Broken Strings

C H A P T E R S E V E N

The answer was simple: because he did. He did care and he did love her.

She smiled softly at him softly. But it wasn't the same.

The smile didn't reach her eyes, he could see that.

And it tore him apart. All of it. The dullness that was becoming more and more prevalent in her eyes, the pain she was hiding behind her smile.

He was responsible.

He had destroyed her.

But as he pulled her closer to him, his face inches from hers, the hammering in his heart grew faster. He felt the same rush of adrenaline he had eighteen years ago when he had stood in front of her dorm room, asking her if she'd be interested in going on a coffee date with him.

How long had it been since he held her this close to him?

So close that he could count every eyelash, that he could see the world from her eyes.

It had been too fucking long.

And for him, she was the only one.

No one could make him feel the way she did.

The only reason he ever sought anyone else was to fill the missing void in his life. To help him forget about everything that life had thrown his way, everything life had taken away from.

And it never worked. He could never get her out of his mind. She filled every ounce of space in his life, she was the air he was breathing.

Andrew relaxed with her touch. The tension and stress slowly evaporating, the pain and anger easing slowly. He felt content, a feeling that he seldom seemed to understand these days.

Loved. He felt loved. She hadn't given up on him. After all the hell he had put her through, she was still here, standing in front of him and willing to ease his pain, willing to mend his broken heart.

His hands on her waist, her arms wrapped around his neck, a shy smile on her lips, his eyes staring back into hers as they slowly danced together.

His eyes were emotionless.

But his heart was torn apart with pain, regret, hope, despair, care and love.

He hid it well. He always hid it well.

For fourteen fucking years, he had managed to act as though he didn't care. But he really did. He had managed to act like he had moved on. But he didn't.

He was always torn between pushing her away or pulling her closer.

He was ruthless, cold-hearted, insolent and uncaring.

Wasn't that what the world saw him as? The successful but unmerciful investor from California who had managed to turn his father's small company into a multi-million dollar industry. The cold businessman that was hardly pleased when trying to strike a deal. He was a man of few words, cold and cut-off.

But that was all what people saw.

No one saw the husband who sat on floor behind the closed door to his wife's room every night as he cursed himself while listening to her tears, the tears he was making her shed. The husband who would stand in front of his wife's door the very next morning with plans to ask her to come downstairs and spend time with him and their kids, only to turn around and go back downstairs a few seconds later, empty-handed.

No one saw the father who would stare at his daughter, blankly with a lack of words, when she asked him why he and Mommy didn't love each other. The father who stood silently and stared as his son refused to acknowledge his mother, the very mother who had brought him into the world.

No one saw the brother who brought blue Hydrangea flowers to his sister's grave every month. The one who stood and cried for the sister that had been taken away from him years ago.

No one could ever see or guess that Andrew Hayes was in reality, a miserable and broken man. He was filled with guilt, pain, heartbreak and despair.

The cold and rude façade that he kept up was to show the world how happy and successful he was.

But on the inside, he was just as fragile as her.

Perhaps even more.

Cassie was his sister, his fucking sister. And she had left him too soon.

It hurt every day. She was his sister for crying out loud.

The older sister he spent Saturday mornings playing with, the older sister who would always argue with him about what they should watch on TV that night, the older sister who would always read him bedtime stories when their parents were away on business trips.

The older sister who would give him extra pieces of candy when their mother wasn't looking, the older sister who used to drive him to school, the older sister who baked him a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream frosting for his birthday every year, the older sister he loved more than anything.

And she had left him.

Anisha had no fucking right to decide that it was okay to disconnect Cassie. Especially without consulting him. And especially without doing everything in her power to try and save her.

He missed his sister every day. But the pain wasn't as intense as it once was.

He had learned to move on and accepted the fact that his sister was no more.

But now, the regrets and pains of his failed marriage ate at him every day.

He had lost both his sister and his wife.

And now, as he held Anisha in his arms, he wanted nothing more than to beg her for forgiveness, to persuade her into fixing their broken bond, to show her how much he truly loved her.

But that was the problem.

He had no idea, no fucking idea as to how to even approach her.

The woman he had supposedly been wed to for sixteen years, the woman who had carried his children, the woman who had captured his heart eighteen years ago in a small café in Downtown Los Angeles, the woman who occupied every bit of space in his heart was nothing but a mere stranger.

He knew nothing about her.

"Andrew."

Andrew was pulled out of his thoughts. "Hmm."

Andrew knew Anisha didn't ask much from him these days. She stayed clear of his way, especially nowadays. Every time he would enter a room, she would leave. If he tried talking to her, she didn't even bother with him anymore. She avoided him at all costs.

He wasn't sure what she could ask him now. What would she ask him, the person who seemed to hate and love her at the same time?

His icy blue eyes bore back into her soft brown ones as she voiced her pain, her voice filled with despair and fear was barely above a whisper.

"Are you going to leave me?"

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Hehe, I updated a day early. 100 Votes for the next chapter.

Thoughts on Andrew?

Does he really want a divorce? Or is Anisha going to leave him?

Personally, I don't hate him that much. I mean he's still an ass but that's just his personality. There are always two sides to every story. And he's in just as much pain as Anisha is.

So the important question: Sebastian or Andrew.