My Husband Chose His Ex I Became His Regret novel Chapter 70

Chapter 69

Chapter 69

Lila

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The hallways of the hospital reek of antiseptic and I prepare myself to enter a room housing the man who tried to end his life because of me.

“You don’t have to do this,” Aidan says for the fifth time. We’re currently standing outside Mark’s room, locked doors, psychiatric ward, and nurses watching our every move. “We can leave right now go home and never look back.”

“I have to see him,” I tell Aidan, my voice far more steady than I am. “I have to look him in the eye and I don’t know. But I have to do this.”

“Okay,” Aidan says cupping my face. “You give him ten minutes. Once you’ve given him ten minutes you can leave, whether you have closure or not. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“If he says anything, anything, that makes you feel unsafe or manipulated, you leave immediately. You owe him no explanations, excuses or anything.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Aidan’s gray eyes bore into mine with such intensity I can see that he is genuinely worried for me. “You see, Lila, I know you. You have a good heart. Mark is extremely adept at exploiting good hearts; therefore, I need you to promise me that you will not let him manipulate you.”

“I promise.”

He kisses my forehead and assures me that he will stay right outside his room until I call him for help.

I nod, take a deep breathe, and walk into the room.

Mark is lying in bed connected to many monitors and IV’s. He appears so small and weak compared to the powerful CEO he was, he had the power to make me feel worthless by just one look.

Mark was awake.He turns his head when I walk through the door.

“Lila.” His voice is rough and sounds weak. “You actually came.”

“I got your messages.” I stay where I’m standing in the doorway so I don’t go near him or get close to him. “The police called me. They said you…” I can’t finish.

“That I tried to kill myself?” He laughed but it was an empty laugh. “I did, Lila. Obviously I didn’t succeed, and now I can’t even do that right.”

“Mark, please…,” I said.

“Why are you here?” He’s actually looking at me again, or at least staring at me in the way that you do when

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Chapter 69

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you want someone to know you mean business. “Did you come to gloat or plan on ensuring I am truly destroyed, or did you come to…?”

“I came to understand,” the words came out before I had a chance to stop them. “I want to understand why you did this, and why you sent the messages, and why you thought this was the way out of your life.” I pointed out the hospital room.

He is quiet for a long moment, and then finally he spoke; “Because I lost everything. I lost my company, my reputation, my freedom… Lila, they are going to press charges against me with the federal government. I’m going to prison…Everything I have worked for, everything I had built, was stolen from me because of you.”

Those words hit me hard. “Stolen from you because of me?”

“You and Storm destroyed me. You destroyed me systematically and intentionally. You took everything away from me.”

Anger started rising up in my chest. “I didn’t take anything from you. You lost it all because of your criminal activity. Embezzlement, fraud, stalking…Those were all choices that you made and had nothing to do with me.”

“I made those choices because you left me!” He raises his voice and a nurse appears at the entrance again to check on me. I tell the nurse that I’m fine.

“No, you did them before I even left and I left you because you abused me, Mark, for those years, and made me feel like I was less than nothing and then cheated on me. You had already put your girlfriend in our house before we were even divorced. I didn’t want to live there anymore because being there was killing me.”

“That’s not…I didn’t mean to.” He stops speaking for a moment and takes a deep breath. “Lila, I am so sorry. I am really sorry for everything I said and done to hurt you. I was wrong. Please, just allow me a chance to ask for your forgiveness so that I can make it right.”

And there it is. The pity I was expecting to feel. Looking at him broken, desperate, alone, some wants to comfort him. To say it’s okay. To forgive him and make this easier.

part

of me

That’s what the old Lila would have done. Swallowed her pain to make someone else comfortable.

But I’m not the old Lila anymore.

“No,” I say simply.

“No?”

“No. I don’t forgive you. I don’t want to make this easier for you. You don’t get to try to kill yourself and then ask me to absolve you of your guilt. That’s not how this works.”

His expression changed immediately. “I should have known you were too hard and cold now. You are different than you were before, and that is because of Storm. He made you into the person you are today: he turned you into a cruel person.”

“Aidan didn’t turn me into anything; I made my choices. I chose to be strong. I chose to defend myself against continued abuse. I chose to put myself first, and that is not cruelty; that is self-preservation.”

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Chapter 69

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“Self-preservation? Or revenge for your collaboration with Storm to sabotage me?””Sent that evidence to the SEC. Destroyed my business. Ruined my life. Now you’re here to do what? Watch me suffer?”

“I’m here because you sent me text messages about committing suicide and I was concerned for your safety. This is why I am here.”

“You are a liar.” He smiles in a way that upsets me. “You’re here because you feel guilty about what you’ve done to me and part of you knows that it is your fault. You left me and you went with one of my competitors. You helped that person destroy me and now you can’t live with the consequences of what you have done.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Am I wrong? You are still the same pathetic weak girl you always were. You are still as desperate to be loved as you were before. You’re still so naive, you cannot tell when you’re being used. Lila, Storm does not love you. Storm is using you just as I did. The only difference is that Storm is a better actor than I ever was.”

“Stop.”

“I know you better than you know yourself.”His act of being weak is for the most part over. “I know you are afraid to be alone. I know you will do anything required to feel valued. I know that you were so damaged as a child by your father abusing you and your stepmother being so cruel to you, that you will take anything and you will call that love.”

Each word is like a knife that is hitting me exactly where I am insecure.

“I know Storm has been controlling you. He has been making decisions for you. He has been holding things from you. He has been protecting you from things he thinks you cannot handle. Does any of this sound familiar? This was what I did to you and you left me for doing it. But you’re still with him, why? Because he has more money? More power? Better at manipulating you?”

“He is not like you.”

“He is just like me.” Mark’s voice rises as he speaks. “Storm is using you for his own benefit. He needed you to assist him with destroying me and now I’m gone, how long will it be until you’re also gone? How long will you be back to being worthless and alone and wondering why no one will love you?”

“Okay enough.” My voice is shaking as I speak but I am firm. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to try to kill yourself and then attack me when I come to check on you. You don’t get to manipulate me anymore.”

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