After He Blinded Me The Don Begged For Forgiveness Chapter 11
“Shut up. All of you.”
“Go back to your rooms.”
After a long while, everything finally fell silent.
That afternoon, Soren came back in.
His voice was thick with an exhaustion he couldn’t hide.
He took my hand and led me outside.
“Anna, I’ll take care of everything.”
“Trust me. Will you?”
“There’s no need.” My voice was soft.
I hated him. But it was as if I no longer had the energy for it.
He said nothing. He led me out into the courtyard.
The sunlight fell on me.
But it couldn’t warm my cold body.
Soren’s voice softened.
“Anna, I planted the datura you like. They’re still here.”
“I plant them every year.”
He plucked one and placed it in my hand. “They’ve bloomed beautifully, haven’t they?”
I let my hand fall open. The flower dropped to the ground.
“Soren, what is this supposed to be now?”
“A symbolic compensation?”
There was a sharp ache in my chest.
He thought I was the same girl I used to be.
That if he beckoned, I would turn back.
But I was no longer twelve.
Soren’s whole body stiffened. His voice was full of pain.
“It isn’t symbolic.”
“Anna, I just want to make you happy. Even a little.”
I said nothing.
“Anna, I keep thinking about when you were small. How you used to follow quietly behind me.”
“Tugging at the hem of my jacket, calling me Padrino in that little voice.”
“In those days, I felt like the happiest man alive.”
“The black suit I wore on our wedding day at the cathedral—I spent the whole night before picking it out.”
“I was so happy I couldn’t sleep. I sat at your bedside all night.”
Listening to him now, I felt only the cruel irony of it.
“And then what?”
“What was the result?”
“Soren, do you have the nerve to bring up the past?”
I had once thought I would be happy with him too.
When I slipped on the emerald ring, I thought I finally had a home.
But in the end, he had cast me out.
I spread out my palms and felt the warmth of the sun.
My voice was very quiet.
“Soren.”
“I thought if I had a child, you’d soften. That your heart would come back to me.”
“But really, the only one I bound was myself.”
After that day, he rarely came back.
Occasionally, in the deep of night, he would slip in and wrap his arms around me from behind.
Then he would jolt awake, Caroline’s name on his lips.
I couldn’t name the feeling. I pretended I didn’t notice.
That weekend, he didn’t go to the office—a rarity.
He made dinner at home.