White Lies and Sweet Compromise( 𝐁𝐖𝐖𝐌💕)

Chapter 50

Withers Mansion master suite.

"I never stopped loving you Leela," Lionel said his voice laden with emotion. "I love you and I never stopped. I made a complete mess of it for being young and selfish when I should have been bold and caring."

"Stop!" she cried putting up shaking hands to stop the words that ripped apart the wall she built to protect her vulnerability. "Why do you think that you saying this to me is going to make any difference now?!"

He made to speak but she kept on speaking. "You stood before your parents and protected yourself when they found out we slept together, you caused them to take my baby away and ripped from me the only friend I ever had. I lost you, Ky and Emma because you cared more about being your father's son and your mother's golden boy. You cared for nothing but getting what you want at any cost and the expense was a life of misery for me."

"I did hurt and disappoint you Lee and I could never blame you if you did hate me," he told her. "I made a mess of your life and left my parents to clean it up leaving a bigger mess in the end. I was such an asshole," he said in chastisement.

She stared at him trying to hold back the tears that burned her eyes, and she bit her lips to keep them at bay. She could not allow Lionel any more of her tears.

"I wanted to have you so badly Leela, you were like the blood running through my veins. I found you to be the centre of all my thoughts. I just could not get you off my mind and more so as I let Emma suffer the brunt of my cowardice," he said regret lacing his voice. "I hurt you, Kylie and Emma and I tried to right my wrongs but all I had was dead ends when I started looking for you."

"You searched for me?" she asked surprised thinking how different things might be from what she truly thought.

He took her hand led her to the matching padded chair for the dressing table and made her sit down. He stood looking down at her as if this would be the last time he would ever see her again. She felt her heart reach out to him but she sat quietly and waited.

"I intended to have you Lee but it was never to be in such a rushed and uncaring manner. I wanted to woo you, give you the dates, the picnics, the sweet sentiments of teenage love so that you could rise beyond your childish fascination with me. I wanted you to be my girlfriend---"

Leela stared at him feeling a thousand mixed emotions raging in her. This was what she wished for on those lonely hard nights in the past when her heart beat  mercilessly for him.

On the brink of her miserable brokenness, she had prayed countless times for him to release her with some affirmation but it never came and she allowed herself to stop craving the one thing that was never hers to have completely.

"I tried so many times to hate you but all I could do was feel disappointed," she said softly as she fought the love for him that she could never erase or share with any other man. "You were young Lionel and overwhelmed by the turn in events," she answered knowing life fit together the jigsaw puzzle of our lives and often time we get the picture too late.

"I am truly sorry for how I handled the situation, Leela. I should have been more considerate of you and your feelings," he said sincerely

"Your father and mother had your obligation, not I. You made your choice," she told him. "I did have one occasion where you chose me and out of it, I have Emma. I might have missed out on parts of her life but now that I am back in her life I want joint custody of our daughter."

Silence filled the room as Lionel stared at her and she drew her conclusion from it.

"I will not have her taken from me again. I am her mother and I deserve a place in her life. It just pained me it took such a long time for me to get it."

He still did not speak and she rose from where she sat and walked up to the dress and stared at it as she asked him softly.

"Was it after your parents died that you got the courage to find me?" she asked.

"No," he said. "I did so shortly after I got back from Finland after my Freshman year. I came back as I could not live my life knowing you had to suffer from my actions. When I returned I found out that not only were you and your parents gone but that my parents had our daughter as well. I ran to Finland scared and confused about where my loyalties and obligations lay but on returning Emma and Kylie became my priorities."

She knew what he meant, she had learnt from various news and tabloids the dreaded depression that Kylie had gone through from her mother's outspokenness and disregard for her daughter's sexuality. Drugs and her high profile affair with Harley Presley the Congressman's black sheep of a daughter was the damaging result of Kylie's fall from her parent's grace.

She had on numerous occasions tried to reach out to Kylie but her parents had forbidden it, saying that it was best they moved on from the Withers and find peace in the dreadful outcome of their past.

It was never easy this choice but she complied with her parent's wishes torn between love, appreciation and respect for them and her devotion and love to a friend that was ripped from her life. In the end, she succumbed to her parents' longing for Kylie's friendship her beloved daughter and what could have been with Lionel.

She had with a heavy heart finished her education, completed her nursing certification went on to her nursing diploma but being busy and trying to live in a broken world never stopped her from longing for her heart's true desires, and with her parents understanding they had supported her when she returned to Dresdale to be near her daughter, the man she loved and the friend she missed deeply.

Dresdale had brought her a new friendship, a little bit closer to Emma but still, Lionel and Kylie were like figments of her crazed imagination until the very place she sought refuge as she aided in mending brokenness and give healing became the ties to pull them all together again.

She turned from the dress and was surprised to see that Lionel was now beside her his nearness peaked her awareness and desire for him.

"I made a promise to Bear I would bring her mother back to her Lee but it was not to have her through joint custody," he said then took her hand and placed a dark velvet ring box in her palm. "I have never broken a promise to her and I don't intend to."

"What's this?" she gasped.

"It goes with the dress and now that you're back we will marry," he told her firmly.

"But I don't love you," she lied looking down at the box in her palm and missing the pain that danced in the brown depths of his eyes.

"It doesn't matter we both love Emma and that's enough."

𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷

Hi y'all

So another set of emotions are going to be hidden behind a white lie it seems, but it bears on the conclusion that there can only be a compromise for Emma's sake or could there be another ending?

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