I Played His Lover’s Husband Chapter 16
The Harrington Corporation was on the brink of collapse.
Dominic’s phone was flooded nonstop with calls.
There were a hundred things he should have been doing.
Instead, he went home. Back to the home he once shared with Estelle.
In public, Estelle had always been sharp, decisive, and untouchable.
But at home, she had a softer, almost girlish side.
In the beginning, she loved decorating the house with little things. Fresh flowers. Rugs. Paintings.
Small traces of warmth everywhere.
But later, neither of them had come back much anymore.
He’d never noticed those things before.
Now, her presence haunted every corner like a ghost. Each trace of her hit him like a blow.
Dominic slowly raised his left hand.
He remembered a time shortly after their engagement.
Estelle had leaned against his chest, holding his left palm carefully in both hands.
Her eyes had been full of innocent curiosity, like a child studying ants.
“Dominic, look how long your love line is.”
He’d looked down, following the trail of her lashes to where her eyes rested.
When he was younger, his mother had once taken him to have his birth chart read.
The astrologer said his love line was broken and that he would live a lonely life.
Later, though, he injured his hand protecting Estelle from a knife.
That astrologer again, told him his love line was extended, just like that long scar left across his palm.
As Estelle stared at his hand, her eyelashes trembled softly.
Then she lowered her head and kissed his palm with utmost care.
The song she loved still played softly through the speakers.
In this lifetime, meeting on a narrow road, there’s no escape after all.
On my palm, a tangled line suddenly grows.
We called it, love line.
Dominic gently pressed a kiss against his own palm.
As though finally returning the cautious little kiss Estelle had given him five years ago.
Something cold splashed onto his hand.
He pressed both palms against his eyes. And finally-finally-he broke.
In the end, he had wasted the years fate had given him. The years with her.