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"And He answered and said, "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." —The Holy Bible, NIV

" —The Holy Bible, NIV

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WHEN DO YOU STOP?

When do you stop caring about a person who doesn't care at all about you?

When do you stop loving someone who despises you?

When do you stop thinking about someone whose thoughts never concern you?

When do you stop giving up so much for someone, sacrificing your entire life, for someone who would never do the same?

When do you stop being married to a man who behaves as though he was never wedded to you?

When does it end?

For me, never. I could not make myself stop loving him, no matter how much agony he brought me. I could not bring myself to keep from feeling pain when he did, or to keep from smiling when he was happy, or keep from defending our relationship even when others said we were wrong for each other.

I knew we were. I knew that to him, I was nothing more than a wife on paper, nothing more than a contract, a means to an end, and the promise of an heir to take over his legacy. But to me, he was my husband—flesh and blood and bone. Heart and soul and spirit. I told myself it was my religious principles that made me stick it out with him, that made me refuse the idea of a divorce—but in the end, it was him.

It was him, and him only, that kept me from leaving.

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HOW DO YOU KEEP yourself from loving someone?

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HOW DO YOU KEEP yourself from loving someone?

How do you turn off your heart and shut it away and use your head instead?

How do you make yourself alone and be at peace with it?

How do you keep yourself away from the one person you will not let yourself care for, when they are just within your reach?

I couldn't love her. But I did.

Despite all my attempts not to, despite all the times I tried to see only her flaws, however few, and none of her beauty, her selflessness, her intelligence and passion... I could not.

I could not help, but to fall in love with her. With the one person whom I swore to never love, never to care for—because once I did, I knew I would break her. Because that was what I did to everyone I loved.

And because she deserved so much better than to be the broken, empty wreck of a woman that everyone I loved became. Yet I was selfish.

I was selfish enough to love her, and I was too selfish to stay away.

a/n: UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED this story alternates between Katerina and Alexander's POVs! ODD NUMBER CHAPTERS - K's POVEVEN NUMBER CHAPTERS - A's POV

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.

a/n: UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED this story alternates between Katerina and Alexander's POVs! ODD NUMBER CHAPTERS - K's POV
EVEN NUMBER CHAPTERS - A's POV

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