Chapter 11
Celina asked to see me without Gareth.
I agreed.
Not aboard the yacht.
Neutral estate house.
She arrived without her engagement ring.
Good.
She placed it on the table anyway.
“I know.”
I looked at it.
Then at her.
“What do you know?”
“That there’s no wedding.”
Correct.
She cried.
I did not rescue her.
Then she spoke about Milo.
Not excuses.
At first.
She admitted tearing drawings before.
Two.
Not only this one.
She admitted playing four recordings personally.
Gareth played the others.
She told Milo Olivia left because he was difficult.
She told him Ruth would get tired too.
Each sentence chosen to reduce his belief that love stayed.
“Why?”
Celina covered her face.
“Because Leonard said if Milo remained emotionally attached to you, you would never let Grayhaven take him.”
“So you broke the attachment.”
“I tried.”
“You terrified him.”
“Yes.”
That honesty mattered.
Not enough.
Then came her real motive.
She had spent two years in a house where every room still contained Olivia.
Photographs.
Stories.
Children who called their dead mother beautiful.
A man who loved his late wife without pretending otherwise.
Celina felt second.
Then Leonard found that wound.
“He told me I would never really be your wife while Milo remained the center of Olivia’s memory.”
Cruel.
Effective.
“He said if Milo went to Grayhaven, we could start our own family.”
I stared.
“And you believed removing my child would make room for yours.”
She cried harder.
“Yes.”
There.
Not politics alone.
Jealousy.
Grief she did not own.
Ambition wrapped around insecurity.
I asked:
“Did you ever love Milo?”
“Yes.”
I believed her.
That made the answer more disturbing.
Love without respect for another person’s bonds becomes possession.
She whispered:
“I thought he’d forgive me later.”
Of course.
People always spend someone else’s future forgiveness in advance.
I pushed the ring back toward her.
“Keep it.”
She looked up.
“Why?”
“It belongs to the version of us that existed.”
May you like
Then:
“That version is over.”
