Page 58 of Owned By a Billionaire

It is early, so my writer’s brain hasn’t quite woken, thus I will make this brief.

I leave with a heavy heart. It’s like I am about to remove a vital organ and enter the world as half a man.

In you, I found a soulmate.

I never thought that would happen to someone like me: an impetuous man drawn into a world of poetry while dodging the real world.

At first, your luxurious lifestyle dazzled me. But all that faded into insignificance the moment I kissed you.

Together, our souls danced among the stars. Before I met you, I thought this kind of love only existed in fiction.

I wanted to spend my life with you.

I wanted to give you everything of myself.

But I couldn’t, because you see, I am not the man you thought I was.

It was a lie.

I am a lie.

What is not a lie is that I love you with every cell in my body. Please believe that.

I leave as a man who has tasted the elixir of perfection only to be doomed to a life of memories.

Memories will never allow me to taste your lips again or feel your warm, soft body in my arms as our hearts beat as one. Memories will never listen to me speaking passionately about some book I’ve read. Memories will never walk with me and hold my hand while marveling at the moody ocean’s ever-changing color.

I carry you with me wherever my next journey takes me.

You will always be in my heart, soul, and spirit.

Cary.

Dazed and unable to process any clear line of thought, I stared down at the handwritten note now stained with my tears.

I paced around that room that had seen it all—Harry admitting to falling in love with a man, Bethany revealing that she was my long-lost daughter, and my sons announcing their marriages to women who weren’t of our class.

Only without my mask, I wasn’t part of that class, either, nor was the man I’d fallen head over heels in love with. It was all just unbridled bigotry, entangling me in a network of contradictions.

Yes, that room had seen it all. But I’d always remained controlled. All seething unrest below the surface but outwardly just a stiff upper lip, showing nothing. Always in control.

I paced and paced. An eruption inside me brewed away like acid spitting into the air from a cauldron of bubbling emotion. That cool, calm, collected version of me now charred beyond recognition.

A vase ended up in my hand, and I smashed it. Water streaked the butter-yellow walls like the tears on my face. The lilies collapsed in a sad heap on the floor.

I went to the figurines Harry had so admired and smashed one at a time. That still didn’t appease this violent need to vent, so I punched the wall. Stinging pain traveled up to my wrist, supplanting the suffocating squeeze in my heart.

Manon came running in. “Grandmother!”

I turned, and my mouth fell open, but only heavy breaths tumbled out.

Snapping out of my breakdown, I collapsed on the sofa, covered my face, and cried like a baby. Tears poured out of me like never before.

Torrents of poison rushed out of me as my former life flashed before my eyes.

I saw my foster father’s drunken eyes awash in criminal desire then Reynard Crisp making promises for a priceless sum beyond even a billionaire’s checkbook.

What is the price of a soul?

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