The Secret Lover

The year I fell in love with Yale Gabriel, I was twenty-two; he was forty-three, twenty-one years my senior. I am his adopted daughter—a status like a thorn embedded in my heart for ten years. Though I know I shouldn't have feelings for him, my eyes always follow his every move. Novel heroes may live for centuries, but Yale Gabriel has only forty-three years. Fine lines crease the corners of his eyes; his smile is gentle, yet that smile has never been meant for me. That day, the elder announced I was to be betrothed to Gavin Luke. I stood outside Yale Gabriel's study, too afraid to enter. He wasn't seated at his desk working but leaning against the floor-to-ceiling window, smoking—the smoke swirling around his profile. It was the first time I saw him flustered—beforehand, no matter how grave the business trouble, he'd only furrow his brow and say, "It's nothing." Tears welled in my eyes; I gripped the edge of my clothes, my nails digging nearly into my skin. A reckless thought sprang up: to rush in, hold him, and kiss him. But reason restrained me—I am his adopted daughter; he adopted me only because I resembled his First Love, Vivian Lincoln. When I was four, he had just lost Vivian. His eyes were rimmed with red as he told me, "From now on, you shall be called Viola." All these years, I lived with the elders of the Gabriel Family, coming to stay with him only three days each month. Though our meetings were few, my heart was nonetheless stirred. The first time I saw him at work, at twelve, sunlight landed on his hands as he typed. I simply thought he was a good man and wanted to look longer—only later did I realize that was my heart beginning to beat. A little older now, I learned from the elders that Vivian Lincoln was said to be gentle, grew up with Yale Gabriel like childhood sweethearts, and tragically passed away at twenty-two from a terminal illness. I once sneaked a look at her photo—dressed in a white dress, eyes curved in a smile, and bearing a seven-tenths resemblance to me. So from the very beginning, I was merely a substitute. The Luke Family is one of the prominent households in River City, and Gavin Luke is notorious as a playboy, unqualified even to inherit his father's estate. The elders say his willingness to marry me is purely out of respect for the Gabriel Family, since everyone knows that I, this 'adopted daughter,' am nothing but a tool for Yale Gabriel's longing for Vivian. I didn't argue. Living off the Gabriel Family's generosity for ten years and repaying it with a marriage doesn't seem wrong. Just the thought that I can no longer stay at his place for three days every month twists my heart with pain. Last week, a stack of photos was slipped into the desk drawer—Gavin Luke embracing different women in bars and hotels, glaringly obvious. I burned the photos, not out of anger, but numbness—I never truly expected to have a real life with him. But Yale Gabriel doesn't know. He doesn't know that I placed him in my heart when I was twelve, that every time I visit, I secretly touch the cup he used, the books he read, that seeing him smoke breaks my heart until I cry. The smell of smoke drifted out from the Study; I sniffed the air and turned away. Engaged or not, it doesn't matter. As long as I can stay with the Gabriel Family and catch a glimpse of him now and then, that's enough.