My Love Until the Last Goodbye (Mary and Maximus)

After the conversation between Pierre, Laura, Lucius, and Maximus, it was time to talk to Paul. However, Maximus felt it was something that needed to be discussed between father and son.

He fully understood that Laura wanted to be involved, but this—this was something only he could and should handle. As a father, he couldn't just step aside or let others take the lead.

Maximus walked to his room, looking like a defeated man. His children watched as he passed through the hallway without saying a word. Diana wasn't home today, which gave him time to think things through.

Eventually, he stepped out onto his balcony. The darkness of the night and his dimly lit room surrounded him. He pulled out a cigarette-something he rarely did anymore—and let his body sink into the chair beside the small garden table on his balcony.

For a moment, he closed his eyes and took a drag, mentally revisiting his entire life. There was no doubt in his mind that this was karma catching up to him for all the harm he had caused.

Yes, he had everything he had ever wanted his family, his children, a loving woman, his father, and his brother back in his life-but that didn't erase the damage he had done in the past. Whether knowingly or not, he had hurt people.

Mary and Peter had been the ones most affected by his pride and selfishness. In the end, life was showing him what truly mattered, but that didn't mean his sins had been forgiven. No, of course not. He could see how karma was coming for him, hitting him where it hurt the most-his children.

Looking back, Peter had suffered even more than he was suffering now: the physical pain his brother endured, losing the love of his life, losing himself, losing his memories.

That was more than any person should have to bear. And yet, even without his memories, his brother was still here-stronger, wiser, even if he didn't seem like it. Maximus knew it, without a doubt. He could even say, without hesitation, that Peter was wiser than he was.

Maximus placed the cigarette in the ashtray, buried his face in his hands, and began to cry. Tonight, more than ever, he felt like a small, insignificant man. He had no idea how to handle this, how to approach Paul, how to tell him that he wasn't really his father.

People assume that adults always know what to do, but this time, Maximus had no idea how to face reality. He was terrified of losing his son, afraid Pierre would come and take him away, afraid his family would fall apart, that he would lose everything he loved.

And while he cried for his son and the fear of losing him, he also cried for those

he had hurt, for the past he had left behind, for the pain he had caused, for the

bad decisions that had led him to this moment.

Karma kept coming for him. Karma-the damned

karma-wouldn't stop showing him that, in the end, everything catches up with you. That our actions, even when they seem to affect only a few, eventually explode in our faces, hurting those we least expect and those who least deserve it.

And Paul was one of them-his son, his boy, who was no longer just a child but a young man on the verge of adulthood.

After a while, he calmed down, opened his eyes, and remembered the trip he had taken with his son to the Maldives. He knew things hadn't gone well there, and the girl Paul had gone to see hadn't turned out to be the kind of person he thought she was.

Paul, shy and unsure of how to handle his emotions, didn't remember everything that had happened, but Maximus did. That was the first time he had looked at his son and realized he was no longer a little boy running around the house with his toys.noveldrama

He was growing up-becoming the man he would one day be, in a world filled with moments like that one.

What had happened between them was a secret, one Maximus remembered all too well. It was something his son had made him promise to keep.