He Made An Exception For Her But Never For Me Chapter 08
He stared at the divorce papers.
“I won’t sign.”
He was trying, once again, to salvage the situation with the logic he was so proud of.
Both hands braced against the table, the knuckles on the back of his hands going white.
“Sophia, Chloe has already paid for what she did.”
“For your brother’s family, Bosworth Group is establishing a dedicated trust fund.”
“Not only a hundred million dollars in compensation, but a full scholarship for his daughter, from now through her doctorate.”
“His wife and daughter will never want for anything again.”
“And as for you…”
He swallowed, then pulled another document from the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
“This is thirty percent of Bosworth Group’s shares. And every piece of real estate under my name.”
“As long as you don’t file for divorce, all of it is yours.”
I looked at him.
“Adrian Bosworth.”
I spoke quietly.
“Can a hundred million dollars make my brother crawl out of that urn?”
His breath caught. Every trace of color drained from his face.
“Can your shares and your properties make my broken ribs stop aching?”
“Can they make the scar on my forehead disappear?”
I no longer had the energy to be angry. I only felt a deep, aching kind of grief.
“You don’t have the faintest idea what love is. You only know how to weigh everything on a set of scales.”
“Before, you thought Chloe’s illness weighed more than my feelings. So you tipped the scale in her favor.”
“Now that you’ve realized you’ve lost everything you were used to, you’re trying to bury me under money.”
“But Adrian. My life.”
“My brother’s life. Neither of them was ever a weight on your scale.”
I turned around and walked toward the door.
“Sign it or don’t. It doesn’t matter. The court will grant it anyway.”
After leaving New York, I moved to a small coastal town in southern Florida.
I didn’t take a single cent from the Bosworth family.
I rented a one-story cottage with a small courtyard in the old part of town.
With the savings I had put aside before the marriage, I opened a tiny floral and bakery shop.
The days moved slowly. And they were quiet.
I put on a little weight. My color came back.
Life without Adrian was so free I could taste it in every breath.
Until one rainy afternoon, six months later.
I was walking back to the courtyard gate with a bag of fresh oranges when my feet stopped moving.
Beneath the old oak tree just outside the fence, a black Maybach was parked.
Adrian was standing in the rain.
The man with the obsession for cleanliness wasn’t even holding an umbrella.
He had grown gaunt. Dark stubble shadowed the line of his jaw. There was a hollowed, ruined quality to him.
“Sophia.”
He took a step forward. His voice was shaking.
I didn’t move. I only studied him, calm and quiet.
And then I noticed something.
That [∞] symbol that had once pulsed wildly above his head, and then faded to the color of dead ash.
At some point, without my ever noticing, it had vanished entirely.
“Why did you come here?”
I held my umbrella steady. My voice held no lift, no fall.
“I came to bring you home.”
Adrian walked toward me.
He pulled a thermos from inside his coat and held it out with careful, trembling hands.
“Look. I learned how.”
“The water temperature is exactly ninety degrees. I studied the roasting process myself, from the beginning.”
“Sophia, I’ve cleaned the whole house. There isn’t a trace of anyone else there anymore.”
“Please come back with me. Or I’ll stay here. Whatever life you want, I’ll live it with you.”
“I know I was wrong. I can’t be without you.”
“For six months, I’ve only been able to sleep two hours a night, and even that only with pills.”
His eyes reddened. His voice broke into something close to a sob.
“I’m begging you. Have some pity on me. Forgive me. Just this once.”
I looked at the thermos he was holding out. I did not reach for it.
“Adrian, coffee turns sour when it goes cold.”
“You can reheat it. But it will never taste the same.”
I lifted my eyes and looked straight into his.
“My life is good. I don’t need money.”
“I don’t need sleep aids. And I certainly don’t need a man who’s come to repent too late.”
“The reason you’re in pain is because you broke your own rules.”
“You can’t accept that you made a mistake you can never undo.”
“You’re begging me to make yourself feel better. Not for me.”
Adrian froze in place. The thermos slipped from his fingers and hit the muddy ground.
Dark brown liquid seeped out, mixing with the mud in a filthy, ugly stain.
He stared at me, searching for any trace of resentment, of injured pride, even of hatred.
There was none.
“Sophia…”
He murmured my name in despair, his tall frame swaying in the rain.
“Don’t come here again.”
I looked away and pushed open my courtyard gate.
“The dead don’t come back. And I’m not turning around either.”
The wooden gate creaked shut, and the lock clicked into place.
Through the wood, I heard the dull, heavy sound of something falling.
The always-rational Adrian Bosworth had dropped to his knees in the Florida mud.
And in the pouring rain, he began to weep, quiet and broken.