Divorce to Destiny: Reclaiming My CEO Husband by Anney GW

My CEO 372

372 A Parental Shadow (Jayden)

I sit alone on the back steps of the cottage, staring out at the garden Bobby worked so hard to restore. But it is so much more than this. Acres of woodlands and a play area being revealed that any kid would love to grow up in. A place I would have loved to grow up in.

The place is beautiful, almost perfect, yet I feel heavy, tinged with a past I'm only now beginning to understand. As a father myself, my perspective of the past and how I feel about my parents has changed.

Not all for the better, but I do have a new understanding of how strong a love for a child is.

This so-called cottage. Perhaps by Gus's standards it is. To anyone else it's a mansion. Eight bedrooms, five bathrooms. And living areas that are certainly roomy but also have the feel of a home. A place designed for kids to run about and parents to be able to watch. A place to be a haven, not just a building you live in.

Inside the living area is accented by a sprawling, handcrafted stone fireplace. Rooms connected by open spaces filled with light. Gus built all this with his family in mind, with me in mind.

I trace my fingers along the stone steps, wondering how he ever imagined a future like this-one where we could've all lived here together, peacefully.

If it had been up to Gus, maybe I would've grown up here. Maybe Winona and I wouldn't be here now as strangers to this place, trying to make it ours. But then, I would never have met Winona. I wouldn't have the family I have now nor be the man I am now.

It's like Gus set up an entire world for me, then left me to fend for myself in Judy's twisted version of one. And for what? His business, his double-agent life, this world in Europe he could never let go of.

In the end, I was left with Judy and Greg-Greg, who I thought was my father until Gus showed up at Brennan Industries that day and blew the lid off so many things.

changed since then. Unbelievable changes no one could anticipate. But here we

even think of Greg without my stomach churning. I spent years hating him, years feeling

Gus. Gus punished Judy for not choosing him and being over here. Judy punished Gus for not choosing her over

many ways, I still am. At least my

lungs as I try to let it go. I'm here

seems like she's toeing the line, but honestly, I'd be a fool

372 A Parental Shodow

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a danger to me? To Winona? To our

dredging up memories I've tried to bury. I remember how she never thought Winona was good enough for me, how

truth, making it hard for me to see anything else but her version of reality. The accident, the one that nearly killed me and stripped me of any memories of Winona, flashes in my

until recently that the real story began plecing itself together. In my

accident was her fault-she hadn't meant to

no matter the cost.

mother truly be that dangerous? Had she, as Gus hinted at the

Greg's death?

there's still a part of me that wants to believe there's something redeemable in her. She raised me, she looked after me, even if it was in

Gus's dream-a dream he could never fully give me because Judy would

now. What they chose to do was not my fault. Even now, it Isn't. What I choose to do