How do you explain something as dark and despicable as wrapping your hands around a woman’s throat and getting off on it so much you lose awareness of the situation unfolding beneath you?

Lucia may have shown me that desires and fantasies are healthy and normal, but what I did goes beyond all of that. My selfish needs took precedence over her safety when Lucia deserved all of my focus and attention.

The craving is no longer there. The fantasy is now marred with the image of Lucia’s lifeless and limp body lying beside me in my bed—a bed I have not been able to sleep in since.

I pick up my phone again and dial my parents’ number. If there ever was a time when I needed my parents and family, it is now.

I’ve barely had time to finish my Thai takeout with Dad when he leans back in his chair and spears me with his well-known look, the one that warns me it’s time to get down to business.

“Should we move to the living room?” I ask, biding my time. Even at thirty-four years old, my father still has the same effect on me as if I were an errant teenager—something I thankfully never was.

“No, Son. You’re wound so tight I can see you’re barely holding yourself together. You called me down here—how about you tell me what happened in your own words because I know it can’t be anything like what’s been reported.”

The burn of abhorrence that’s been smoldering deep inside of me since that night sparks alight. How can you tell your own father—someone you hold in the highest regard—that you’ve done something so horrific and devastating that you fear the look of disappointment in their eyes when they find out?

“You’ve been quiet for weeks, Cal. Your mother and I have been worried. Jeremy told us you didn’t seem yourself at the dinner party. If it’s the pressure that’s getting to you, maybe you need to take a step back for a while. Design the buildings, do the things that you love, and let Grant handle the press and the public.”

“I did that today. The museum chair asked me to step down. I did so willingly.”

He watches me intently, looking for a sign that I’m holding back. Nodding slightly, he takes a drink of his beer. “That’s good, Cal. I think you need to give yourself a break. You’re so dedicated to your work, your firm and everyone around you, that you often forget about yourself.”

“You’re probably right,” I admit. “But it’s more than that. It’s worse than that.”

“Tell me what happened,” he says quietly.

I look at my hand wrapped tightly around my beer bottle, my fingers straining under the pressure as I subconsciously squeeze the glass. Releasing my hold, I look across into my father’s eyes, take a slow, deep breath, and tell him everything. From the media attention, to the notes, to the museum project, to the collapse, to the exposés in the paper, and finally, to what happened to Lucia.

“Cal, before Lucia can forgive you, you need to forgive yourself.”

“What I did was horrific. I hurt her, Dad. I’ll never forget what she looked like. There was no light, no spark in her eyes. She was there but she was barely holding on. All because of me and my deplorable needs. Who does that? What kind of person wants those kind of things?”

“Just like any other red-blooded male with fantasies,” Dad replies without hesitation.

My head that had been dropped to the ground in shame now snaps back up to look at my father, who has just shocked the hell out of me.

“What?” I ask hoarsely.

“Stop beating yourself up about this, Cal. You made a mistake in extreme circumstances. Yes, you hurt her, but there was no intention to. You lost your head.” He watches me, his eyes full of concern. “Do you love her?”

“More than anything I have ever had in my life.”

“Then why are you here talking to your dad instead of fighting for your girl?”

“Because I’m a mess thinking I’ve already lost her. If she sends me away now, it will—”

“If she sends you away, you come home, regroup, and try again. And again, until she sees what everyone around you sees.”

“She knows more of me than anybody else.”

“About goddamn time.” He grins at me, and I can’t help the laugh that escapes my mouth at him using God’s name in vain. Mom would’ve been all over him for that if she’d heard it.

He stands and I follow suit, watching him put his mug down on the kitchen counter before returning to me. “Son, it’s not lost on your mother and I that you have a lot of weight on your shoulders, from yourself and others. You’ve always been guarded.”

I shake my head, my jaw tensing as he continues. He levels me with his best father-like glare. “That’s just been your way. You’re intense, extremely focused, and passionate about your designs, the firm, and everything connected to it. In saying that, you need to be able to offload some of that weight to a partner, a woman you come home to and can be yourself around without pretense.” He reaches across the table and grips my forearm. “One look and we could tell Lucia is the woman we always hoped you’d meet. The woman any father would want for their son. She’s strong, dedicated, and focused on you and what’s going on with you. She took everything in her stride with the press, the dinner; everything that comes with being you didn’t faze her.”

“She’s the strongest woman I know.”

“And you need that, Callum. A man like you, in the position you are, with the profile you’ve got, needs a strong woman at his side.”

“You sound like Grant.”

“He’s a smart man,” Dad replies with a wry smile.

“As are you.”

“And you.” His words are strong, unwavering, and leave me in no doubt that he means them.

I lean my elbows on the table and grip my hands together. “How can I look myself in the eye knowing what I’ve done? I’m repulsed that I even contemplated doing that.”

“Everyone has fantasies, Cal. Desires that are their own, for their own reasons.”

“Dad, I—”

“Callum,” he says loudly, definitively. “You need to think about what you want from your life and who you want in it. You love her, you want her, but you’re pushing her away at a time when she needs you most and when you need her more than ever before.”

I release the breath I’ve been holding and my shoulders drop in defeat. “I shouldn’t be this weak. I should’ve been able to stop myself.”

“You’re not weak. You’re a man who made a mistake and who needs to face that and move on from it.”

“You need to stop chastising yourself and make amends. Only then will you start down the road to forgiving yourself.”

“I don’t know if I can, Dad.”

He gets up and rounds the table, placing his hand on my shoulder. “I believe in you, your mother believes in you, and you’ve got a lot of people in your life who love you and want to be there for you—you’ve just got to open yourself up and let them in. No masks, no holding back—you let them in and you will never be in a position where you feel weak and alone again.”

A few hours later, alone in my bedroom, having pushed myself to sleep in the bed where I did my worst, I rerun everything my father said to me. Every single word.

Then I pick up my cell phone from the bedside table, and type in a message. The same two words that have continued to scroll through my mind every hour since I last saw her.

C: I’m Sorry.

“Gregory, how are you?” I say, stepping into the elevator on Monday morning. There had been no reply from Lucia. I didn’t expect one. The betrayal she must feel from not only what happened but also me not being there for her when she needed me—both at the hospital and afterward—would affect even the strongest of feelings.