Chapter 10
That afternoon, she returned to the office for the last time.
She wore jeans, boots, and a thick-knit sweater the colour of ash. Her face was bare of makeup and her hair, a long dark braid down her back. She held a small box in her hands.
Margo moved to stop her at the door. "Mr. Albury’s busy."
"I'm not staying," Rune said in a voice that reduced Margo to a toddler throwing a tantrum. "I'm just here to say goodbye."
Margo narrowed her eyes but didn't move.
When Rune was finally allowed in after an hour, Dorian still made her wait for a full ten minutes before he looked up from whatever he was reading.
He also hadn’t turned the page in those ten minutes and if there was one thing Dorian was not, it was a slow reader.
She took the time to run her eyes over his broad shoulders and deceptively angelic head of blonde curls.
When he looked up, he stared at her attire with a flicker of disdain.
"This is a surprise," he drawled. "You look like you got lost in the countryside."
"I'm leaving," she said softly, as if he hadn’t spoken. "For good this time."
He arched a brow. "And you needed a costume for that?"
"No, Dorian. I’m here because there are things I need to say. And I am not leaving until you listen. I’m sure you can give me half an hour of your time."
A waiting silence reigned. Dorian used it like a weapon but Rune knew his ways.
She set the box on his desk. "I'm pregnant."
His stillness would have made her nervous if she didn't know what was coming. Then there it was, the laugh-low, dry and sharp enough to cut.
"Get rid of it."
"It's yours."
He scoffed. "Impossible. "
"I haven't been with anyone else."
"Then it's a miracle child," he said coldly. "And I still want it gone."
Rune picked up the box again. Her hands didn't shake, much to her surprise.
"I expected no less from you."
She turned to leave and then seemed to reconsider.
"No, I think you will need to suffer through the rest," she said before taking the seat again.
For the first time since she walked in, she seemed lost for words. Dorian cleared his throat, as if to move her along, but Rune seemed lost in a memory. She shook her head and looked out at the panoramic view outside.
When she spoke, Rune's voice wobbled for the first time.
"I have something to say."
He didn't look at her. "Make it quick."
She drew in a slow breath, bracing herself against the weight of the memory to come.
"When I was nine, my brother was dying. Owain.
He'd been fine, healthy, laughing, herding the sheep with the dogs and me one afternoon, and then the bruises came on his arms, his legs.
Purple marks that didn't fade. He started getting tired halfway across the yard, holding his ribs like something inside hurt. I thought he was just trying to get me to do his chores. Then there was the cough that didn’t go away.
I was angry because he kept me up all night.
My parents are farmers. We all thought it would go away. It didn't."
Her eyes glistened.
"We drove to the hospital in a storm because the village clinic didn't have a GP that day when he started sounding like he couldn't breathe.
The rain was so heavy. My mum could barely see the road.
He was in the hospital for a while. There were a lot of painful tests.
He joked about becoming Nana's pincushion.
They told us it was aplastic anemia. His bone marrow wasn't making blood cells.
Without a transplant, there was no hope. None."
Dorian still didn't turn, but she saw the way his shoulders stiffened.
"They tested all of us. None of us was a match. HLA typing or something of that sort. And then they found a match. They wouldn't tell us who, but my grandad knew a guy in the children's ward, and he found where you were."
Her voice thickened with emotion and tears.
"You donated. You were just a kid yourself, but you gave him the bone marrow.
It was hope for us. My grandfather took me to see you that day after you donated, when you were recovering from the giant bruise on your side.
He thought I was asleep in his arms, but I wasn't. I saw you lying there, pale as paper.
Your face was scrunched up with pain every time you moved.
He knelt beside you and held your hand. I remember your blonde curls shining in the light of the room.
You didn't let go for a while, even though you looked like every breath hurt. "
She swallowed. "And I was fascinated by this brave boy.
That day, after what you did for my brother ,you became a hero to me.
I started collecting bits of your life, newspaper clippings at first, and later things I found on the internet.
My hero worship turned into a crush. My crush into an unattainable love.
I even structured my degree in the hopes that someday.
.. And when you offered me a contract, when you offered me what I foolishly thought was a relationship, it was everything I'd ever wanted.
I thought... I thought it meant you saw me, finally.
I hoped that sex would become... something more.
What an utter idiot I was, innit? That contract should have been the first clue of what you were inside. Empty."
She blinked hard, her tears spilling unashamed.
"You gave me a safe word that I never used.
Not because I didn't need it sometimes, but because I was grateful just to be there with you. To be with the man who had saved my brother. With the man who was my everything. Sometimes, it was hard to look at your face, you were so beautiful to me. There wasn’t anything I wouldn't have done for you. "
Her voice broke again, then steadied. "But over time, my love.
.. it started to change. The shine wore off.
It got jaded. With every hit, you chipped away at it, a little at a time.
And then you managed to destroy it completely.
I started to see you clearly. You weren't the person I built up in my head.
Maybe the donation wasn't even about kindness, it was just one of those flashy, grand things rich boys do, because they can. "
That made him finally turn his head a fraction, his profile sharp as glass, but he still didn't face her fully. His face gave nothing away.
"My baby will be fine," she said quietly. "I will love him. I will provide for him. We don’t need someone like you in our lives.”
"She lifted the box from his desk, clutching it to her chest. "You don't need to worry. You will never see us again. Here is a contract for you this time. It absolves you of all parental obligations."
She slid the folder towards him. "I have signed the dotted line. Congratulations, Dorian. Yet again, your cruelty has not failed you. "
The silence that followed was like the air before a lightning strike. Minutes ticked by. He didn't speak. He didn't stop her when she walked out of the door.
Rune didn't look back either. Because the man she'd built her life around wasn't her hero anymore. The relationship she imagined in her mind was ash. It was time to look forward, not back.