BEHIND CLOSED DOORS | 18+ |✔

39

"Is it your father?" 

"My father, when he was alive," he sighed, "never took me to the Academy. Even though we had our own college, he still sent Raul and me to some other place to study. Looking back, he had always kept us away from that place." 

"Why?"

"He wanted us to make the most of our lives, and not get tied down by some family legacy. He saw my potential in Mathematics and encouraged me to pursue it. Raul had a flair for diplomatic studies, and he never really liked the fame and money our father's reputation brought us. My father, he understood this." 

"Did you dislike the fame too?"

"Passionately." Rhys laughed ruefully, "It was hell for us, when we were younger, always staying prim and proper for the sake of our family. I don't remember a time when Raul and I could hang out like normal teenagers without someone judging us for being flippant." 

Antonia could feel the anger and sadness behind his words. She could not imagine someone being a teen and expected to behave maturely for your age just because your father had a name in the educational field. Rhys had missed out on his childhood, and she knew it was partly a reason why he chose the BDSM community. He wanted to have control over his own life, and he could only feel it through dominating someone else. 

"Raul completed his studies before me and landed a job at the Embassy. He was twenty-eight when he left home, and the next time I saw him, he had completed his dream." 

"I hated myself, I hated myself for being jealous of him, but the feeling of falling behind was painful," he took a deep breath, "I felt like a failure." 

"Raul had made a name for himself, whereas, I was still the same old younger son of Professor Robert Clyde, Chancellor of Queen's Academy." 

"I spent so much of my life living like someone else wanted, that at a point in time, I lost sight of who I actually was." 

"When did you get to know about BDSM?" 

Rhys seemed to think about it. 

"I think it was a book I had borrowed in high school, it had these explicit details about a man controlling a woman in bed, and I was attracted to the concept of it." 

"I was caught reading it by a teacher, but he did not seem too offended. Instead," he smiled, "he explained it to me." 

"He was a good teacher, then." 

"He saved me," Rhys looked at the skyline of the city, "for a little while, I felt like I was finally being myself." 

"Where is he now?" 

To her surprise, he giggled. "He is the same man who owns the research centre in Germany,  the one who called me to join the research."

Antonia's jaw dropped. 

"I know, it was crazy. I did not expect him to call me after all these years." 

"So, he saved you again." 

"No, this time," he looked at her, his gentle gaze catching her off-guard, "it was not only him." 

Antonia's breath hitched at his words, and he slowly put his hand over hers on the balcony railing, "If he gave me the opportunity, you gave me the strength to do it, Antonia."

"How?"

"To be honest, this was not the first time I had ever thought of running away. But whenever I thought of it, there was always this nagging thought, that if I left it all, I would come back to nothing."