Chapter 443 - Forgive me? (9)

12 May, Military base hospital, City K

That triggered remembering a conversation between her and Steven, about getting Andrew and Sally to elope while they were in Las Vegas, as they both knew because of his parents background, the one thing he would never do was interfere in a marriage.

Remembering that conversation triggered a flood of memories. It felt as is the dam wall had burst and everything over the last six months had come rushing back. The surprise return of Matthew. Her driving him home after what turned into a dual celebration of Chester and Phillip's engagement and Matthew's return. Their abduction at the hands of villains, terrorists Matthew called them. The killing they forced them to watch threatening them that would be their outcome if they refused to do what they were told. The forcing of the two of them to perform s.e.x.u.a.l acts. The forced religious ceremony. Their release by the military. Her finding out, that because of what she had done with Matthew prior to her marriage to Richard, resulted in a valid marriage. Her constant fighting in those early weeks with Matthew, insisting on a divorce when he calmly and rationally explained reality to her and simply asked for a chance. The closeness that Dominic and Matthew quickly developed without realising the truth about their relationship. Her bending and accepting a relationship but still hiding the truth. John taking pleasure in telling everyone Andrew and Sally had been found partially dressed in her favourite Ferrari in the City park.

That, she laughed to herself, explained the extent of the bribe from Andrew. He had totally screwed up. Their engagement and Paul's attempts to undermine the relationship. Chester and Phillip's marriage in Las Vegas, and the fun she had designing their suits. Andrew and Sally telling everyone the following morning they had eloped. Joan getting engaged to David Hwang, and the feeling she continued to have that he had something to do with their abduction. Matthews three close subordinates and their wives. Paul rescuing Abigail Mo and their unexpected marriage. The night of their wedding there was something in how he looked at Abigail that told her that he was more than infatuated with his young bride, but at the same time having been hung up on Sally so long he was struggling on how to let go of the past and move forward with the future he seemed to desire.

Then there was meeting Anna Hou, who had accompanied her husband for a business trip to meet Andrew and Chester. There was something that clicked for her, and within a day they had become close friends. Anna, despite her own tragedy in loosing one of her twins within a day of his birth, in all their phone and face to face discussions had her realise that she needed to let go of the past otherwise the best things could pass her by because she was so stubborn and focused solely on preventing harm to her. Anna's story of how she met her husband who totally adored her and she him had made her realised that she had wanted Matthew when she was seventeen, and yes at the time the choice she wanted to make was stolen from her, if she did not give a relationship a chance she would never know.

Then there became the fight with Richard's parents. Calling her former mother-in-law, a b*tch was being insulting to female dogs. She was horrific. When she and Richard married, she berated her time and time again, telling her how lucky she had been that her sainted son was willing to help protect her and her b*stard son and that she needed not only to keep the secret for life but to ensure that they got all the compensation that she could get from her parents for them agreeing to the situation. Richard under not only their encouragement but because due to his resentment over their marriage and his separation from his lover, not only physically by verbally abused her, before dying in the humiliating circ.u.mstances that he did. But he extended his control due in his will and simply for Dominic's sake she had kept maintaining the façade that she had established in her marriage to Richard.

The intersections of Matthew and their marriage, and the support from Anna, when her former in-laws commenced their fight for Dominic, had her reach the point to seek help to address what Richard had done to her in their marriage, but the willingness to breach the final barrier and tell Matthew the truth about Dominic.

She remembered the weeks of frustration of trying to work out how to tell Matthew about Dominic. Every time she worked out what to say, she threw up a mental barrier that stopped her from taking that final step. But in the end, the whole situation was taken from her hands. Their baby, adored son, was diagnosed with Leukemia, and the decision was made that the best course of treatment was a bone marrow transplant. Of everyone tested Matthew was the closest match, and the tests results demonstrated to everyone that he was Dominic's father.

Despite everything he had done during their marriage to that date, even being willing to take a bullet for her, she could see his face when she told him the truth just days ago. He was devastated, not only for what she had helped deprive him and Dominic of, but that she refused to tell the truth. She felt devastated by his reaction but remembered how at some ungodly hour during that long night she had started to reconcile how much she had hurt him. From his return he had always been honest with her, even if she did not want to hear it, but she kept secret after secret, and just kept hurting him. Would he forgive her?

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