“Don’t fucking Cora me. Has all of it been a lie?” I guess we’re having the conversation here after all.
He bows his head, exhaling, and when he looks atme I step back, because the agony in his expression hurts me. And that pisses me off, because he has no right to make me feel sorry for him.
“Cora, I love you. I care about you. You must know that’s true.”
“I also thought just a few minutes ago that your father is a manipulative man who refused to help you unless you marry.”
“You never believed I wanted you for you. You didn’t allow yourself to even try to be fully in… because I have more money, because I’m younger, because I fucked other women before you. So many fucking objections. There was always something you would hold against me. Never have you tried to see me for me. And now you finally have a real excuse to bolt.”
He lets out a snort, thick with bitterness—but beneath it, there is something fractured. Hurt. Desperation. Misery.
His words slice through me like the sharpest knife. Like a double-edged sword. Because he is right. I tried so desperately to talk myself out of this relationship. I didn’t allow myself to get to know the real him.
But that doesn’t give him the right to accuse me of forcing him to lie.
“You’re too entitled to takenoas an answer. How dare you blame me?”
He shakes his head. “The lie is on me, but I didn’tsee any other option at the time. That night you attended the gala with me… you bewitched me. And I couldn’t let go. I tried; believe me, I fucking tried.”
“So you tricked me,” I sneer.
In my periphery, I notice heads turning.
“I fucked up,” he grits out. “People fuck up, but people in relationships talk about shit, make amends, and forgive.”
“Since when are you an expert on relationships? Making amends? I haven’t heard you saying sorry.”
He stares at me for a moment, the anger evaporating. I can almost see the fight leaving him, flying out on its dark cloud as some strange sadness sets in his features. I can almost imagine his internal struggle to reconcile deeply ingrained beliefs with the current need.
It’s like he is tasting the words in his mind, but they are so foreign, his brain is rejecting them. “You know I don’t believe in that.”
My heart breaks. Not only for me. Only for us.
But for the little boy who grew up in a world where apologizing is not acceptable. “Saying sorry doesn’t make you weak, Xander. It makes you stronger.”
He hangs his head and then looks back at me, pleading. It’s the strangest thing, seeing a man larger than life so broken. So vulnerable.
“I love you, Cora. The man I used to be when wemet was a short pit stop in my life while I waited for you. Can we please move past this?”
“I don’t know.” Another piece of my heart shatters.
“What can I do?”
And this is the reason I’m not yet at the airport.What can I do?That question is his apology.
He can’t say the words, but he showed me time and again with his actions. Sometimes his actions are completely outlandish, but he always tries to do things for me. To care for me.
And unlike at the beginning, when he would give me a random island, he tunes in now, he tries, he asks for guidance.
That breaks my heart further, because I don’t want to be in this situation, but I don’t know how to get out of it.
“I don’t know.” I let out a loaded breath.
“I wanted you so badly that I lied. But the underlying sentiment behind my abhorrent action should count for something.”
On the opposite side of the value scale, across from his genuine loving care, sits his entitlement. And that, too, is something that is a part of his personality.
Something I admire at times because I lack in that area. But right now, it fucking pisses me off.
