Playing for Keeps: Finding Love Beyond the Lies - Chapter 28: Chapter 28

"Obedient?"
Years later, my best friend laughed for ten solid minutes when I described Caspian that way, tears streaming down her face.
"Girl, that is so not him!"
She said if Caspian were truly innocent, he wouldn't have survived a day.
Those online takes about his "rough start" were a joke to others, but for Caspian, they were his harsh reality.
He was born in a public restroom, for God's sake.
He never knew his father.
His mother raised him alone.
By seven, he'd learned to navigate grocery stores, cook for himself, and basically be self-sufficient.
He'd watched his mother drunk, seen her beaten repeatedly by different men, yet he could never bring himself to abandon her.
As a child, he'd always clean and dress her wounds, then curl up beside her, using his small hands to warm her cold ones.
He loved her.
Simply because she was his mom.
It wasn't until high school that he discovered his mother was a homewrecker.
Following the leads, he'd tracked down where all those families lived.
He never dared approach, just watched from afar.
He'd witness women screaming themselves hoarse while men responded with their fists.
Sitting on the steps outside, the kid would just draw in the dirt, trying to disappear, as if he could escape the brutality surrounding him.
In those moments, Caspian wished he could die in his mother's place.
And it was that same sense of obligation that kept him in F1 when Vivienne's father offered a ten-year contract.
All his earnings during his prime - the prize money, the endorsements - went straight into Vivienne's father's pockets.
He couldn't quit, so he trained and raced like his life depended on it.
He knew he'd never repay that multi-billion dollar debt.
No one knew his suffering. During the darkest year, he even contemplated ending it all.
His whole life felt like an act of penance.
He'd sit in that tiny room, using that old flip phone, repeatedly dialing that number—207.
The pain was overwhelming.
He figured if he ever tired of missing her, he'd just end it.
But that never happened.
Every single moment, she consumed his thoughts.
That year, when Vivienne's pursuit of him dominated social media, I truly believed he'd never return for me.
In a moment of desperation, I said "yes" to Jax.
I needed the money, the resources; I couldn't remain stuck in that eight-hundred-dollar apartment.
A year later, Caspian saw my engagement announcement online.
At the time, Vivienne's father was dying. The man who'd given him fame but also endless suffering finally agreed to release him.
"As long as you marry Vivienne," was his final demand.
Caspian maintained his usual composure. He simply asked, "What else do you want?"
"Nothing." And just like that, he agreed to the wedding.
He married, and then divorced.
And now, of all things, Vivienne wanted him on a divorce reality show.
He saw my name.
That night, he braved the storm to appear at the secluded mountain retreat.
After all those years, our reunion consisted of me handing him a heart rate monitor and saying, "You need to put this on."
"Well, here we go," Caspian thought. "She's not buying my act at all."
He didn't know how much it would take to break free from family obligations, or when he'd escape his past.
He believed no one loved without ulterior motives.
But Daisy was different.
Her happiness was tied solely to his.