Marrying Her Older Billionaire

 You could sense that he had started to slip into depression, that he was starting to become negative about everything. You needed to escape from that. You needed to preserve your own head. You needed to keep your own mental state safe because you had just dealt with loss too.

“Was the decision to move to Kenya inherently selfish? Yes, it was. But that doesn’t mean that it’s a bad thing. It doesn’t mean that what you did was cowardly, which is what I’m sure you fear it to be. It was just the reaction of a girl that missed her mother, and didn’t feel like she could be around the only living reminder that her mother had existed. For that is what your father was at the time, wasn’t it? He was a reminder of that which you had lost. I think the reason you saw him so depressed and toxic was that he saw the same thing in you. He looked at you and all he could see was the wife that he had lost. It probably didn’t help at all that you look exactly like her. It probably made him feel even more depressed, even more frustrated and angry at everything that was happening. It probably made him feel like you were the reason he was depressed, and he probably started taking it out on you for this very reason. Can’t you see that? You were not the one at fault. It wasn’t your dad’s fault either. The two of you suddenly lost one of the most important people in your lives, you were left with nothing but reminders of that loss, is it really surprising that the two of you reacted the way that you did?”

“I guess what you’re saying makes sense,” said Angie. “Thank you for just… I mean… Thank you for putting it in such an easy to understand narrative. It really helped me to understand what it was that I was feeling. I just… I’m emotionally involved in this, you know? I am just so emotionally involved that I don’t really know what to do or how to feel about it. I feel like I’m going to go crazy, to be very honest. I’m feeling so much, and all at the same time. I’m feeling so much that everything I’m doing seems like the wrong thing to do. Everything I’m doing seems like it’s a mistake, so when I think about the situation my thoughts are all jumbled up and I’m not able to make sense of, well, anything at all. I’m not able to properly grasp what is going on because my thoughts are all tangled up in one another.”

“I’m not surprised that that is the case,” said Richard. “You’ve been through something really serious. And you just got back to the geographical location where it happened after being away for so very long. You feel what you have to feel, okay? You don’t have to explain it or rationalize it for anyone but yourself. Whatever it is that you are thinking, just allow yourself to think about it. Eventually you are going to start making sense of it. And just… always remember that if you need someone to talk to, you can always talk to me. I can understand that talking to your dad about this might not be the most appealing option for you. After all, he is as emotionally invested in this as you are, he’s not exactly going to be very objective about it. He’s probably going to be the worst person that you can talk to in that situation. So just always remember that if things are getting too crazy in that head of yours, you can always talk to me about it, okay? I will never feel like you are disturbing me, I will never feel like you are getting in the way of anything important. I know what it’s like to feel what you are feeling because my mother died when I was twenty, I was only a year older than you were when your mother died.

“Your father… he lost a wife. He’s not going to be able to understand what you’re feeling because his own loss was just as great and it is so different from your loss. I, on the other hand, have felt your loss. I’ll be able to talk to you about it properly, give you a more balanced understanding of what it is you’re feeling and allow you to be a little more objective about the whole situation. At the end of the day, it’s all about getting past the things that are holding us back, right? I can help you do that.”

“Oh Richard…” said Angie. “Thank you so much. That’s so sweet I… You really don’t have to, I mean you are under no obligation whatsoever to feel however it is you are feeling or do whatever it is that you are willing to do.”

“I know,” said Richard. “I’m not doing it because I feel obligated. I’m doing it because I want to do it. Because I care about you. You coming back gave me a lot of things to feel. I’m still trying to process them, but what I can understand from all of this is that I care about you a lot, even though I have not seen you in so long. And I’m not going to let you just go through whatever it is that you are going through all on your own, okay? I’m going to help, no matter what, I’m going to help.”

Angie smiled at Richard. She wanted to hug him right then but she did not think it would be appropriate. She had hugged him in the lift out of sheer excitement and she had regretted it somewhat. She had felt like she had been acting too forward with a man that she had just met for the first time in ten years. She remembered how he had looked after she had hugged him. He had looked pleased, very pleased indeed. He had looked like he had really appreciated what she had just done.

She realized then that she should stop feeling so self conscious, she should stop feeling like everything she was doing was under scrutiny in some way or the other. She should stop feeling like she should censor herself or prevent herself from behaving in a certain way, because in doing so she would end up losing the part of herself that so many people loved with all of their hearts.

She hugged him and he hugged her back. She was not hesitant while hugging him. She did not make it awkward, and neither did he. They hugged the way old friends did, the way people that had spent a great deal of time being intimate did. They hugged the way people that were very well acquainted with each other’s body did, in fact, and it was a lot more than just the platonic touch of people that did not feel anything for each other. No, this touch was very different. It was the touch of two people that were very attracted to each other, that wanted to know each other in a way that was a lot more than just platonic.

They were extremely attracted to each other. There was no way to deny it. Angie knew this, and she knew that there was nothing she could do about it. It made her sad, in a way, to feel so strongly towards someone that she could not feel anything with. It made her sad that she would not be able to express the way she felt to this man, even though she felt it so strongly.