The End of a Marriage (Colette and Matheo) novel Chapter 249

Chapter 249

Chapter 32

As the car weaved through the dense traffic toward the helipad, Isla sat in silence, staring out the window but seeing nothing. The chaos – of the city outside seemed a cruel reflection of the turmoil in her heart. Her thoughts churned, pulling her back into memories she had

tried to bury for so long.

All her life, Isla had yearned for a family–a warm, loving family that would hold her close and love her unconditionally. As a little girl, she had watched other children with their fathers, laughing and playing, and she had always felt the absence of her own biological father like an aching void. She had told herself stories about him, imagined what he might be like. Was he kind? Did he think of her? Did he miss her the way she missed the idea of him? Those questions had haunted her, unanswered, for years.

Her stepfather had been good to her–kind and patient in his own way -but Isla had always sensed the distance between them. No matter how much he tried, she couldn’t help but feel that she was an outsider in his life, a responsibility rather than a joy. And when her mother passed away, the loss was like a gaping wound, ripping through her world and leaving her exposed.

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Chapter 249

For so long, she had blamed herself. She had been young, too young to understand the randomness of loss, and the thought took root in her fragile heart: maybe she was cursed. Maybe she was the reason her father had left, why her mother was taken too soon. The fear of being the cause of misfortune clung to her, even as the years passed

and she grew older.

And then there was Robert. His warmth, his care, his unwavering presence had been her anchor. Yet even with him, that gnawing fear never truly went away. She lived in terror of losing him too, of being left utterly alone. It wasn’t rational–she knew that. But no amount of reason could quell the cold dread that settled in her chest whenever she thought about the possibility.

Now Robert was gone, and the hollow ache of her childhood fears returned with a vengeance. She felt like a tree uprooted, her life flung into a storm she couldn’t control. The thought of navigating the world entirely alone–without her mother, her father, or Robert–was almost too much to bear.

It was that same fear that had made Graham’s proposal both a dream and a nightmare.

On one hand, it seemed like salvation. A family. Stability. A place where she might finally belong. Isla had always craved those things so desperately that, for a fleeting moment, she had considered saying yes. She could imagine the life they might build–on the surface, it

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would look perfect. She would never be alone, never feel like a

drifting shell of a person with no one to care for her.

But deep down, she knew the truth. Graham didn’t love her. He never had. His proposal wasn’t an act of affection or devotion but a calculated move, a cold and practical solution to some problem she couldn’t fully understand. And Isla knew herself well enough to know

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