Her lips quivered, no words forting.


    He released her hand with gentle resignation.


    Frustration gnawing at him, he longed for a smoke.


    Finally, he spoke, his voice a calm veneer.


    “Cecilia, I’ve wronged you, I know. And I feel your resentment. I’ve lived these years, risking everything for you, our kids. I’ve earned your coldness, but I’m aging, Cecilia. I wanna do everything to care for you and our family while I still can. If we prolong this, I fear it’ll be toote.”


    His gaze held her. Her vitality contrasted his concealed fear of aging.


    He never dared let her see the insecurity shadowing his pride. The fear that standing next to her, he’d invite judgment, bring her grief.


    It wasn’t reluctance to chase her, but a cruel race against time.


    Cecilia’s heart sank.


    She wanted to forgive him, to grasp his hand, to say she bore no grudge.N?velDrama.Org: owner of this content.


    But she couldn’t.


    She departed in tears, unaware Mark mirrored her sorrow…


    Their rtionship was a tangle of rights and wrongs, perhaps misguided from the start.


    From then on, Mark withdrew.


    He ceased his overtures, kept abreast of her life only through snippets. Her career moves, social life, unsessful blind dates.


    Their paths crossed sporadically, thanks to the kids, with brief, indifferent exchanges.


    Mark wasn’t sure if it was surrender.


    He’d offered happiness; she’d declined, pained by his methods.


    He faded from her world, yet funded almost all of Simon’s productions.


    Came summer, and Mark’s health improved.


    Charlie, having visited Mark a few times in Rouemn, had grown close.


    He invited Mark to the club, where they yed cards in a private room.


    Inside a private room, Mark and friends were engrossed in a card game.


    Charlie, the ever-vignt host, prohibited smoking. He joked, “Mark’s looking better. Must be theck of femalepany,” earning a re and a curse from Mark.