CHAPTER 2

Three hours had passed since Lucas had asked Isabelle to leave their house, his house.

Isabelle cried, laughed, and cried even more, hoping she would wake up from some bad dream she was having or that Lucas would walk upstairs to inform her it was some prank and that he was sorry.

But three hours was enough time to realise this was no joke, prank, or dream. It was real. It was happening. Thirteen years of marriage and 3 years of courtship had just ended.

She watched as the servants Lucas had instructed to pack up her clothes, moved from one closet to another, gathering everything she owned and packing them up in bags.

She thought of what her life would have been if she hadn't met Lucas or how it would have been had she chosen to pursue her dreams instead of settling for everything he had promised her.

Where did all that go?

All the promises of an eternal forever. All the promises of loving her till they were both old and grey.

She was only in her mid thirties, and he already thought she was too old for him. How could he think I was too old? He had watched her grow from a young teen into a grown woman, and now she was too old.

Isabelle scorfed at the thought of it all. He had asked her to dress down and be a submissive wife. He did not want her to live her life. He asked her so many times to live in his shadows, and she thought it came from a place of love. But now that it was his reason for getting a divorce, she knew it wasn't.

Isabelle picked up her phone as she thought of who she could call. She cried a little more when she realised that she had no one. No one to call and no one to lean on when she needed a shoulder the most.

Lucas always assured her that he was all she ever needed. "I'm all the friends and family you'll ever need," his words played in her head.

She tried to pull herself up from the floor where she sat with her arms around her knees, but she was too weak to. So she lay down facing the chandeliers in their beauty hanging from the ceiling.

She wished they would somehow loosen from their hinges and drop to the floor right where she lay, but even she knew that wish was too far-fetched.

"Ma'am?" The housekeepers voice brought her back to reality. "Ma'am?" She called out again.

Isabelle wanted to get up, but she couldn't, so she just lay there and forced out a response. "Yes, I can hear you."

"Your bags are ready. Should we bring them down stairs?" The housekeeper offered.

Isabelle lay there quiet, she wondered off in her thoughts, thinking of how she got there.

She wondered how she was a little happy girl, how she felt she was the luckiest girl to ever live because she had met the one and she had been assured he'd be her only. She wondered how she had just spent so many years of her life in the shadows and doing everything she could to impress Lucas, but there she was, crying her eyes out.

"Ma'am? Would you like us to bring your bags down sta...."

"Take them out to the moving van outside." Lucas interrupted the housekeeper before she could finish.

"Don't just stand there. Hurry on! he said to the other servants that stood in the room watching.

The servants all hurried out of the room carrying and dragging Isabelle's luggage.

Lucas took a deep breath as he sat down on the bed right next to where Isabelle lay.

"You can keep the car I got you for your birthday. And I had some people clean up your mom's old apartment across town, I know you have nowhere else to go."Lucas said to Isabelle almost as if he was offering some light to the darkness that he had just brought to her life.

How could he? How could he think a car and tidying up and old apartment would make up for this? For the sixteen years I had given him?

For the emotional damage that had come with this marriage.

Somehow, that was all Isabelle needed to get up from the floor she lay.

She got up and headed towards the door.

"My lawyer will contact you concerning the divorce, It will be cheaper for you if you just sign the papers and not try to fight it." Lucas said.

Isabelle stood there holding onto the door handle. She debated within herself on whether it was worth it to ask him why he was doing all this to her. Why he was choosing to hurt without a single thought of the damage he could cause or to just go right on and not look back. She had known Lucas for sixteen years. She knew his pride would never let him go back on his words, so she chose the latter.

She walked out of what used to be their bedroom. walked downstairs into the living room and out the door she went. She knew she wasn't just walking out of a house she had lived in for years, She was walking out of a life she thought was hers too.

She walked out without looking back, and she knew that it was all over.