Dare To Love Again

It was only a short half an hour drive away but felt like a lifetime. Calen was waiting outside the Grecian palatial mansion for us when I pulled down the long winding driveway. He didn’t even look in my direction as his hand reached for the backdoor where our son sat bundled into the car seat.

“Open it!” His words came to me through the protection of the glass. My hand trembled and I felt like I was going to throw up any second when I reached for the button to open the childproof door. I remember the way he’d snatched the door open. The way he’d stood there looking down at the evidence of my perfidy only then realizing just what I’d done.

I watched as he covered his mouth with his fingers just above his top lip. Something I’d seen him do a hundred times when he was trying to calm himself down. He still hadn’t acknowledged my presence as he stared down at our son who had fallen asleep on the ride but was now coming awake. I felt my womb contract as I watched him watch our baby for the first time.

I knew very well what he was seeing. The sun-blonde hair full of wild curls, and those blue-blue eyes that mirrored his to perfection. His eyes flicked to me in cold anger for just a brief second but I felt that look in my soul. It hurt, oh how it hurt. Thankfully it didn’t last long as he returned his gaze to our son who’s never met a stranger and was already smiling up at this new person.

Calen squatted inside the car door and looked at his son with something approaching awe on his face. “Hello little one, I’m your daddy.” His voice seemed to choke on the last word and I felt ashamed of what I’d done, what I’d robbed him of.

Then he got to his feet and unsnapped the straps holding my son in his protective seat and I jumped out of the car on the other side. “Please…” My voice was a tinny whisper but he heard. The look he threw me over the top of the car which I was clinging to since I could no longer feel my feet should be labeled a lethal weapon.

“I’m taking my son inside, you can come if you want it’s up to you.” My eyes fell to the tic in his jaw and I got to see what I’d not seen the day I walked out on him without a word. Hate, murderous barely concealed hate. I barely held back the moan of despair as I followed them inside.GiselleHe’d changed everything. I felt the painful jolt in my heart as the severity of what that meant sank in. This is the home he’d bought for me, just for me. Though we shared it, it was everything I ever wanted in a home, every little girl’s dream, mine anyways, down to the turrets and miles and miles of glass that had always reflected the afternoon sun.

The house had been built as a replica of an old, sixteenth-century Italian castle. My own real-life palace on a hill that overlooked a beautiful valley down below. It was surrounded by nature’s beauty outside and full of grandeur and elegance inside.

I’d been like a kid at Disney Land when I first saw this place, and when he gave me the keys and a black card with no limit and orders to fit the place out as I’d like, I’d almost died on the spot. It was like everything I’d ever wished for handed to me at once. As if he’d reached into my heart and mind and found the best of what I kept hidden there and given it to me without question.

I didn’t want the help of a professional. I’d known almost all my life what period pieces I’d want in my home, what fixtures for the bathrooms etc. The fact that my new home was almost three times the size of my imaginary abode didn’t throw me off one bit. In fact, I accepted the new challenge with vigor and jumped right in while my new husband went back to work.

I remember the many hours spent choosing just the right colors and materials, the best furnishings even down to the fourteen-carat gold cutlery that had been imported from Italy as a surprise for me. There wasn’t one spot in the whole place that hadn’t felt my touch hadn’t been taken over by us because as much as the place looked like a showpiece, I wanted it to feel like our home, and it had.

Now it looked as if he’d gutted it and replaced everything that held any semblance of my touch, any reminders of me ever having been here. We reached the great room where Calen walked over to a chair near the unlit fireplace. He glanced my way once before turning his head to look down at our son. If he noticed my distress, he didn’t mention it and didn’t seem to care.