Page 117 of My Destiny
As much as it pains me, I have no choice but to join him. I need to get used to having this man around. He’s not going away.
John closes the paper, folding it in half the moment I’m seated, and gives me his full attention. “Do you have any plans today?” he asks, and I hate the hopeful look I see in his eyes.
“Just work.”
“Oh, I was hoping we’d have a chance to spend some time together.”
“I’ll be gone most of the day,” I say, trying my best to remain polite. My eyes move down to the table top, and I’m surprised when John reaches across the table to place his hand on top of mine.
“Sweetheart.” My gaze darts back to him, and although I want to pull my hand out from underneath his, I don’t. “I know this isn’t easy for you, but if you could find it in your heart, I’d like the chance to explain.”
“Explain what, exactly?” I ask with a touch of attitude in my voice.That you’re a cheater, a liar, a baby killer?Those are just a few things I’d like to express.
“My marriage to Kathleen was purely one of convenience, you could say. We had a mutual admiration between us, but never love.”
“I don’t know why you’re telling me this.”
“In the hope you’ll understand things a little better.” Nothing he can say will make this okay. Even if it was a marriage of convenience, it was still a marriage. He didn’t just deceive my mother, he deceived his wife as well. That is inexcusable.
He lets out a long breath before continuing. “This is going to sound completely shallow, but our marriage was more of a business arrangement. I was young and very career driven when I met her. She pursued me, god only knows why, but she was relentless. Even back then she was a master manipulator, and stopped at nothing to get what she wanted.”
“You still married her though.”
“Only because I loved my job. Her brother was my boss, and she made me feel like I didn’t have a choice.” He pauses for a moment. “My life was quite miserable until I met your mother.” He sighs as he drifts off briefly, and I know he’s thinking about her. The look on his face has me fighting my own smile. “Please believe me when I say, I never planned on deceiving your mother, I fought my attraction for as long as I could.” Another smile explodes onto his face before he shakes his head. “That woman had the power to leave me breathless. She was a stunner, but it was her inner beauty that captivated me the most. I’d never met anyone like her.” I see Jill enter the room out of the corner of my eye. After placing my coffee on the table, she makes a hasty retreat. “Right from the very beginning, I was utterly mesmerised. That’s why I never mentioned my relationship with Kathleen—I was afraid she wouldn’t understand. It was wrong of me, and completely selfish on my part, but I didn’t want to lose her. The deeper I fell, the harder it became.” He pauses again before bowing his head. “I never knew a love so deep was possible, but I loved that woman with every fibre of my being.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Really?” Sarcasm lines my voice because the way he treated her in the end wasn’t love.
“Can I show you something?”
I shrug, because I can’t think of a single thing that he could show me that would make any of this okay.
Reaching under the table to the chair beside him, he produces the wooden box I saw him holding last night when he arrived. “I’ve held onto this box for twenty-seven years,” he says. “It was all I had left of her.” I sit up straighter in my chair as an uneasy feeling settles over me. I hold my breath as he removes the lid. The first thing he pulls out is a strip of photos, the kind from a photo booth. “These, apart from the one in my wallet, are the only images I have of her.” He’s grinning as he looks down at them, but I can’t miss the sadness in his eyes. It reminds me of how my mum looked whenever she spoke of him.
He passes the strip of four photos to me, and immediately a lump forms in my throat. My mum looks so happy. There’s a sparkle in her eyes, one I don’t remember ever seeing. “I miss her so much,” I whisper.
“I do too,” he says, covering my hand with his once more and giving it a gentle squeeze. Something about his response warms my heart. Is it a sense of comradery I’m feeling? Because up until this moment, I thought I was the only person who felt her loss. He lets go of my hand and reaches back into the box. “This is the watch she gave me for my birthday.” He passes it to me. “As you can see, I wore it to death.” I can see that. The band is broken, and the face has a crack across the centre. “I dropped it a few years ago, and it hasn’t worked since. I was going to get it fixed, but never did. Read the inscription she had put on the back.”
Turning it over, I see the engraving—I’ll love you till the end of time.Tears rise to my eyes as I read her words to him, bless her sweet heart.
“And I think she did,” I admit.
“Did what?” he asks.
“Loved you to the very end.”
“Not a day has passed that I haven’t regretted all the things I said to her—that I haven’t missed her and felt complete despair that I lost her.” He reaches into the box again and pulls out a pile of letters. “After she left, I was lost. I couldn’t function for weeks. I wrote to her often, begging for her forgiveness and pleading for her to come back to me. Even years later, I still continued to write.” I hear his voice crack as he speaks. “I never gave up hope that one day I’d get to see her again and make amends for all that I’d done. I guess that’s why I held on to them.” He shrugs his shoulders. “But maybe fate had me keep them for you, so you can see that everything I’m saying is genuine.” He places the letters back into the box, and pushes it towards me. “I want you to have these. I hope you can find it in your heart to read the letters one day. There’s a few in the bottom that your mother wrote to me when we were together. If nothing else, it will allow you to see that what we had was real, and we loved each other very much.” I see tears brimming in his eyes as he uses the table to help him stand. “I’ve missed out on twenty-six years of your life,” he says, as he tries hard to hold himself together. “I’d hate to lose another second of my time with you.”
With that, he turns and heads towards the stairs. I just sit there dumbfounded as a myriad of emotions run through me.
I’m putting the finishing touches on my makeup when Logan appears in the doorway of the bathroom. I’m almost ready—all I need to do is put my dress on. My hair is slicked back into a low bun since I didn’t have time to get it done professionally.
I watch him eye me from head to toe in the mirror. “Fuck, baby,” he says, closing the distance between us and rubbing himself against me from behind. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“Never.” I turn to face him. I’m dressed in skimpy black lace underwear.
His fingers dance over my hip bones, before his big strong hands cup my arse. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”
“If it’s anything like what you do to me, then yes.” I fist his tie in my hand as I speak.
