants’ condition, some winemakers plant rose bushes at the beginning of each vine row, which would provide food for my bees. Between the hive in my mother’s backyard, which produces clove honey, and the one in the vineyard, I would have a good selection.

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