Chapter 29: CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

KIM’s POV

The decor at the Craig mansion was slowing becoming a nightmare for me. The antique clutter apart from being out of vogue succeeded in reminding me of when this house was my prison.

Craig wasn’t helping matters. In a bid to take my mind off things and I decided to change up how the house looked and the vibe it gave. Since we came back from the Maldives we had neither spoken to each other nor met up for any reasons. He was clearly avoiding me and I was absolutely matching that energy. I didn’t care for anything he wanted to do or say either.

His betrayal still stung, he could have created space to give me grace on his mind. He could have fought his demons for me, but instead he swallowed hook, line and sinker every bit of information he got from a single magazine article.

I had cried and cried, yesterday was the worst. I would usually put myself together and replace all my tears with a firm smile but when Agatha came to switch out one of the perfumes we shared she had picked up on my low mood. At first I had shrugged off her concerns and told her she was imagining things when she pursued why I was only giving one word responses to her perfume queries.

I was still calling her out on pressing too deeply when I burst into tears, I had been only able to hold out on the tears for the longest so when she started being overly caring it opened time floodgates.

“What is it? Why are crying for gods sake?” Torrents of question after question leaving me no room to reply.

I sobbed, simply sobbed. Ags was my pillar for the day so I sobbed. I let go of all the pain I had been clinging to for the past five days since we came back. I was sick and tired of pretending like everything didn’t care, pretending that I wasn’t dying slowly everyday in my husband’s house.

“Tell me the full story Kim. What is that is making you this full of despair?”

“Craig, he wouldn’t listen to me. You saw the article right?” I finally found my voice and was able to speak after a full minute of bawling my eyes out on Ags shoulder.

“What do you mean article? What article?” She queried. At first I was surprised to find out Ags hadn’t heard about it. I just assumed everyone in Paris had seen it. I wasn’t so far off from the truth anyway. Ags probably just lived under a rock or something.

“Nicholas went to the press with the story of how we met. Every single detail of it. I have no id

ea what he is trying to achieve but Craig was furious when he saw it. He had been to Paris and when he came back to the Maldives, he was raging and asked me to pack my things and get ready to fly back at first light.” I paused to catch my breath and control the surge of emotions that was threatening to make the rain of tears continue.

“At first I thought he was overwhelmed, and figured he would eventually get over it before the night ended but he left our suite, booked into another room, slept there and had been avoiding me ever since the confrontation. Now it’s crazy to me because I thought I had found my beautiful thing. How it was that he couldn’t give me grace for something that happened when he wasn’t even in my life is what beats my imagination completely.”

I was winded from giving Ags all that information all at once but I felt a little bit better. She looked like she was still reeling from either me oversharing or from the way Craig had behaved toward me.

“No way this is even happening,“ she started, “Nicholas would never go that far, or would he?” She mused.

“I want to say a woman scorned but the last time I checked that human being was male and not a woman. Like why I’m the whole wide world is he trying to ruin my marriage?”

“This is beyond wanting to ruin your marriage. I’m telling you something is mentally wrong with him,” she silently raged. It gave me a level of comfort so I let her continue.

“You could sue him you know, that’s defamatory and I don’t think he has the right to come out and say shit you guys had in private.”

“Funny thing is I think he’s right. He was involved in the said event so he has as much right of disclosure as I do,” I lamented.

“Now put yourself together. You can’t be crying because your husband doesn’t want to speak to you. We both know he will come around.” That said, Ags stood up, hugged me and left to prepare for school.

I was expecting my interior decor company in about thirty minutes so I went to get prepared. I was beginning to dread seeing any outsider. I had no idea what they heard or what they made from what the article said. I had to get out of my own head, they could really not have seen the article or they could be on my side… but it was hard as shit.

“Yeah, we would love to see Mrs Lionel. We have an appointment for 2pm.” The voices were muffled and coming from the ground floor. I peeked and saw the agent I had spoken to on behalf of the interior company. He looked tense and uncomfortable. I called the ground floor to let them know their appointment was confirmed and I will be out shortly.

It wasn’t my intention at first but I decided to dress to the tip. If Craig showed up between showing the team around the mansion, I wanted to remind him what he was missing out on. I wore a sleek white body con gown. It was an absolute shape shifter and in no time I was looking absolutely grown and sexy.

I was down in no time and was easily introduced to everyone on the three man team. ”Hey, pleasure to meet everyone. Let’s get started with the tearoom. I’m absolutely tired of the antiquity and I’m going for a minimalist effect.”

I took them around the house, pointing out all the changes I wanted to affect. It was absolutely fun. Everyone wanted to hear my opinion on this and that like they weren't experts.

Soon enough we were done making the rounds and we sat at the dining table to discuss terms. At first I didn’t notice him. I felt eyes on me and when I turned he was standing there staring at me with an unrecognizable emotion in his eyes. I wanted so hard to speak to him but I decided against that. If he wanted me then he would have to make the first move.

When our eyes met, I felt so many emotions. I could see some of the things I felt mirrored in his eyes but it was fleeting. It was gone as soon as they appeared, along with him because when I raised my head again he was gone.

“…So I was wondering if it would be okay to follow my intuition on that one,” the chief of the interior decor team was saying but I was too far in my thoughts to follow.

“Can you say that again?”

He repeated his thoughts and I agreed that it was perfect. When the meeting came to an end, I was extremely relieved. All I wanted was to go back to my room and reminisce on our time in the Maldives since that was the only part of him I could have now.