Did she just hear that? No she definitely heard wrong!

"What did you just say?" She asked again.

He ruffled his hair. "I must be going mad."

He stood up and walked to the wine bar, poured some liquid into a glass, gulped some, then slowly walked back to her.

He picked her nightwear off the floor and handed it to her then sat facing her. She grabbed it and covered herself.

Staring into her eyes, he repeated.

"Marry me again."

He had really said that.

"I...I...I..."

"For the kids' sake." He said quickly.

Right. This was what this was about. The kids.

"We don't have to get married again because of the kids." She said drily, clutching the dress tighter to her chest. "We could raise them well without having to marry."

"I don't think that's what they would want." He said. "We have to put their feelings into consideration. And I also would not have my own children growing up in another man's house."

"You are just been downright selfish because of your jealousy over Dominic." She snapped to rile him up.

His face contorted with anger. "This is not about jealousy or selfishness! It's about being reasonable and doing what's best for the kids!"

"I raised the kids alone to who they are today without help from nobody! I love them more than anything and they love me and we've always been perfectly fine and contented with each other." She raged. "I do not have to marry you because of your own selfishness."

"Annabelle..."

"I am not going through with it! I am done with letting people walk all over me. I am done with people including you dictating to me on how to live my life..."

"Belle..."

"Must it always be about you?" She wailed angrily as tears threatened to spill. "Must it always be about others? Why are my own feelings never taken into consideration!?..."

"Belle stop!..."

"I am done with all these!" She made to get up still clutching the nightie around her with one hand but he stopped her from leaving, gently pulling her down again. "Let go of me!"

"Calm down Belle!" He tried but she wouldn't have it.

"Besides you even have a fiancée you're marrying soon yet you have the nerve to propose marriage to me, you bas..."

"I broke it off with Chanel last night!" He said desperately as she refused to listen.

That seemed to shut her up.

She froze. "You did what?"

"I ended things with her." He said gently this time. "I called off the engagement last night."

She was rendered speechless for a moment, then...

"I will not sit here and listen to your lies."

"Have I ever lied to you before?" He looked at her intensely. "Why would I lie with something as sensitive as this?"

She looked at him and saw the honesty in his eyes. She was quiet for a moment then finally relaxed.

"But...why?"

He sighed. "I...after spending these past hours with you and the kids, I realized that...I couldn't bear to watch the kids...to watch you walk away from me again. I would never have forgiven myself if I had let you walk through that exit door without telling you how I feel."

She was speechless for a moment, not believing her ears.

"You said your marriage proposal few minutes ago was purely for the kids' sake."

He sighed in resignation. "If there's one thing about me that you're right about, I must admit, it's about my being selfish.

I had said that because I believed you were going to outrightly reject my proposal. I knew that my selfish heart could not take it that's why I used our kids, because I knew you would at least give it a thought if it majorly had to do with them." His voice broke. "I'm so sorry I did that but... Annabelle at this point I can do just about anything to have you in my life again."

At this point she was almost gaping at him.

"If you aren't proposing to marry me again solely because of the kids, what else is the reason?" She asked with bated breath.

"You still haven't figured it out after all these years." He stated with a sad chuckle. "You amaze me, woman."

"I mean you were still engaged to another woman just yesterday so I..." She blurted in a rush.

"I love you, Annabelle," he said huskily. "I have always loved you."

Of course that definitely shut her up and she just stared at him, speechless... and downright shocked.

"Annabelle? Are you okay?" He asked with concern when she didn't say anything for long seconds but just stare at him.

"Yes I... I'm fine I just...what did you just say?" She asked, to be sure that she heard right.

His face fell in remorse.

"I know that I haven't done a good job in expressing my true feelings for you all these years," he said "but Annabelle, I am deeply and utterly in love with you. Always have."

She stared at him with almost wide eyes.

"Always have?"

"Always have and always will."

A bubble of excitement and happiness swept through her body in soft waves.

But she really wanted to know.

"Since when?"

"I guess I've always loved you even while we were kids. Though the love I had for you back then was more of just fondness and the fact that I saw you like my own sister since my father practically raised you and Lydia. But the day that I fell hard and deep for you and realized it, was on your seventeenth birthday."

She gasped. "That...long ago?"

"That long ago." He nodded. "You know that while growing up, I wasn't always around as I was schooling abroad. So when I arrived that day, on your seventeenth birthday and took one look at you as you elegantly came down the stairs for your party, I was awestruck at the beautiful young woman you had become." He scoffed as he went down memory lane. "Heck, I had found it hard to tear my eyes away from your face and body even though I had really wanted to, because you were supposed to be my sister as we had all grown up together. And I had felt I would be committing a great sin against my father and yours if I had acted on my desire for you...And then, you were only but seventeen."

She rolled her eyes at that. "I was already a fully grown woman at seventeen."

He smiled slightly. "But I still saw you as a child. A child that I needed to stay away from." His face suddenly hardened. "And when you introduced Samuels to me, I was filled with this fiery rage and hit with an intense jealousy that had threatened to overwhelm me at that time . I thought I had lost you forever. That's why I wasn't nice to him, that's one of the reasons why I never liked him."

She couldn't believe her ears as a proud and satisfying feeling washed through her.

"But you were always distant and aloof towards me. You never showed me the kind of love and attention you showed Lydia. It was almost as if ...you hated the sight of me."

"Never." He whispered. "I only acted that way because I had this burning desire for you and knew that there was nothing I could do about it. I hated myself because I wasn't supposed to be having such feelings for a girl who was supposed to be a sister to me and still very young at that."

"Stop saying that," she said frustratingly. "At seventeen, I was already having sex."

He scowled at her. "I bet you were."

She rolled her eyes. "That was a long time ago."

He maintained the scowl for a few seconds before his face relaxed again.

"Well, at that time I had believed letting him date you was for the best and I had to move on. That's why I left again. I had to leave because I couldn't bear to see you both together. Only the thought of his hands on you always made my blood boil. I was frustrated as the years went by and even though I had other women in my life, it greatly saddened and irritated me that I couldn't have the one woman I wanted." He scoffed ruefully. "I can't count the number of times I had slept with other women and pictured you instead under or on top of me. I was that crazy about you."

She blushed in shyness, then scowled slightly at the mention of his sleeping with other women.

Her heart skipped with love for him and his words. She didn't even know that he had had the tiniest bit of likeness for her, talk more of this.

Her heart bloomed with happiness and contentment as he spoke.

And to think that she had always had a huge crush on him from when she was a child...up until this moment.

He smiled slightly. "And when I got the news that I had to marry you? You could say that I became the happiest man on earth." He shrugged. "At least, we could finally be together. But when I returned to the country and saw that you were still very happy with him, I immediately hated myself for agreeing to the marriage and also hated myself for still not wanting to let you go. When I was asked to kiss you during our wedding ceremony, I knew you didn't want it but I had to selfishly grab that opportunity because I thought that might be the only time you might let me kiss you. I couldn't let such pass me by and that kiss had felt like I was finally revived. I know I would have ravished you thoroughly if all eyes weren't on us.

But when you looked away and focused on Samuels again, I regretted the kiss immediately. And that anger filled me again. Then I hated you, severely hated Samuels, hated the loveless marriage I was gonna have and above all hated myself for still holding onto a small glimmer of hope that one day, you would come to love me as much as I loved you." He sighed. "When I came into the bedroom that night and saw you, all beautiful and absolutely tempting on that bed, it totally saddened me that your heart and the whole of you could not be mine. That's the only reason I went back to Chanel who was only my ex at that time and started an affair with her just to numb the pain and try to get you out of my system."

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