ELEANOR SINCLAIR Whatever it was, that was the night I got pregnant again. And we have both agreed that we both wanted to be back with each other. I have seen a few psychology books on the matter, and it sounds like I have a chronic case of Stockholm’s syndrome. Except, that seven months after, we have not had one disagreement. Not a single one. Not even an angry word thrown at the other.We never officially got divorced, Damian often reminds me, after which he calls me Mrs. Blackwood. He insists we only went on a five year hiatus, and that it made us see how much we meant to each other. All I know is that he was being too slow on that night. I asked him to set up the date because I wanted us to be with each other again, because Vincent Moreau was dead and gone and Ailean was back with his mother and Marcus had wished me goodbye, calling our experience and adventure as he did not exactly solve the case and it got solved on its own. If everybody was having their happy ending, why n
DAMIAN BLACKWOOD I let Vincent Moreau go.I planned to. I cared the least about what he would do next. All I knew was that if it had to do with me, I would kill him if he didn't kill me.Until I found out about the baby Eleanor miscarried.I was never big on having children. Sometimes, I wanted to have them, to feel what little versions of you from your body would feel like, but my lifestyle at the time did not allow me the luxury. Besides, I believed I had all the time I wanted. As long as I could get it up, I could have them.Now, five years later, and looking at the thirty-four year old face that stared back at me, I was surprised by how old I looked. All that silver wasn't supposed to be in my hair. I should be younger, and happier. I should be a father, with a mother that was just as happy.Vincent had robbed me of all of that, and I had been stupid enough to believe me. He played me for a fool and made me seem stupid. This drove me into a rage.How could I have let that old fo
ELEANOR SINCLAIR The truth is a bitter pill, most times.And admitting to myself that somewhere, deep inside, I had never stopped loving Damian Blackwood came tough. Five years of suffering without him. Five years had gone without me having to see his face, or to kiss his lips, or to feel him. All that time had passed without the occasional chaos between us, without the fights that felt so beautiful to fix with a caress that would become a session of intense sex. It had to be why I thought I didn't love him anymore.And I was proved wrong when Damian asked to be left alone when we went to plead for him to help find Ailean. When everybody walked away, giving up on him, I stood because I knew that I knew him more than any one of them who had just gone out. They did not know him or his behaviour, did not spend mornings waking up to his sleeping figure, or groan and bite in pleasure as he dug himself into me from above. I alone knew him.I knew that beneath the brute of a man I marrie
DAMIAN BLACKWOOD I took a few seconds to regain my composure, and breathe. No doubt, I was terrified to my bones about facing her. I did not know what to say or how to admit that I now knew the truth about five years ago. I did not know how to apologise, or the words to use, or how best to say that I regretted having her leave. Thinking of what to say felt too much, and I had somehow hoped that she would put off trying to talk to me so that the ugly moment would be postponed, until a better time. I didn't expect that it would be now! "You should have gone with the rest," I said, staring at my feet and turning with my back to her again. "Yes. I should." She replied. Still, there was no sound to show that she had walked away, no departing footsteps, so I turned again and found her there, still waiting. She, too, was not looking at me, but staring at something on the ground, something invisible, something away from me and my profile. Seeing her still there did something to me.
DAMIAN BLACKWOOD I had lived the last five years in misery. Hearing this woman's confession made me even more miserable. I had lost the woman who loved me, and who I had unknowingly loved. I had become as crushed as my father when he did not end up with the woman he loved, with Vanilla Black. I had tried hard to escape that fate but it was mine, now. I had been lied to and betrayed by the man I trusted the most. And I did not consider it overreaching, but I did think I could fix everything in one sweep. I would give this woman her son back, even though I would never know why she had known all that and still gone ahead to have a son with him. I would make Vincent pay for his lies and betrayal. And Eleanor... I did not know what I would do with Eleanor. Take her back, a thought came to my head, but I shook it off. Now, in hindsight, I know I had only been a burden to her, an anchor that kept her grounded. Maybe the truest form of my love for her would be to let her go. So I
DAMIAN BLACKWOOD The only thing constant is change. And I found out too late that I made the same mistake as my father, that I loved Eleanor Sinclair the same way he loved Vanilla Black. I always believed that I did not love her and my treatment of her convinced me that she was simply a woman I put up with, one I was tolerating. Until I woke up and she wasn't there anymore. Hell… seeing those photos hurt because I loved her. I should have known I loved her when I started to try to legalise my business as she wished I would for our children, when I cared less about the women I had been sleeping with before her. I should have known it when it broke me each time I hit her, and I should have run, nipping it in the bud before anything. But I let it grow until kicking her out sent my life down a downward spiral. I woke up and felt alone in my bed, even when I had someone in it. I smelt her even when she wasn't there. And when I tried to look for her, I did not find her. And when I di