Belinda stayed there on the floor, wondering if what she had done was the right thing. Wondering if she should have sought to so viciously hurt him.
The way he'd been looking just now, Belinda had never seen such a look on his face. He felt like a complete stranger to her. His attitude towards her was cold.
Biting her lips, Belinda prepared to stop the next wave of tears. She'd broken everything off with him, and hurt him immensely if that expression he had been carrying earlier was to be used as the basis for judgment, but why did it feel like it was her heart which had been broken into tiny little pieces?
At last, Belinda gathered all her self-will and left there. On returning to the house, she sought her older sister to cry in her arms. Feeling like she was the only one who would understand how she was feeling now. However, Dakota was nowhere to be found.
Disappointed, Belinda crept into her room and tucked herself on her bed. That was when her heart let down all the sorrow and she cried.
It was sometime before her younger sister, Mia, discovered her like that, and without a word wrapped her ten years old arms around her. Belinda snuggled closer to Mia and hugged her tighter, burying her head on her sister's lap.
It was sometime before her silent tears finally ceased, and Bee fell asleep.
\*\*\*\*\*\*
In a little cottage where Stavros lived, courtesy of the Gibson family. The young man was staring at his bruised knuckles, which he had repeatedly rammed into the wall. There was an expressionless look on his face as he gazed at his hand, and occasionally his jaw would tighten as he remembered one or two hurtful things Belinda had said to him.
Stavros felt empty, and hurt, and so utterly alone. He couldn't believe the woman he loved, the girl he so cherished will set out to hurt him like this.
What hurts him the most was that she'd admitted to coming so close to him, becoming chummy with him because of his body. There hadn't been anything about him she had liked. Unlike him, who had adored every bit of her. The realization was like a bucket of cold water had been doused on him.
Grabbing his phone from the table, Stavros went through the pictures of Belinda and himself. They were several of them. Him and Belinda kissing in his cottage.
A picture of her putting up her hair in a ponytail, and smiling at him when she noticed he was taking a picture. Another one was of her smiling sheepishly at a tree trunk where she had scribbled their names with a little cute love by the side. He had thought it cute, so he had taken a picture. Stavros' lips curved into a bitter smile at the memory.
There were many more like this and in all of them, one thing was apparent. Belinda was happy. He just didn't understand it. If they loved each other the way they did; because she had told him she loved him several times, then why had she behaved this way? Which was true and which was false.
Trying to understand her was giving him a sudden headache he rather not deal with. Stavros gripped his hair and tried to call her, but her phone was switched off. Frustrated, Stavros flung his phone on the table.
It landed with a clank on the table and then tipped off and landed face down on the wooden floor.
Suddenly, the words roared in his head. With the same amount of energy and hate, she had used in conveying it. 'I hate you. Sex was all I wanted from you. Even though I knew you were no good for me, being as poor as you were. There was nothing you could offer me.'
Stavros tensed. The words, having the same effect as the first time he heard them. He felt so ashamed and felt so utterly bothered by the circumstances to which he was born. A situation he hadn't let bother him before. Which all proved the power she had over him.
He was poor. His father had abandoned them after getting his poor mother pregnant and married someone else. Single-handedly his mother had raised him. By working as the housekeeper of the Gibson family for many years.
A lot of people had expected him to be ashamed of his circumstances, and act the way every other poor person acted. Terrified, when they were in the presence of any rich person, but Stavros never let that bother him and somehow had grown into a sensible boy, and forged his own path.
When his mother had died, Stavros had been only been a teen, and John Gibson; Belinda's father had let him keep the cottage as long as he was willing to earn his keep, which wasn't a problem for Stavros.
Stavros was hardworking and smart and he learned things quickly. soon he caught the eye of old Gibson, who gave him more work, and soon he became in charge of managing the Gibson's garden.
And as he grew older and began to develop a more manly physique. He began to attract unwanted attention. Stavros had the type of face people around described as striking and with very expressive eyes. Topping everything off with his fit, athlete body. He could only be described as an irresistible man.
Younger women wanted him, older women craved him. Yet none of them were willing to know more about him. They all had one thing in common.
They all wanted him because of the way he appealed to them sexually. And everywhere he went, he seemed to attract them like a moth to a flame, a situation he resented so much. Though there was nothing he could do.
While they had had their eyes on him, he had had his eyes on a particular pale-skinned girl. Belinda Gibson. She was the only one who hadn't noticed him instantly. And might not have known if he existed.
She was different in a way that attracted him. Though she was way out of his league. And his reach. It didn't stop Stavros from wanting to get to know her. He contented himself with the stolen looks he stole from her while she read quietly under one of the trees in the garden.
Soon he got the opportunity to talk to her, and she was everything he had imagined and more. So far-fetched from the typical snobbish rich girls. Instead, she was charming, down to earth, and seemed not to give a care about people's status, but instead was more interested in who they were.
Stavros fell in love in no time, though he wasn't able to do anything about it. He continued to be by her side and enjoy her company and simply be there for her. Until one day when she had reached across and kissed him on the lips.
That same day, he had asked her to be his girlfriend, and she had agreed. Thinking she was different from every other woman he had known, he had been wrong. He had just realized she was just like the rest of them who wanted him for his body, and what he had to offer sexually. Stavros's mouth tightened in resentment.
He was there on his weary sofa looking at his hands and wallowing in pity when he heard a knock on the door.
Stavros wasn't the type of man who had many friends. He was reserved and kept people at bay.
The only friends he had around were the old man who helped with the gardening and the pool boy. Still, they weren't close enough for them to visit him. The only person who ever visited him in the cottage was Belinda.
With a bit of hope that it could be her, and because somewhere in his mind, he still believed there was a reasonable explanation for all these Stavros scrambled to the wooden door and yanked it open.
Outside on the little porch, a woman he wasn't expecting was standing there. Hands behind her back, her head lowered.
A wave of disappointment engulfed him as his eyes landed on her face. "Dakota, what are you doing here?"
The young woman smiled at him. She wore a crop top and a pair of denim shorts which emphasized her long long legs. She wasn't wearing a bra and her nipples seemed to poke from the material.
Not minding the heavy frown he was wearing and the set of his mouth, she revealed a bottle of wine from behind her back and gave him a hesitant smile. "How are you doing?" Then her expression turned sad. "I heard what happened with Bee. I can't believe she would do something like that to you. I have come to apologize on behalf of her. Can I come in?"
Strangely, Dakota was one of the women who did chased after him. Many times she had tried to seduce him but had not been successful. The last time he had been particularly harsh on her, he had feared she did burst into tears. After that episode, he was so sure she wouldn't bother him again, but here she was.