Love and Pride

hep kalbimdesin part 1

Can

I glared at Deren. We'd arrived at the location for the shoot that now I was sure she'd manipulated me into doing. It was an old Ottoman-style summer house set by the water and it was the perfect setting for what we had in mind but my admiration died the moment the housekeeper mentioned who owned the place.

"Funny how you failed to mention this," I said tightly. She'd found me at my lowest point and I'd told her almost everything one drunken night.

"I didn't think it was relevant to our purposes here. The owner is rarely in residence," she turned to the housekeeper, "Isn't that right?"

The woman nodded."She is very busy. We don't see her often," she said as she turned into another room, a library with a large fireplace. My attention was drawn to several photographs on the mantel.

"That is Miss Sanem with her sisters," said the housekeeper.

"She looks very different here," Deren said.

She looked young and happy, I thought. This was the woman at the cabin. The one I fell... I viciously shut down that train of thought.

"She has always been the sweetest, happiest most generous girl. Not like the wild young ladies nowadays who think of nothing but themselves. And so hardworking too. I've heard some people call her proud and cold but I've never known her to be that way. " the woman said with obvious affection.

I couldn't tear my eyes away from the photographs.

"Is she expected anytime soon?" I asked but they had moved on and I was alone in the room. I turned in a circle in the huge ornate room and tried to imagine that the girl who told me the story about Orion was also the woman who owned this place, a literal palace. I knew she was rich but I never really thought about exactly how rich. Now that I really knew what I had been up against, I realized we had been doomed from the start.

My position in life is such that a marriage between us would be seen by some as diminishing

She hadn't been exaggerating. The truth of her words was all around me. I tried to outrun the memories by rushing out of the first door I found.

I took deep drags of fresh air. I'd been trying to erase the memory of the last time I saw her for all these weeks and now they were all rushing back in. Sometimes I'd think I'd succeeded in carving her out of my heart but then she'd come to me in my dreams with her maddening scent, her soft lips, and that smile... I made a sound of frustration and scrubbed my hands through my loose hair. I saw the water and a dreamlike sensation crawled over me. A familiar pull grabbed me and pulled me in that direction.

I looked out towards the water and stopped dead in my tracks. There by the shore was the author of all my current misery.
Shit. Shit. Shit.

I turned around determined to get away before she saw me. I should have never stayed here. I should have never come in the first place... After a few steps and against all common sense I whirled around again. Just one look, I promised myself. One look to hold me off for the rest of the lonely weeks ahead.

I drank her in thirstily. Her hair waved like a pennant in the wind, she stood tall and looked like nothing less than a goddess. Her face broke out in an unexpected smile and she suddenly ran towards the water and plunged in.

I started walking towards her against my will as if in a trance. And then she failed to resurface and I broke into a run.