The next day, I went to meet Ashton for lunch. I hadn’t seen him in days, and frankly, a part of me was worried about how he was doing. Ten years of marriage, living with him as his wife, had made it my second nature to wonder about him. I supposed we both were going through the motions of letting each other go.

Whatever it was my father had said to him, it had done its job. I guessed there was one thing my father had done right. Apart from that, however, I was still cross about his meddling with Reiss and making his future grandchild being a bastard an excuse to save face because, if word got out that I was carrying someone else’s child, the gossipmongers would have a field day bashing our family. I cared less about their snotty indignant opinions than my mother; it meant the world to her. Someday soon, I would face him, and I wouldn’t hold back directing how livid I was at him making me believe Reiss was dead and all the secretive measures he had taken to ensure Reiss was kept away from me.

Arriving at the restaurant Ashton and I had agreed upon, I banished all my thoughts about my father and Reiss, hoping I could fully put all of my attention to Ashton and arranging what needed to be done for the divorce. Obviously there were assets in question.

I had enough from my trust fund to last the baby and me for a lifetime since I had paid heed when the financial advisor had suggested I reinvest the money that I had inherited from my grandparents. Thanks to his brilliantly sound advice, the reinvested money generated monthly dividends to support me.

Apart from taking my own money with me, Ashton could have the rest. Besides, it was mainly his money that had bought most of the assets we had together; thus, it made perfect sense for him to keep them all.

When I informed the hostess that I was meeting someone, she kindly took my name and informed me Ashton was already here and waiting.

“Let me show you to your table,” she offered, ready to lead me.

“Thank you, but I think I can navigate my way,” I kindly declined her offer before I strode towards the dining area, scouting for the familiar face that made me feel wretched for breaking his trust and love. The things was, I wouldn’t have broken it if it weren’t for Reiss. He was the one, and I had no sense of control when it came to him. He was my kryptonite—my Achilles’s heel—a weakness. He was the Camilla Parker-Bowles of our marriage, and even though I felt remorse and shame, this wretchedness that wouldn’t ebb away until I was with Reiss couldn’t be ignored.

I had spent years and years daydreaming, wishing and hoping, thinking it could never be, because the man was dead. However, all of those fancies had been brought forward the moment I had found him again, making it impossible, not to mention how unbearable it would be, to walk away from my fate. Any person who chose to walk away from what they were destined to live would forever be doomed. The damnation didn’t come right away, though. It trickled slowly in as it softly drained you out, taking your happiness and hope until any sort of positivity you had in your soon ebbed away, just like a receding tide. You’d be the fish, thrashing and spattering, wondering how to survive without water. With nothing to rescue you, you’d lie on the wet sand, staring, unable to breathe, hoping something could save you from dying. Yet nothing would come to rescue you, and therefore, you would wait … and wait … breathing as much as you could, though not really living. You stayed that way, hopelessly paralyzed as you watched the time pass you by, waiting for the moment your suffering would end.

That had been me not too long ago because I had made an unmistakable error and denied my fate what it was destined to have. Second chances didn’t come often, and when you were granted the opportunity, no one in their right mind would even think twice before they embraced it. This was me, embracing it even though I had no clue if I was doing the right thing or not. My heart was telling me that it was, yet my mind… Well, it was fickle.

However, it was of no matter since I knew the consequences of what one could go through after paying heed to their mind. I was trusting my heart and its instincts, knowing that, deep down, this was the right thing—the best thing—to do.

Spotting Ashton’s table, I made my way towards him. Halfway through, I saw him stand up, his face breaking into a smile with his arms wide open, ready to give me a big hug.

“Ava,” he said the second his arms closed around me. One word, yet so much emotion was invested in it.

For a while, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, memorizing Ashton’s smell and how it felt to be in his arms. My throat started constricting as I fought back the tears. Parting from him was going to be hard—I knew that—but going through the motions was simply twice as hard. He was a good man and a great husband who made sure I would want for nothing. But we weren’t working out any longer, and I must make things right again by setting him free as I should’ve done a decade ago. I had been a coward, though, miserable with my life and the colossal mistake I had made by throwing Reiss away. I had hidden behind my pain and hoped that Ashton could cure me of everything I had been going through. He had been my Band-Aid, the man who’d tried to give me everything. It was tragic to go through letting go, especially breaking a unity such as marriage. However, it was time—high time—to set us free.

Slowly stepping away from his hold, I kissed him on the lips before sliding in the booth opposite to him. “I hope I didn’t make you wait long. My sleeping pattern’s been unpleasant. One night, I’ll sleep all the way through, but the next I’ll be up feeling nauseous at all hours.” He gave me a smile yet said nothing else.

“How are you? Well, I hope.” I was gently asking him the question I dreaded to voice since he obviously was devastated and not doing well.

“I’m shattered, as expected.” He pressed his lips together, his eyes cast low. “But, of course, you know that.”

“I do,” I sighed, knowing just how much he was going through a rough period at the moment. “I take it that you’ve seen Father.”

“Yes. Yes, I have been speaking to him,” he replied right as the waiter appeared and greeted us with such a bright demeanor it somehow lightened the ambiance around the table. Once the waiter had left, his serious manner resurfaced. “Your father has a team of lawyers who could possibly expedite everything.”

He cleared his throat, looking torn. “Ava, you know I don’t want a divorce, and at first, I refused to give you one. Even now, I still reject the idea of it … but it seems that your life has shifted at such a speedy rate that I have no means of knowing how to get you back, let alone catching up to you. It’s a given that your betrayal gutted me beyond repair, but I believed that marriage is about working together through the highs and lows.

“Even after you confided that you are pregnant, even through the anguish, I optimistically thought that maybe your betrayal had to be done to receive a miracle. I felt it was a sacrifice before we could experience the joys of what parenthood might bring. We’ve known each other all our lives, and the thought of living a life without you makes me quite ill. I’m willing to risk defying your father to have you back in my life. I love you. You’re my wife, and you’re asking me to do the impossible.”

This was shattering me to pieces, yet I knew I couldn’t backtrack, or I would be risking far more than what I bargained for. I knew this process would be almost unbearable to go through, but I also knew, sooner or later, this would pass. However, listening to him speak with a pained voice made my resolve fracture a bit.

“Ash, saying sorry doesn’t account for all the hurt I’m putting you through right now. I could say all the right things to apologize for my rotten actions and own selfishness, but I know nothing can ease the ache that’s growing inside your heart. You must understand that I’m not only doing this because I’m pregnant. You’ve known all along how much he meant to me, and I know, deep down, that was one of the reasons behind your decision to hide the truth from me.

“In the first half of our marriage, how many tortured nights did I wake from a nightmare, crying uncontrollably and completely distraught because of wall the guilt and regret in my heart was weighing heavily on me to a point where it was becoming too hard for me to go on? You knew that, if I ever found out that he wasn’t dead, I’d scour the entire earth until I found him.” He didn’t have to say anything to confirm my suspicions. His face said it all. He, too, was a victim of his own selfishness.

“I hate myself for hurting you this way, but I’d never forgive myself if I walked away from him again. Even now, I doubt he has forgiven me for what I’ve done, for what my parents have cost him, but I’m willing to take a chance and risk it all because I would rather spend a lifetime trying to make-up for what I have done than spend a lifetime loathing myself for not doing as such.”

“I’ve always known I couldn’t compete with him. That’s why it was easy for me to keep what your father had committed, because I was guilty of wanting you for myself.”

His admission wasn’t something I hadn’t already suspected. However, it made it clearer to me that I was doing the right thing for the both of us. During all those wasted years, I could’ve been so happy. The sad thought made me even more somber.

“I could say I’m sorry, too—for keeping the truth from you—but I cannot.” His face was grim, yet it seemed it was finally dawning on him that he and I could no longer be together.

“We own several homes in America and here, money and all the other assets we have together … We have to discuss these details.” Yeah, he was definitely coming to terms with it. It was a relief, true, but at the same time, I felt wretched inside.

Focusing on him, I shook my head, not wanting anything from him. “All I want is to keep my own financial investments. As for the rest, it was all you, Ash. I’m not so selfish to even consider that I’m entitled to your hard-earned money because I married you.”

I didn’t understand women who sued their husbands for money and assets just because they had tied the knot. Working to earn a living was difficult enough, making sure you were investing your hard-earned cash into something more profitable was even more rigorous. I couldn’t say I had done that myself, but I had seen how Ashton had slaved himself to become successful. Even though he had gone through an affluent upbringing, he had been quite determined to make it to the top without the help of his parents’ money.

It was a brave thing to do, most especially in our kind of circle since most children wouldn’t bat an eyelash at taking money, because it was their right to have it as the future heirs.

I was lucky enough that I didn’t spend my grandparents’ trust fund by splurging on fancy vehicles, luxurious vacations, and expensive shopping trips to Harrods—okay, the shopping trip I was guilty of since I had little to no restraint when it came to small luxuries. As for the rest, I had taken a chance of reinvesting it, and the risk had paid off. Had I not, I would be joining the rest of those privileged spawns who held out for allowances until Mummy and Daddy decided to give them ultimatums to work for the family business or find someone wealthier or more powerful to marry.

My mother would’ve been proud if I had chosen that path. That way she’d have more power and control over me, which would make her feel more like a mother since she believed she could make decisions for me, truly thinking that her own reasoning would be for my interest. The blatant truth was, I didn’t really think she understood how to be a parent; therefore she’d throw little hissy fits and tantrums when she couldn’t get her way. That way, she’d appear as if she was trying to be a good, responsible mother. It was sad really, if one came to think of it. At least I could use that experience and hope to be wise enough not to repeat that kind of mistreatment to my own child.

People only taught their own kids what they had learned and seen from their parents, and I would rather fully commit myself to be a full-time mum and ensure my child learned how to respect others. Respect could go a long way for the wise. Negligence and ignorance, on the other hand, was the reflection of our own misguided beliefs and lacking the sense to take a step back and reassess our lives. Denial could be anyone’s downfall, which could only lead to a string of problems and failures. Then the process would repeat itself from one generation to the next.

My lunch with Ashton turned into more of a somber affair. Good-byes, regrets, and what might’ve beens became one of the topics, mostly done by him. He even took the liberty of apologizing for the fact that he had started to slowly withdraw from me after his workload doubled. He reasoned that it was due to pressure and high expectations from the company, which had led him to think that pushing the worries away about my frustrations on not successfully conceiving could be addressed later on, when things weren’t so hectic at work.

For almost two years, I had sought my own comfort and council, believing I would get better, that this bitterness inside my heart would someday disappear. I refused myself to face the bare truth—that most of the bitterness was caused by my husband’s lack of being there when I needed to simply talk. When I cried, he wasn’t there to comfort me and tell me that I wasn’t a freak of nature because I couldn’t have a baby. He only came home every night, seeing me on a daily basis. He slept in the same bed, the same room, but never once did he open up and ask me how I was feeling, how I was dealing with nature’s blatant rejection of me, or how the loneliness of being a society wife was leaving me hollow and empty inside. We both had endless regrets and well wishes for one another.

I thought it was our way of rehashing what we once had, walking through the years we had lived together, before we reached the end of the line. It was a sad, blasted day. However, even though my heart weighed heavily right then, the next day, it would start slowly recovering. Nothing lasted forever, and it was vital that I never took anything for granted from here on out.

Ashton promised to see me before he left for New York, which would happen around the time when everything was mostly settled and when the lawyers could give him the clear that they didn’t need any more information from him.

As much as I despised my father, I had to give where credit where it was due. The man had the uncanny knack of making things happen. Maybe, one day, I could thank him for it.

Hours later, I was back in the hotel, huddled on the sofa as I watched a movie. It was wrong to anticipate Reiss tonight, because I didn’t want to start a habit that would be hard to break. However, I ended up hoping he’d show up. After he left the previous night to meet his mother, I hadn’t heard from him. No call or text message. I mean, I knew he was a busy man with a hectic schedule, yet there was a part of me that argued that, after what had happened the night before, it would be reason enough for him to come back.

Although, as the hours passed, hitting past midnight, my hope trickled away.

And, just like that, my heart shattered once more.