Chapter 9 - The Prodigal's Regret
A rare, violent Pacific storm was battering Montecito when Charles’s rental car screeched to a halt outside my front gate forty-eight hours later.
Rain fell in torrential sheets, turning the driveway into a river of mud. Through the panoramic glass doors of my living room, I watched the gate monitor as Charles pounded on the intercom buzzer repeatedly.
Julian stood near the fireplace, holding two cups of herbal tea. "Do you want me to call the local security patrol? They’ll have him removed in five minutes."
"No," I said, putting my book down. "Let him in."
"Hannah—"
"I need to close this door myself, Julian."
I clicked the electronic gate release. Through the rain, I watched Charles stumble up the stone walkway. He didn't have an umbrella. His trench coat was soaked through, sticking to his frame, his hair plastered across his forehead. He looked haggard, having clearly not slept or shaved in days.
When I opened the front door, he stopped dead in his tracks.
"Hannah," he gasped, his voice shaking against the freezing wind. "Hannah, please."
He didn't just ask to come in; he fell directly to his knees on the wet stone porch. Charles Stanhope, heir to an American fortune, a man who had never apologized to anyone in his entire pampered life, knelt in the mud at my feet.
"I’m sorry," he wept, clutching the hem of my trousers. "I’m so sorry, Hannah. You were right. You were right about everything. Phoebe was sleeping with Richard. The twins aren't mine. They were trying to steal the company. They were trying to destroy me."
I didn't move. I didn't step back, but I didn't reach down to touch him either. I simply looked at him.
"I know," I said quietly over the roar of the rain.
"Please come home," Charles begged, looking up with red, swollen eyes. "We can tear up the divorce papers! The lawyers said we can file for an annulment of the separation agreement since it hasn't been finalized by the Massachusetts probate court! We can start over. We can adopt! We can get surrogacy with a donor! I don't care about the bloodline anymore, Hannah! I only care about you! I never stopped loving you!"
I looked at him, searching my own heart for the familiar pang of affection, the protective instinct I had nurtured for twelve long years.
There was nothing.
Not even anger. Just a vast, quiet, beautiful emptiness.
"You didn't come here because you love me, Charles," I told him, my voice steady and unyielding against the storm. "You came here because your pride is bleeding out on the floor. You came here because your cousin humiliated you, your mistress played you for a fool, and your mother looks at you with contempt. You came here looking for your shield."
"That’s not true!" he cried.
"For twelve years, I was your shield," I continued, kneeling down slightly so our eyes were level. "I took the venom from your mother. I took the pity from your friends. I let the world believe I was broken so you could feel whole. And the moment a pretty young girl offered to flatter your masculinity with twin babies, you threw fifty million dollars at my face and told me to disappear."
"I made a mistake!" he sobbed. "A terrible, horrific mistake!"
"A mistake is forgetting to buy milk on the way home, Charles," I said softly, standing back up. "What you did was an execution. You just didn't realize you were putting your own neck on the block."
I stepped back inside the foyer and placed my hand on the heavy oak door.
"Go back to Boston, Charles. You have a board meeting to prepare for."
"Hannah! Don't do this! Please!"
May you like
I closed the door. The heavy latch clicked into place, sealing out the wind, the rain, and the man who had stolen twelve years of my youth.
***
