~ Amelia ~

It was in the middle of the chaos that I discovered that change and growth were upon me.

My mother always said, "chaos forces us to look for order."

I looked around the kitchen, hoping for a way out. I didn't want to have this conversation with my father, although I knew it wasn't wise to put it off any longer.

I didn't want to look Willem in the eyes if it turned out that Tessa had cheated on his brother. He looked so heartbroken earlier after Sintus showed up at the door demanding to see his son.

There were so many things I didn't seem to want, but somehow here I was.

Did I even want this relationship with Willem anymore? It wasn't difficult to see that our relationship was a poisonous, ugly mixture of past hurts and inconceivable differences.

After everything that had conspired ever since I decided to chase love, I realized that I was no longer desperate for it.

The fairytale relationship I had so carefully constructed in my mind to fill the void of loneliness and to justify the presence of the golden band around my finger had long dissipated into ashes of lies and secrecy.

"Amelia," Filo said loudly. "Tea?"

I blinked and looked up. "No, thanks."

Filo clucked when I refused her cup of homemade bush tea and proceeded to fill my father's teacup.

"Would you like some cookies with that, Mr. Miller? They're ginger cookies. Made them myself," she said with a smile, reaching for the cookie jar before my father could mutter an answer.

Willem and his parents were gathered in the living room and I could hear them talking amongst themselves. Sintus was the main topic. Jan didn't say much but Bridgette couldn't keep still as she carried on about Tessa's infidelity.

My father cleared his throat after he'd taken a bite of Filo's famous ginger cookie. "Amy, you seem distracted. We don't have to talk about anything tonight. I just want you to know that I couldn't go another day without seeing you. I know you hate me right now... but know that I did everything to protect you."

Cookie crumbs clung to his beard and I reached over to brush them away. It was the first time I'd touch my father in weeks and it felt weird.

"I don't hate you, papa. I'm just disappointed."

"That's just as bad in my book," he said.

I watched as Filo plated a piece of apple pie for my father. He smiled, his round cheeks lifting as his eyes glittered.

Filo left to join Francois in the kitchen, and my belly grumbled at the thought of having one of Francois's savory French dinners. I wondered what he was making tonight. A Coq au Vin, perhaps.

"Talk to me, Amy," my father prodded.

I squared my shoulders as if that would somehow stop the onslaught of tumultuous emotions I felt from flowing out of me like a damaged dam.

"I can't believe that we were broke all those years and you tried to keep it away from me." I leaned across the table because I wanted him to hear everything I had to say. "You married me off to a stranger at seventeen trying to clean up your mess and mom died in the process."

A grimace marred his expression and then sadness settled in his aging brown eyes. "I was never good with money and your mother knew this. The restaurant started doing well at some point and I got comfortable. I wanted to make your mother happy. I told her to stop working and we started traveling a lot and we took you with us most of the time. Remember that?"

I nodded but didn't interrupt him. The best memories I had of my mother were during those random getaways.

"Things eventually turned sour at the restaurant," he continued. "The reviews were horrible. The service was slow and the food was unimaginative and bland. I didn't know how to tell your mother that we had to change our lifestyle." He smiled. "She wanted to start blogging about our travels.

Time passes and now I'm in over my head. I was spending more than I was making. I canceled all our trips that year and your mother forced the truth out of me."

I smiled in turn, reminiscing. "Oh, she had a way of getting to the truth. I swore she was a walking lie detector."

"Sure was. She was also a problem-solving machine. She called up Willem as soon as I told her how dire the situation was and asked him to buy the restaurant from us or to at least invest in it until we were back on our feet." He looked down at his hands for a second. "I didn't want to sell. I made a lot of sacrifices to get that restaurant."

"And then, here comes a stranger who wants to take it away."

"I disliked him right away and it wasn't personal. He took my restaurant and my daughter, all in one breath. I didn't know much about Willem at the time, but I'd heard of his father, an aggressive businessman.

I didn't want you mixed up in that life, so the second he chose to leave you less than three days after he married you to be with another woman, all I saw was more red flags." His speech slurred for the second time that evening and I frowned. What in the world did Filo put in that tea?

I sighed. "Why didn't you just tell me all of this at the time?"

He ran his finger over the rim of the teacup in front of him. "You were young and in mourning and I saw how you behaved around him. Like he was your savior. I didn't think you'd understand. He called several times after he left, but I told him to stop and then I changed our number and took it out of the phonebook."

"And the letters? He wrote me for six years, Papa. You gave that man your blessing to marry me and then you turned around and acted like he'd stolen me from you. I don't know how you could just treat someone like that when you knew next to nothing about them."

"I brought the letters with me. I read the first one. The rest are unread. I'm so sorry, Amy. I'm sorry I took something as precious as love away from you."

"That's a lot of letters I have to read. I still haven't read the ones from Mama."

"You should read those with Willem. She wrote them for the both of you."

"Yes, but I don't know if Willem and I are there yet. Or if we'll ever be." I muttered the last part under my breath.

"I understand. Relationships take time."

"Why didn't you go back to work after you sold the restaurant?"

"I was ashamed. And Amy, I have something to tell you that I've been putting off."

"What is it?"

"I have MS."

"Multiple Sclerosis?" I shook my head in denial and then paused when he nodded in confirmation. "No way. How did I miss that?"

"The signs were there but you were too busy to notice. This illness is another reason I never told you about Willem's letters. I didn't want to be alone." A sad smile lifted the corners of his lips. "I thought my years were limited but apparently, life expectancy isn't greatly affected by MS.

"Papa, you're not alone," I said. "My goodness. How long have you known and how fast is it progressing?"

"There are good days and bad days. I was diagnosed a year after your mother passed away. I thought the symptoms had to do with me losing her because they started right after she died, but my doctor told me the stress may have unlocked it but it didn't cause it."

"What are your symptoms?"

"Slurred speech, imbalance, and numbness in my hands and legs mostly. It's getting worse. The last relapse happened after you left to come here. I couldn't even walk from the couch to the fridge."

"Papa, I'm-"

"Annaliese took care of me," he interjected, cutting my apology short.

I nodded as tears welled up in my eyes and then silently slipped down my cheeks. I wanted to hate him for lying to me but I couldn't bring myself to do so.

He was all I had left. But I couldn't help but notice that my father had acted like one of the many parents I'd seen walk into my office over the years.

In a twisted way, parents often lied to themselves while making decisions that mostly benefitted them instead of their children.

They did it sometimes to shield themselves from loss and other times because deep down inside they craved the kind of love only a child could provide.

Worst yet were the parents who fought tooth and nail to keep their children alive when the odds were against them. Simply because they were unlovable and their child's love was the only real love they would ever experience in their miserable lives on this earth.

I fought through the heavy emotions clogging my throat like wilted food particles sitting in the kitchen sink. If I didn't speak, I would suffocate.

"Did you think I could replace mom's love? Somehow fill the gap she'd left behind?" I asked.

He frowned and then shook his head with conviction. "Amy, you're crying. Please don't cry."

"Answer the question."

"I don't know what-" He stammered, his words getting stuck in his throat like an unwanted fishbone in what was assumedly a carefully dissected boneless fish.

I stood up and leaned over the table. "Answer the freaking question, Papa."

A shadow appeared at the corner of my eye and I backed off. It was Willem and his parents.

I looked away and folded my arms over my breasts. A second later Willem's hand settled on my shoulder.

"Schatje, I think we need to take a breather. Maybe even call it a night. I'll have Francois bring our food to the room. What do you say?"

I nodded and Jan made it clear that he was unhappy with the situation. "I thought we were all going to sit down and have dinner like a family. We would like to get to know you, Amelia."

Yeah, right, I thought. Willem's dad was full of shit and I wished I was brave enough to tell him so to his face.

Willem ran his thumb up and down at the nape of my neck causing some of the tension to leave my body.

"The lot of you have caused enough damage in one day," he said." You two should extend your trip and you're welcome to stay at the penthouse hotel. Mr. Miller can use the guest bedroom."

I stood up and forced a smile. "Yes, the three of you should still have dinner together. I highly recommend you use the time to reflect on how your roles led to Willem and I getting married and how your selfish decisions negatively affected our marriage."

My father bowed his head stoically while Mr. de Vries couldn't be bothered to blink. Bridgette nodded somberly and mouthed 'I'm sorry' to Willem.

We left our parents in the dining room and I could feel their eyes burning a hole through our backs as we made our escape.

Willem decided to tell Filo about the change of plans and I continued up the stairs, feeling like there was a dark cloud hanging over my head.

I held my breath and waited for the sky to burst open and for a torrent of rain to fall on my curls, but nothing happened.

The unmade bed from earlier was fixed, plump pillows stacked against the headboard.

I saw Oreo sitting on the windowsill and I joined him, plowing my fingers through the soft black fur at his nape.

"You won't believe who is downstairs right now," I said staring at the beach in the distance. "Papa's here and he didn't bring good news."

Oreo blinked, brushing his wet nose and whiskers against my arm.

We sat there like two troubled old ladies until Willem entered the room. He smiled when he saw us and my heart melted a little.

He looked tired and I could tell that he was done for the day.

"When Filo told me you had a cat. I didn't believe her," he said joining me by the window pane. "I didn't take you for a cat lady."

"His name is Oreo, you know since he's black and white. He's 6 years old. A stray I rescued from a group of rabid dogs who wanted to have him for dinner. We've been together ever since. I got him mostly to keep my father company. He was home alone a lot after my mother passed."

I made room for Willem and he sat down next to me. He surprised me by taking my left hand in his, his serious grey eyes drilling into mine. "Pieter and I had a dog when we were younger. He died."

"How did he die?"

"Cancer."

"I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago. I'm guessing the talk with your father didn't go as planned but hopefully you got some answers."

"You know I never understood why people used to complain about their parents all the time in college and then later in medical school, but I get it now. My childhood always seemed too good to be true."

"Too good to be true, huh?"

I nodded and ended up telling him about my childhood. My parents were never super strict and I loved that I could be myself around them.

This led to Willem telling me more about his upbringing and how his father started grooming them from a young age to run the business. Oreo climbed onto his lap as he spoke and I liked how he gently cradled the cat in his arm, his thumb caressing the top of Oreo's head.

That thumb of his was magic and I yearned to feel it at the nape of my neck or under the sides of my breasts whenever he'd cup them.

My mind drifted and I grew hot thinking about his fingers on other parts of my body.

On my nipples.

My clit.

In my mouth.

"Schatje?"

"Hmm."

"You're not listening to me, are you? Because there's no way you would have that look in your eyes if you were listening to me talk about the business courses I had to take at the age of thirteen."

I chuckled. If he only knew how deep in the gutter my mind was right now.

"What look?" I asked, feigning ignorance. "I mean the business courses turned out to be something good, but I guess at thirteen you'd rather be playing football with your friends than having to take extra courses."

The right corner of his lips lifted in amusement. "Take a bath with me? I think it will do us good."

I'd never taken a bath with a man before and the thought of it was both exciting and intimidating. "What about dinner?"

"I'll have Francois bring it up later. If you're not too hungry that is."

"A girl is always hungry." I stood up, hoping to hide how anxious I felt, and lifted Oreo from his lap so I could feed him. "And a cat too. But I'll let it slide just this once."

I leaned down and filled Oreo's bowl that Filo had somehow gotten him with dry cat food. When I straightened back up, Willem was standing right behind me, his groin flushed with my ass, his scent in my nose.

"That won't be the only thing sliding tonight," he whispered against my neck.

A heartbeat later, he tugged on my blouse and his soft lips descended on my now exposed shoulder.

My eyes fluttered shut. "You better behave or you'll be the one sliding out the window, sir."

"Sir?" He marched us forward until I came up against the wall with the flat of my hands. "I like that. I like that a lot, schatje."

His erection was hard and prominent now.

I wanted him.

Craved him.

But to what extent? I couldn't seem to make up my mind about going forward with this marriage. I couldn't help but wish that we'd met under different circumstances.

I had to ask myself, was I holding on to this marriage because that's what seventeen-year-old Amelia wanted? Or because that's what my mother wanted?

What did I want?

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