She asked his driver to take her home.
‘You are loved though,’ Leila said to the small life inside her. ‘You are so loved and you are so wanted and I am going to do everything I can to ensure that you know it every day that I am with you.’
And she would do it alone.
Leila refused to be with a man who did not truly love her, refused to be like James’s parents. Her daughter would have a mother who was a strong woman instead of a martyr. Her daughter would have a mother who refused to turn the other cheek.
Anger was coming now and Leila threw a few clothes into the small case she had brought with her from home.
She wanted nothing from him.
Nothing.
Leila tore off the robe he had made for her and put on the one she owned and decided that she would send for her things later. She simply couldn’t bear to be here anymore, amongst his things, his scent, close to the man who had stolen her heart.
She took her cash she had saved from working and her passport and put them in her bag and then Leila removed the ring that James had given her at that appalling showy proposal where he had attempted to trap her.
He never would.
I hope she was worth it... Leila texted, and sent it, and then she threw the phone he had given her onto the bed and left the building.
James received the text just as he was getting into his car after leaving The Chatsfield and he immediately called her but it went straight to messages.
‘Was Leila okay when you took her home?’ James asked his driver.
‘She didn’t say much,’ he answered, ‘although she never does.’ Then he told James he had taken her to The Chatsfield earlier, and James felt his stomach clench. ‘Then I brought her home again.’
He told his driver to wait for him, but as soon as he stepped in their home James knew that she had gone.
Her phone was there, her ring was there, everything was there—just not Leila.