Chapter Fourteen
Not for one moment did he doubt that he’d done the right thing.
His proposal to Rosemary had been a panicked knee-jerk reaction to her pregnancy and knowing he needed to be a part of his baby’s life.
He hadn’t really considered any alternative.
He hadn’t, for even a moment, given any credence to her suggestion that they could make it work without being married.
But they would.
They had to.
He’d proposed and truly believed they’d be able to keep their marriage simple. Her own experience with marriage, having witnessed her parents’ arguments, had made him overly confident. Stupidly so.
And as a result, she’d become collateral damage. The last thing he wanted.
He stayed away from his mother’s home for a week. He tried to call Rosemary each day, but she never answered. Despite the fact she’d texted him afterwards, with the same few words, ‘I’m fine. The baby’s fine’, he still felt a strange need to hear her voice.
He’d become used to her.
The apartment had become used to her. The whole space had changed, and in myriad ways, everywhere he looked, were little fragments of her. From the artwork to the furnishings to the potted plants.
Two weeks after what would have been their wedding day, he went to his mother’s house.
He’d been putting it off to give Rosemary time to get over what had happened, but fourteen days had seemed to stretch like an eternity, to the point where Aristotle could wait no longer. He needed to see her. To be sure she was okay. Despite what she said in her messages, it wasn’t enough.
‘Oh, darling!’ Melina met him at the door, surprise obvious on her features. And with good reason. He rarely came home, yet he’d been multiple times in the last six weeks, because of Rosemary.
‘Hello,’ he greeted her with a kiss on her cheek.
‘Come in, come in. I didn’t know you were going to visit. Glen and I were about to go for a walk, but we can delay that. Would you like a coffee?’
He shook his head. ‘I came to see Rosemary.’
Melina glanced over her shoulder, at Glen’s arrival into the foyer.
He looked at Aristotle with a tightening in his features, a reaction of displeasure that he quickly smothered—and which made Aristotle feel strangely ashamed.
Glen was judging Aristotle as the man who’d hurt his daughter, but the judgement was unnecessary.
Aristotle judged himself plenty harshly enough.
He knew what he’d done. He’d spent the last two weeks unable to get the image of Rosemary on what should have been their wedding day out of his mind.
Her beautiful face, hair, that dress. Her vulnerability.
Her willingness to marry him, even though she knew it would hurt her. Her courage and strength.
His eyes met Glen’s—he was not a man to shy away from criticism—but his throat felt oddly sore, as though he’d swallowed razorblades.
‘Oh, darling,’ his mother said, putting a hand on his forearm. ‘I’ll check with her, but…’
He swallowed quickly.
‘She doesn’t want to see anyone,’ Glen’s voice finished the sentence.
‘Nonetheless, I shall go and ask. Come in, wait inside.’
‘That’s fine,’ he said, pressing his hands into his jeans.
He’d never felt more like an outsider. Strangely though, where as a younger man he’d felt jealous of the way his mother had taken Rosemary under her wing, and so clearly adored her, he now felt only glad.
Rosemary and his mother deserved each other—they each deserved the love that he could no longer give.
He glanced away, hating the rush of emotions that was taking him hostage.
His mother disappeared inside, leaving Glen standing a few metres away in the foyer, and Aristotle on the doorstep.
At first, neither spoke.
Then, slowly, Aristotle turned to face the older man, expelling a long, deep breath. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt her.’
Glen just looked back at him, his eyes—so like Rosemary’s—scraped over him, from his head to his toes and back again. Finally, he nodded once. ‘I’m sure you didn’t.’
It was more than Aristotle deserved, and somehow made him feel even worse. ‘How is she?’ His voice cracked slightly so he cleared his throat.
‘Hard to say. She doesn’t leave her room.’
Aristotle’s gut dropped to his feet. ‘What?’
Glen nodded once, to confirm what he’d already told Aristotle.
‘It’s been two weeks.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say. She’s devastated. But she’ll get over it, eventually.’
His stomach rolled painfully. He felt an uncharacteristic need for support. To press his back to the rendered stone walls of the house, to hold himself upright. Two weeks, in her small bedroom.
Now he saw Rosemary as she’d been those last few weeks together, revelling in her impending motherhood, their upcoming wedding, in the exploration of her body each night with him, in the meals they’d shared, the stories she’d told about her various digs, her beautiful smile and laugh.
She was so gloriously unique, and he’d broken her.
What the hell was he doing here? Coming to the house as though he had any damned right to see her. As though he could assuage his conscience by seeing her and knowing that she was fine, when she clearly wasn’t.
As if to underscore that, his mother returned a moment later and shook her head once, her eyes softened with sympathy. ‘She’d prefer to be left alone for now, my love.’
Of course she would.
‘Yes, I see,’ he said, taking a step backwards, shoving a hand into his pocket.
His heart dropping to his toes. ‘Okay.’ But he just stood there, staring straight ahead, processing this, missing Rosemary like hell.
Craving just one glimpse of her, one small sighting.
To hear her voice, even. ‘Would you ask her to call me?’
His mother opened her mouth to say something, but then nodded. ‘I’ll ask her for you,’ she said, without promising any success.
She didn’t call him. Aristotle became obsessed with his phone, keeping it with him for the next two days, wherever he went. He wouldn’t so much as shower without having the damned thing in sight. The most he received was the same pro forma text, telling him she was fine, the baby was fine.
A week after going to his mother’s house, he’d reached his limit. He texted back:
You are not fine. Have you left your room yet?
She didn’t reply. The razorblades feeling in his throat was back. So too the sense that his stomach had been hollowed out completely and then removed. He was both exhausted and restless, but his focus was shot to pieces. Work was barely worth contemplating.
If only he knew that she was okay, he’d move on.
If he could just imagine her happy, going on with her life, exploring the mansion, walking freely over the estate as she had as a teenager, if he could only know that he hadn’t made her so miserable…
then he’d feel better. He’d feel normal, and he could start to put all this behind him.
A week after that, and he was at the end of his patience. This was getting ridiculous. This time, he texted his mother before leaving his place.
I’m coming over. Please tell Rosemary I expect to see her.
He didn’t check his phone again, but when he arrived, he saw his mother had responded:
I don’t think she’s ready.
He ignored it. He was done being frozen out. He needed to see her like he needed to breathe.
He strode to the door and pressed the buzzer, waiting impatiently.
A housemaid opened it inwards. He swept inside without waiting for an invitation, and stalked towards the stairs.
He knew which room she was in, and if she wasn’t going to speak to him, or tell him anything more about herself, he’d damn well go to her and… and…what?
He didn’t know.
But not seeing her was killing him. Not talking to her was a form of torture.
At the door to her room, he lifted his fist and knocked swiftly. ‘It’s me, Rosemary.’
He heard a shuffle, a movement of a chair, perhaps, against the floorboards.
‘I’m coming in.’
‘No.’
Her denial came a second too late; he’d already pushed in the door and felt the bottom fall out of his world for the second time in a month.
If he had been asked, a moment earlier, what Rosemary looked like, he would have been able to describe her in minute detail, and yet he looked at her now almost as if for the first time.
She was so beautiful, so incredibly striking, but there was such a hollowness to her that he couldn’t see her without feeling the gravity of what he’d done.
The hurt he’d wrought. He swore as he entered the room, striding across to her but stopping a foot away, when she flinched visibly and took a step backwards.
‘Please, don’t be here,’ she said, shaking her head, her eyes huge in her face.
Her face that looked…gaunt. Pale. His eyes swept over her more critically, studying her for changes, noting that while her stomach was rounder, the rest of her looked…
slimmer. Was that possible in pregnancy? His gut swooped.
‘You need to come home,’ he said, crossing his arms over his chest, his heart thumping hard.
‘I have no home.’ Tears filled her eyes; she blinked them away. ‘Please, Aristotle, leave. I’m not ready for this. I can’t do it.’
‘Fine. We don’t have to do anything. But I cannot leave you here, if this is what happens.’
‘What? If what happens?’
‘You’re losing weight. You look miserable.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Stop saying that!’ he shouted, but she shook her head, anger and frustration evident in her beautiful face.
‘I’m not fine, okay? I’m not fine. But I will be. I just need time.’
‘I’ll give you time, but under my roof, where I can make sure you’re eating, and doing things that make you happy. Not here.’
‘Your mother is taking care of me.’
‘You are literally fading away.’
‘I’m really not.’
‘Oh, Aristotle—’ his mother appeared at the door, her eyes sweeping from her son to Rosemary ‘—I didn’t realise you’d arrived. I thought I told you it wasn’t a good time…’
He glared at her. ‘Damn it, you should have told me this was happening to her.’