"It has been a while since I've seen your smiling face around here," said Adelina to Roman as he took his seat at the bar in his pub.

She gave him a mug of beer as she stopped in front of him to talk.

Dressed in a light blue blouse and a navy blue floral designed skirt and her dark hair pulled up into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, she stared at Roman with her dark brown eyes smiling with her plump lips, plumper than most women he had ever known.

Roman would not deny the fact that Addy was a beautiful woman but she was not breathtakingly beautiful like Melissa, no one compared to Melissa's beauty she was in a class all her own one of the many qualities Roman had admired about her.

Melissa's beauty often made him stop to catch a breath, his heart skip a beat and sometimes he needed to pinch himself to make sure he was still alive because being with a woman as beautiful as she was seemed like a dream.

"Where have you been?" she asked trying to make conversation with Roman.

"I've been around," he answered.

"Being a husband, spending time with my wife, making coin," he responded as he took a swig of his beer.

"I've missed seeing your smiling face," she gave him a smile.

"When do you set sail again to wherever you're going next?"

"We haven't discussed leaving Jamaica just yet. We still have some things to work on and is it not good for Melissa to be on my ship in her condition? There are no doctors on my ship what if something goes terribly wrong and we lose the baby? I couldn't bare it."

"You never stay too long here in your residence."

"My life is different now," he said,

"I'm thinking about giving up this whole pirate life. I think it's time to settle down and raise a family. I have one more mission to take with Melissa and then after I think it's time to end this lifestyle. I'm going to be a father. It's time that I settled down focused on my wife, focused on my child. It's time to have a family. I can't have a family on my ship. I hated my life on the ship growing up. I will teach my son the trade of being a pirate, give him his own ship when he's older but I think my time as Captain Roman Reigns is finished," he said surprising Addy.

"I'm speechless," she said in response to his announcement.

"You're just going to give up the pirate life to settle down here. How will you make coin? I thought you loved that life?"

"I do love that life but I love my life with my wife more and once I become a father I don't want to risk my child to the disease and famine that can occur on the ship. I won't risk its life in that way. I will still grow tobacco and cotton to sell and trade with Europe and I have the pub and Melissa is very good at her lifestyle," he said with a proud smile.

"She has brought business into the pub," she said dryly.

"People enjoy hearing their fortunes," he said,

"And she's beautiful. It was a positive change to the pub. She brings in a lot of coin."

"You don't believe that fortune telling stuff that she does do you?"

"I do," he answered.

"I don't believe in that nonsense," she said honestly.

"It's all a trick for them to earn coin you should see that more than anyone. She really can't determine a future. She can't really determine when you're going to live or die. That is up to God and his plan for life. It's trickery."

"I don't believe in God," he said honestly.

"If there had been a God he would have saved me from the hell I grew up in. I believe that Melissa can tell the future."

"I'm sorry for you," she said sadly.

"I wish you would see differently. We will agree to disagree on this topic because I know you will see me wrong no matter what I say."

"I didn't say you were wrong, you have your beliefs and I have mine," he said.

"Everyone is able to believe whatever they wish," he said.

"What happened to you, Roman, you're not the man I used to know."

"I am the Roman I want to be."

"The Roman you used to be was a ruthless pirate known for being a ladies' man entertaining one or three women in a night. You never had dreams to settle down and give up the life you have always known."

"My life has changed," he said honestly.

"It certainly has," she responded,

"But is it what you want? Do you want the life of one woman, the life of being tied to one woman the rest of your life, having bastards running around?"

"My child is not a bastard," he defended his child.

"None of my children will be bastards."

"Fair enough," she said,

"But what made you choose to marry her?"

"She was sold to me by her father and I took her for a wife," he said.

"I wanted to marry to create a life legacy."

"You could have spilled your seed in any woman to create a life legacy, created a bastard to take care of the rest of your life, you didn't need to be married to spill your seed inside of a woman to create life."

"It was more practical," he defended his choice to marry Melissa.

Addy was correct. Roman never dreamed of being a married man. He enjoyed entertaining different women in his bed, pushing them to their limits, satisfying needs their husbands were not satisfying as well as satisfying harlots from all over the world.

He never dreamed of having a wife or a family until Melissa.

Melissa had changed his entire way of thinking. She changed his entire life for the better. He was living for himself and now he was living for her and for their unborn child.

He could picture them growing old together, having a lot of children. He could picture their unborn child being a little girl that resembled her beautiful mother, another breathtaking beauty; he could see her playing with a doll or having a tea party.

He could see her blonde hair and blue eyes and her porcelain doll face. He could picture their daughter being the center of his world, his entire heart, spoiled by his love.

He could see their son following in his ways, growing up learning the trade of being a pirate, learning to captain a ship, teaching him to fight with a sword.

He could picture a life of forever with Melissa. It was his hope, his dream. He never lived for anyone but himself until Melissa came into his life, until she became his wife.

"It was more practical for me to marry a woman to carry my child, did I plan to be with one woman the rest of my life no," he said honestly.

"I just don't know when you became a one woman show pony," she said.

"Are you happy with this new life, these new changes?"

"I'm happy," he answered.

"Very happy, I am excited for my future with Melissa and our family."

The sincerity and honesty in his voice as well as the look of admiration and love in his eyes stabbed her in the heart like a dagger.

She had dreamed of being the woman he would marry if given the opportunity. She had hopes of having a life and a future with him, having children with him. She loved him and he hadn't even noticed.

"You do seem happier," she said dryly as her voice cracked.

She could feel the tears burning her eyes but she held them back, she didn't want him to see her cry.

"What's wrong, Addy?" he asked her with concern in his voice as he saw the tears forming in her eyes.

"It's nothing," she said biting her lip.

"It's something," he said,

"Tell me you're one of my best friends. Other than Melissa you know me better than anyone. What's going on? Something is on your mind."

"It's just," she said biting her bottom lip.

"It's just I love you, Roman. I have loved you for YEARS," she said fighting back the tears.

"I love you. You made me fall in love with you. Everyone in the world sees you as this notorious pirate and this heinous beast of a man but I see you for so much more. I love you, Roman. I always thought that one day you would see that, that you would realize that. That you would see that you needed me, that you would choose me, marry me, have a family with me. I knew it was a long shot, I had hope though, I wished for such foolish things yet they never seemed impossible. I love you, Roman."

"Addy," he breathed.

"I had no idea but I never saw you in that light. I never saw you that way."

"So I was just a woman you shared your bed with when you were in residence, a woman you emptied your seed in, a woman you never cared about?"

"I never cared about you in that way," he said honestly.

"I was a man that believed in entertaining women in my bed. I never thought about being married or taking a wife until Melissa. When I married her my life just started to make sense, I started to live for the first time in my entire life. She makes me happy," he said.

"I hoped so much for a pregnancy to occur in our liaisons. I hoped your seed would take root many times and hoped you would take me as your wife but I'm barren. I love you, Roman. I wanted that life with you, the life you dream of sharing with Melissa, it was supposed to be me."

"It never would have been you," he said salting her wounds further,

"It was never meant to be you."

"Roman," she said no longer holding back her tears as they rolled down her cheeks.

"It could have been us."

"Addy, it never would have been us. I have cared about you as a friend nothing more. You helped me pass the time but there would have never been more than that between us I promise."

"Roman, you are a horrid man."

"So I have heard, Addy. I'm sorry that I ruined your dreams but you knew deep down it was never going to happen. You never mix business with pleasure."

"You bought your wife, that's not mixing business with pleasure? She works in your pub but that's not mixing business with pleasure?" She was confused, hurt and broken.

Her heart was racing, her throat was tight, her eyes burned and cheeks soaked with her tears. She felt her heart tearing, breaking being destroyed of the man she loved since she met him 5 years earlier.

The reality that it would have never been her slowly occurs to her. He was always cold after they had sex, sending her to her bedchambers in his residence, he never showed any affection, he was disconnected when they had sex.

She didn't want to see it but it was the truth. His heart was cold to her, she was no different than any other woman he took to his bed for the night. She was the foolish one to believe that she would be anything more.

"Addy, I'm sorry," he apologized.

"I'm sorry but until Melissa I never dreamed of having a life with any woman. I didn't want that commitment. I just wanted to have fun," he admitted.

"I'm sorry if you turned out to love me. I didn't mean for you to love me," he said.

"I'm sorry."

"Leave your wife," she said,

"Come with me."

"Leave my wife? I'm not leaving Melissa," he said.

"I'm having a child with her. She is my entire life, I'm not going anywhere."

"Do you love her?"

"What I feel for her can't be described," he said honestly.

"I can't say the words that I feel are love. I don't know what love is but if this is what love is then I do love her. If love is wanting to protect her, take away her pain, wanting to wake up next to her every day and to fall asleep with her in my arms. If it is love to dream of a life together beyond this shit I'm living now or if it is love that she changed me for the better, made me happy, gave my life reason. If it is love that I can't be without her and I can't picture my life without her or if it is love that there is not one thing I wouldn't do for her then yes I do love her. I love her so much my heart hurts and I don't know how to say those words to her. The way she makes me feel I can't describe it but what I do know is she gives my life everything it didn't have before, hope. She is everything to me. I'm sorry but I'm not leaving my wife."

"I can't do this, Roman. I can't work for you, work in this pub knowing that you are married to her and that you two are going to have a family together," she said throwing a rag down.

"I can't do it, Roman. I don't want to do it," she said tears streaming down her cheeks, her heart breaking, her words breaking like she was.

"I can't do it," she said before she stormed out of the pub leaving Roman at the bar with his mug of beer.

"I love her," he said to himself thinking of Melissa.

"I love her," he said again, finally able to speak the words out loud to himself, the next step was being able to say them to her, admit to her how much she means to him, how much she has changed his life and how much he loves her for every bit of good she brought into his life.

He throws back his mug of beer before he makes his way upstairs to his residence leaving his patrons behind to spend time with his wife, to feel the happiness she always gave him, to see her beautiful face, see her beautiful blue eyes staring back at him, to feel her soft lips against his, to hear her soft raspy voice and her contagious laugh, he wanted HER, he wanted Melissa.

She was becoming his addiction and he liked the habit; he LOVED the habit.