Chapter 12

Starlet looked at her husband as he drove them back to their home. The clouds around her head were disintegrating. He had said something about an NDA. That implied a lot of things to her. He had a plan when he cheated on her. He had planned to cheat on her. He had cheated on her. With that thought, Star looked away from her husband and stared at her reflection in the window. She had never actually faced the thought... She had always tried to dismiss it. A tear slipped onto her cheek; she swiped it off immediately, but another followed it. Then another, then another, until it was a steady stream. Star didn't dare make a sound. She didn't want him to know she was crying.

When they got home and slowed down to a stop, she opened the door and rushed to her room. With the door shut and locked, she went to her bed and sank against it. She drew her knees to her cheeks. Her heart was in pain, but her mind was in turbo mode.

How many non-disclosure agreements did he have on hand? How many had he had to use? What prompted the use of any? How had they been delivered for signing? Did he go out looking for an affair partner with a gag contract in hand? Did they go to him, and he just happened to have the blasted thing in his possession like some sick sort of protection? Was there an explanation? She wanted an explanation. She needed an explanation that dissuaded the idea that he had been unfaithful with more women than Ayanda, but Starlet knew that would be a fool's gold. She needed to face the fact that her husband had cheated on her more than once. She had always known deep down, but she had convinced herself it was just a misunderstanding.

There was, after all, no smoke without a fire. Around her husband, there was a lot of smoke. She was holding on to her fairytale, but it was slipping past her fingers. She was getting exhausted. Her heart had been battered and bruised enough that Star wondered how it continued pining for this man. He had hurt her enough times that there should only be hate for this man. But her heart didn't cooperate.

The heart is like a wild tree, her mother used to tell her. It grows where it wants.1

Someone attempted to open her bedroom door, and upon discovering it was locked, they knocked on it.

"Star." It was her husband. "Star, open the door."

Star ignored him. He knocked on the door for a few minutes and then gave up. Starlet had sat on her bedroom floor, refusing to move. She did not want to see him in her current state. She had more pride than that. Dinner was left outside her bedroom door as per Lucien's order. She refused to move, even when her stomach demanded food. She suspected the food was a way to lure her into opening the door, and she didn't want to. She just needed to be alone and sort herself out.

"You're a fool," a small voice in her head told her. "You knew what he was doing and refused to see."

"You knew there was substance to what people were saying," Starlet's inner voice continued, "Why are you so shocked now? You convinced yourself your house of sand was a sturdy mansion, and now you're surprised it's crumbling around you."

Starlet finally got up and went to wash her face. A glance at the clock beside her bed, when she came back from her bathroom, told her it was thirty-nine minutes past midnight.

She didn't feel tired and knew she couldn't fall asleep if she tried. Starlet cautiously opened her bedroom door and found the food tray had not been taken away. She picked it up and took it to the kitchen. She deposited the tray on the kitchen island and then went outside. She took a seat on the bench in the garden and stared up at the full moon.

She heard the door open and close. A wool shawl was placed gently on her shoulders, and her husband sat beside her.

"You slept with her," Starlet said. It was not a question. It was an acknowledgement.

He said nothing. He just let the sound of nature play between them.

Starlet stood up to leave him there, and her husband surprised her by speaking.

"I'm sorry." He said, and Star was filled with bitterness. Those words were not going to undo the hurt she had endured throughout their marriage.

"You left me on our honeymoon," she said quietly, her gaze on him. "I had to fly home alone and hear the news that you were somewhere in the Bahamas with a woman who obviously wasn't me."

Starlet looked away from him, "I had to beg my father not to interfere. It was his interference that drove you there to begin with."

Star rubbed her arms with her hands, her eyes looking at a spot in the garden but not seeing it as she recalled the past.

"I could hear them talk about me. They were sorry for me. I was sorry. I took the humiliation because I felt so sorry. I didn't know about your deal with Daddy until the bachelorette party, and I thought you surely cared for me."

Lucien gaped at her. He had assumed she had been the one to initiate the process of his entrapment. He had punished her for that.

What had he done?

"I was sorry for not going to you and talking to you," Star's voice held more hurt than Lucien could bear and now that he knew he had wronged her, every word lashed at him.

"I was so sorry for thinking you loved me." Star said between suppressed sobs, "I was sorry."

She looked at him and said, "I am still sorry." Her voice was thick with emotion. She lifted her head to look at the stars in the autumn, and a tear trickled down her cheek.

"You went to Paris and were seen kissing a model," Star's voice hitched, but she carried on, "There was no evidence, but people talk. Every time I went out, I could hear them whispering. It took everything I had to be strong."

Her voice was so weak and her tone defeated.

"I had to learn to let the words wash over me and not cry myself sick every night."

"Star," Lucien wanted to say something, but Starlet had started unloading, and she wouldn't stop.

"On our first Valentine's Day as a married couple, I had to watch other people show off how in love they were," there was self mockery driving Star's words out her throat, "and I was there alone. I don't even know where you were. I could feel them judging me, and I could feel their sympathy. I never went out on Valentine's Day after that. I couldn't."

Lucien got up to go to her, but she held her arms out to ward him off.

"Do you know how optimistic and excited I was the first time you invited me to go with you to an event?" She asked him but did not wait for an answer, "I spent weeks getting ready."

Her eyes watered as her she remembered that night.

"You took me there, and then you ignored me the whole night. You treated me like some meddlesome child." A sob slipped past her lips and she failed to muffle it.

"Then you disappeared with that model, whatever her name was. I was so humiliated. So sorry for having any hopes about you. I was so humiliated, that I wanted to die that night. I almost did."

She ignored his sharp intake of breath and continued, "but then I thought of you. You would bear the guilt and consequences for the rest of your life, and my poor parents… I was so s-sorry!" She sobbed.

"I know now that when you left, it was probably not always business, but I held out. I am more aware than ever of how I lied to myself. I told myself you would stick to your vows and not be so cruel. I was wrong." Star let out a bitter little laugh.

"At least you came back home." her lips were twisted into a smile that held no joy but managed to convey pain.

"I was so happy to see you home, even if you were not happy to lay eyes on me. I stayed out of your way. I did little things to please you, but you hated me." She was shaking with every word, and hiccups were making their way through her speech. Lucien was pale.

Star sat on her heels, her arms wrapped around herself. Lucien just stood there helplessly as she let out the misery she had been through.

"I did everything for you, but you didn't care." Bitterness was laced into every word.

"I made sure everything here was done to suit your tastes, but you don't see beyond your hate. I held off my father on more occasions than I can count," she hickuped.

"If anything was done by me, you stayed away, so I resorted to doing things for you in secret," she looked at his profile in the moonlight, her eyes accusing.

"You loved them. You loved them because they had nothing to do with me. It hurt, but you were happy, and I keep telling myself that's all that matters."

"Starlet…" Lucien tried to interrupt again, hunkering down beside her, but she pushed away from him, lost her balance, and ended up on her bottom. The shawl slipped off her shoulders and landed on the ground behind her. She didn't bother to try and get up. She drew her knees to her chest and put her chin on top of them. Her voice was sad as she spoke.

"I thought if I was perfect enough, maybe you'd hate me less. I got you birthday gifts, and you binned them," she accused.

"You didn't even bother to open them." She drew into herself as if to sooth a wound in her chest.

"When I touched you, you recoiled. I felt so anxious whenever I went outside. I knew everyone was looking at me, judging me, saying things that were not true."

She let out a harsh embittered laugh.

"Maybe some of them were true. Your sister, Charlotte, and even our gentle Xiamie got into many altercations to defend my honour. Being sorry has not done me any good so far, and it has fixed nothing."

"You had mistresses," Star let her anger carry through those words. "You had NDAs drawn out."

How many times of adultery on me did it take you to get to that stage?" She asked him incredulously.

"I don't think either of us can be sorry enough." she said softly all the emotion draining out of her voice leaving only pain.

"I tried and tried, but it did no good. I'm sorry, I'm not good enough for you," desperation began to trickle into her voice.

"I am trying," she attempted to convince him. "I know you don't see it, but I am. I am sorry. I love you too much to let go. I cannot let you go without destroying myself. I know my love for you is selfish; I am sorry. Loving you hurts me, and there's no one sorrier than me."

Starlet scrambled to her feet and looked down at her husband.

"I'm sorry I'm glad you're sorry. At least for once, you feel a little of what I feel, but it won't change anything. Being sorry has changed nothing for me so far."

She lifelessly walked back inside and went to her room. She slipped into her bed and cried herself to sleep.

***

Lucien stayed outside for a while. He was sorry and ashamed. His parents had raised him to be better than this. He had reasons for why he did what he did, but they were irrelevant now. He had done the equivalent of returning a baby tap with a punch. And Starlet had not initially known that her father had forced him to marry her. Not until the last minute. And she had acted on the false signals he had given her, and he had punished her for it. He rubbed his face with his hands.

He had messed up. She'd been innocent and he had hurt her. Broken her. He was sorry, and she was right. It didn't fix what he'd done. He'd hurt badly enough that she apologized for things that he did against her.

She had tried to make the best of a difficult situation, and he had damaged her for it. He remembered the last time she'd been whole and the first of many times he'd hurt her.

She'd been talking happily about how perfect they were together. All he could think about was the angry email that he got from Heather's brother. She's had a miscarriage. He had not known she was pregnant. The email stated that her blood pressure had been too high and implied that the stress he'd caused her by dumping her and marrying Starlet had been the cause of the miscarriage.

Lucien had been grieving and wallowing in guilt. He'd taken that emotion, turned it into anger, and directed it at the nearest target. Star had been the only person with him that night. He had printed off the evidence of her father's manipulation and tossed it at her. She had not denied his accusations of her being involved, and he had put the death of his unborn child solely at her feet. He had punished her, and now he was sorry for it.

He was furious with himself. He continued to hurt the people who loved him, and he had no way to fix it. Everything was now laid bare at his feet, and the destruction he had done did not bring him any emotion other than sorrow and guilt.

He was sorry, and no amount of apologizing could fix what he'd done to his wife. He had broken her.