Chapter 58 Touch Me Like You Hate Me (7)

Chapter 58 Touch Me Like You Hate Me (7)
When I refused to grant him the dignity of an answer, his face turned a dangerous shade of crimson, and he screamed my name so loudly the windows seemed to rattle.
“Mira!”
“I’m done taking your shit, Mason. So get lost.”
I slammed my palm against his chest, shoving him back with every ounce of my remaining strength before sliding smoothly into the plush leather interior of the car. Thomas didn’t give him a chance to recover; he cast one cold, dismissive glance at my furious ex-husband, got into the driver’s seat, and pulled away from the curb, leaving Mason standing in a cloud of exhaust.
I leaned my head back against the headrest, letting out a long, ragged sigh of relief.
It was finally over. The suffocating weight on my chest lifted. Mason was out of my life for good.
The drive was quiet, the heavy silence inside the vehicle thick with tension as my mind involuntarily drifted backward. I thought about how Mason and I had started. I had loved that man with every broken piece of my heart.
I had shrunk myself down, becoming the submissive, quiet, and completely devoted wife he wanted. And what did I get in return? Constant humiliation, a husband who looked down on me, and a man who openly paraded his celebrity mistresses, even letting them talk down to me in my own home.
“Miss,” Thomas’s crisp voice cut through the fog of my thoughts. “Miss Hawthorne.”
“Yes?” I blinked, breathing out slowly.
“We’re home.”
“Already?”
My eyes drifted toward the tinted window before I stepped out of the vehicle. I took a sharp breath as my feet hit the pavement.
This place. My father’s estate.
The sprawling, elegant colonial architecture stood just as majestic as the day I left it. Nothing had truly changed about the grounds, yet everything about me felt entirely different.
“My darling baby!”
I heard my mother’s frantic, desperate voice before I even saw her rushing down the grand stone steps. My breath caught, my eyes widening in immediate shock. The once elegant, flawlessly youthful woman I remembered had aged decades in the three years I had been gone. Her silver hair was drawn back tightly, and deep lines of sorrow were etched into her pale face.
I bit down hard on my lower lip, a suffocating guilt tightening around my throat.
This is my fault. I caused this to happen to her.
“Mom,” I choked out, throwing myself into her arms and hugging her with everything I had left in me.
“I missed you so much,” she whispered brokenly into the crook of my neck, her frail frame trembling as I felt the warm splash of her tears soak into my skin.
“I missed you too, Mom. I’m so sorry,” I sobbed.
“She’s finally back now, Eleanor,” a deep, commanding voice called out. I looked up to see my father walking toward us down the path, his posture rigid but his eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I’m just glad you’re home, sweetheart.”
He smiled warmly at me, his stern facade cracking completely before he pulled me into a heavy, protective fatherly hug.
“I’m so sorry,” I burst into fresh, unrestrained tears, burying my face in his shoulder. “I am sorry, Dad.”
We stayed wrapped together on the driveway for what felt like an eternity, the steady, rhythmic rub of his hand against my back grounding me, washing away the last three years of Mason’s toxicity. When we finally separated, Mother immediately pulled me back into her embrace, refusing to let go.
I was so stupid, I thought bitterly. How could I have ever run away from the only people who truly loved me?
My parents gently led me inside, guiding me through the familiar, opulent hallways until we sat down together on the massive velvet sofa in the main room.
“Mother, Father... I regret everything,” I began, the words pouring out of me in a desperate confessional. “I thought living by your strict rules was a prison. I wanted so badly to be free, to prove I could make it on my own. When I met Mason, I genuinely believed we could love each other forever... but he completely destroyed me. He betrayed me in every way a man can.”
My father listened intently, his jaw tightening into a hard, dangerous line as I detailed the emotional abuse, the neglect, and the blatant affairs I had endured under Sterling’s roof. When I finally finished, a heavy silence settled over the room.
“I guess you have finally learned your lesson, Mira,” Father said softly, his voice carrying the weight of a man who had predicted this outcome but took no joy in being right.
“Yes, Dad. I learned it the hard way.”
“Now, come eat. Look at how thin you are,” Mother chimed in, her maternal instincts taking over as she grabbed my hand and pulled me up from the cushions. She dragged me straight into the grand dining room, forcing me into a chair at the head of the table.
“Here. Eat this,” she ordered softly, serving me massive portions of all my childhood favorites. “And this... and a bit of this.”
“Mom, stop, please,” I laughed weakly, staring at the small mountain of food. “This is too much.”
“Nothing is too much for my daughter. Look at your wrists, Mira. You’re skin and bones.”
A genuine, bubbling laugh escaped my lips. For the first time in three long, agonizing years, I was actually smiling. I had spent so long believing that staying away from my family would bring me independence, but I had been looking for peace in all the wrong places.