King and Yara

Chapter 16 (Yara): An Ever-Fixed Mark

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA

I'm not sure if anything King could have said would have surprised me more. He was asking me to adopt his children. The two little beings King loved more than anything and went to great lengths to protect, no matter the cost.

Aside from the time when he'd been so busy freaking out about what I'd said to him when he hadn't thought about the media frenzy and the potential impact it could have had on the children, King's every move was designed to protect and insulate his children. And even that time, he'd trusted me to handle it. To keep them safe from the mess he was creating. Other than that, King had always been fanatically protective of his children.

"By adopting them, you don't have to stay married to me to be a part of Louise and Carter's lives. You'd be their legal mother, meaning you would share custody with me without being married to me. This is my way to free you from our marriage, Yara, if that's what you ultimately want."

There was that word: want.

You think you want something, you've convinced yourself you want something...and then when it's handed to you, you second guess yourself. Is this what I really want after all? Did I want to be free from King? He was offering me an out and a way to keep the children in my life. This man was offering me legal access to his children.

"I know how much you love Louise and Carter. I also know you've chosen to stay with me because you love them, because you feel that strongly about them. If you adopt them, if you want to adopt them, you'd be free to divorce me and not lose them. I'll set up a binding custody agreement the second you sign the adoption papers, if you want. If you divorce me, I won't marry again, Yara, but I'll play the hypothetical I know you're thinking: if I did marry again, she would be their step-mother only. You are and would remain their mother. You and I would co-parent and no one would ever interfere with that."

"You say that now, but if you loved someone enough to marry her, and she started making noises about the children being yours and wanting me out of their lives...I could see you giving your wife what she wants."

"There's only one woman I want to give whatever she wants, Yara. That's you."

"I need...I need to think, Henry."

Flinch.

"I'd be worried if you didn't," he said, with such understanding I suddenly felt like crying. He stepped closer to me, and that almost pushed me over the edge. For so long, I'd wanted King closer to me, and now he was saying all the right things and doing all the right things, but the humiliation he'd put me through loomed in front of me like a monster, and the lack of care he'd shown had cut me until I'd bled.

"Yara, I wish there were some magical spell I could cast that would erase what I allowed to happen, what I put you through. I'd give anything if I'd just told you what was on my heart when you told me you loved me. I'd walk away from my company if it meant I could have a chance to prove to you how much I love you. And, Yara, not even for Runi would I have done that. In fact, I didn't do that for her. That's telling to me. I would stop at nothing to get you the help you needed if I found out you were an addict. I wouldn't throw money at a problem like I did with her; I'd plant myself beside you every step of the way and fight the battle right alongside you." 

Oh, King.

"You've been making me realize what love is and what it isn't. In the end, I was more interested in protecting the children from Runi than I was in getting her help. I gave up on her eventually. I wasn't devastated when she'd died, and I told myself that was normal because her actions had killed any good feelings I had for her. But with you, Yara? I'd never give up on you and if anything were to happen to you, I don't know how I'd go on."