Leave Her, Choose My Own Life

Synopsis

The night before the wedding, my fiancée, Freya Blake, was kneeling in the rain and begging me to let her go accompany another man to try on wedding dresses. It was a late autumn rain, with a biting chill, pouring down from a heavy gray sky. I stood under the porch of the villa, looking at the woman I had loved for fifteen years. Her expensive white dress was drenched, her carefully styled hair stuck to her cheeks, and her makeup was ruined, her eyeliner smeared into two black streaks down her face, like tears. She was a mess, but still beautiful. But to me, that beauty right now was harder to bear than any ugliness. Freya begged, "Julian, please."