My Husband Built Her the Same Garden Chapter 08
I nodded. My voice was calm.
“Yes. Yesterday morning-right after you accused me. That’s when it happened.”
I walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, forcing down the hatred rising inside me.
“The first child-lost because of you. The second-also because of you.”
My fingers curled tight. “So tell me, Dominic. How exactly are we supposed to go on?”
Behind me, silence fell.
When I turned around, his head was lowered.
His eyes were filled with grief and regret.
“I don’t know…” His voice was hoarse. “I’m sorry.”
I looked down. Thinking of the two children who never even got to be born-it was hard to breathe.
“Just sign. Don’t drag this out until neither of us has any dignity left.”
ragged breath behind me. I didn’t turn around.
Then, after a long pause, his voice came-drained, hollow. “Okay.”
Then I turned around. The signed divorce papers lay on the desk.
I stared at his signature for a long moment, then buzzed Nate in.
“Send these to Legal. Have them finalize it.”
Dominic left Rosewood Manor to me, but I moved out anyway and put it on the market.
Once, I’d believed it was one of a kind-that was why I’d treasured it so deeply.
Now I knew better. It wasn’t. Its very existence mocked me.
Together with Jasmine Hill Estate in South Capital, it stood as proof of how pathetic I had been.
And of how completely my marriage had failed.
The divorce sent shockwaves through Kensington Industries.
But I’d prepared Ashford Group well in advance-our losses were negligible.
The day I moved out, Dominic showed up.
He stood at the gate, watching me direct the movers-what to take, what to leave. Slowly, his eyes reddened.
I glanced at him. “The new owner comes tomorrow. We’re done, Dominic. Completely done.”
His entire body stiffened.
As piece after piece of my life was carried out of Rosewood Manor, it felt like someone was carving out his
heart. But he didn’t move.
Truth was, Dominic had never imagined he would be this unwilling to let me go.
The marriage had started as a business arrangement-profit first, feelings second.
When they married, Jasmine’s betrayal had left him devastated.
At the time, he genuinely believed he would never look back.
He had truly intended to stay loyal to me for the rest of his life.
But he’d overestimated himself and the hold his obsession with Jasmine still had on him.
So when Jasmine came back in tears, claiming she’d been forced to leave, that her new husband abused her… he softened.
And somewhere along the way, he lost control.
He even built Jasmine Hill Estate as a mirror image of Rosewood Manor.
A secret sanctuary where he could hide the woman he couldn’t let go.
But when the truth came out, the thought of losing Genevieve nearly destroyed him.
He didn’t realize it until he reached the end of the road.
Over the past five years, Genevieve had already taken root in his heart. Completely.
But by then, it was already too late.
He shut his eyes, fists clenched.
By the time he opened them, I was gone-packed up and driven away without so much as a backward glance.
He stayed at the gates of Rosewood Manor, from daylight to nightfall to dawn-unmoving, like stone.
Then thunder crashed overhead. Rain poured from the sky.
He stood there with his eyes closed, allowing the storm to drench him.
No one could tell whether the moisture on his face was rainwater or tears.
By morning, the storm had passed.
He lifted his head and saw what the rain had done.
The roses of Rosewood Manor, every last one, beaten to the ground-petals scattered, blooms withered.
A hollow laugh escaped him. Then his body collapsed forward and blacked out
Sometime later, his mother came to see me.
She was practically begging-pleading with me to visit Dominic, to talk some sense into him.
I couldn’t refuse her. She’d been nothing but kind to me all these years.
At Lakeside Medical Center, I pushed open the door to find him lying there, pale and gaunt.
“First time I’ve ever seen you look this wrecked,” I said.
The moment he saw me, disbelief flooded his face.
“Genevieve, you-” I cut him off with a raised hand. “Mrs. Kensington sent me.”
I stayed by the door. Didn’t step closer.
“You failed as a husband, Dominic. At least try to be a decent father. A decent son.”
“Stop this. It won’t make me feel sorry for you-it’ll only make me sick of you.”
He dropped his gaze, the corners of his eyes red.
After a long silence, he nodded. “I know.”
I turned to go.
Just as I pulled the door open, his voice came from behind me-low, broken, barely a whisper.
“I’m sorry, Genevieve. And I’m sorry… to the two of them.”
I paused. But I didn’t say it was okay. I just walked away.
After that, Dominic and I were never truly strangers.
We lived in the same city, and business brought us into each other’s orbit now and then.
The difference was this-a year later, there was someone new by my side, someone who truly loved me.
Two years later, I got married. Three years later, I gave birth to twins.
And Dominic? He stayed alone. As if he’d been frozen in place, trapped forever in the moment he lost everything.