My commute home is spent in a blurred torpor. I don’t remember leaving the office. One second I’m standing in front of my desk bereft and feeling dangerously adrift in my own reality, the next I’m in my kitchen, pouring hot water in my mug and watching swirls of color from the tea bag mix with the clear liquid.
Arturo threw concerned glances my way the entire drive home but wisely chose not to ask me any questions. Now he’s disappeared, leaving me with my storming, embittered thoughts.
Somewhere along the way, I lost sight of how our story started. Hearing the words from Thiago’s own mouth that he wanted a living statue for a wife and nothing more tears at my insides. Could I really have been that naive as to fall in love with a man who’s been playing me from the beginning?
My father certainly thinks so.
Humiliation burns my cheeks and rots my insides.
I hate that he has the ability to reduce me to the scared little girl version of me from when I was younger. No one affects me like he does. No one can crawl under my skin and pick at all those old wounds like he can.
“Amor,” a deep voice rumbles from behind me as my husband walks into our kitchen. “There you are.”
The sultry velvet of Thiago’s tone wraps around my belly and squeezes even as my shoulders stiffen.
I don’t turn around.
His warmth envelops me as he steps up behind me and presses his chest to my back. His hand finds the curve of my waist and comes to rest possessively there.
I shake him off. I can’t have this conversation if he’s touching me, I’ll lose all rational thought. Grabbing my mug, I walk around the other side of the kitchen island, distancing myself from him.
After what feels like ages, I look up at him.
He’s got an unsettled look on his face, his hand still hanging in the air at the level where he was touching my waist like he’s expecting me to slot myself right back into his embrace.
Gold eyes search mine questioningly.
“Why are you upset?” he asks, astutely picking apart my emotions like he always does.
“I saw my father this afternoon.”
He turns to face the counter, his palms coming down to brace against the surface as his shoulders tighten.
“Oh?”
I’m spoiling for a fight, the angry, pent-up energy that’s swirling in my body needing an immediate outlet. All I can think about are Arturo’s words. I’m at a fork in the road and I need to make a decision on what future I want. Love might not be enough to overcome all the obstacles in our path, including our two very different backgrounds.
“He played a recording for me.” Thiago’s face twists in confusion. “A conversation the two of you had when you were negotiating my purchase like I was a piece of chattel,” I add with a bitter, humorless laugh.
The change in Thiago’s mood alters the chemistry of the air around us. He goes from a casual posture to completely alert. Thick darkness seeps from him, reminding me of just how dangerous he is.
It’s easy to forget sometimes.
“Amor–”
“I’m surprised you thought I was the winning candidate given the criteria I heard you list. ‘Quiet’. ‘Manipulatable’. ‘Seen and not heard’,” I hiss, cutting him off. “I mean, why even get yourself a wife at that point? A blow up doll would have sufficed.”
Thiago’s face darkens, his features tightening. His hands clench into fists and he slams one down on the counter, making me jump.
“It’s no business of his why I wanted you.” His tone, which was so warm when he walked in, is downright frigid now. “I said what was necessary in order to manipulate him into giving me what I wanted — you.”
“Sounds like you didn’t actually want me though,” I counter. “None of those descriptors are me. I think you let yourself get led off course by lust when you saw me. You thought with your dick instead of your head and tied yourself to the wrong girl. One day you’ll wake up and regret it, if you don’t already.”
Acid swirls in my stomach. The thought that he could one day cast me aside is excruciating.
Thiago’s jaw ticks dangerously, the muscle in his cheek popping then retreating as he glares at me. I don’t know why he’s mad, I’m only repeating his words back to him.
Anger fuels and expands the tension in the room until it’s coiled around us and threatening to snap.
“None of what I said to him was true, Tess. I like your attitude, I like your fire, I like that you give me shit and you aren’t afraid of me. That’s exactly why you’re my wife.”
I shake my head and whisper, “I’m not your wife.”
My words have the effect of throwing a lit match into a barrel full of gasoline. Thiago rounds the island and storms towards me, fury rippling across his face. I take a step back but he pins me against the counter. Strong fingers grip my jaw and angle my face up towards his. I shiver when I look into his eyes, now hardened into impenetrable metal.
“Watch your mouth,” he warns, his voice quivering dangerously.
“I’m not,” I double down. “I’m at worst your kidnapping victim, at best your prize. Just a pawn in your power play with my father, with this whole system you operate within. Nothing more than something for you to have unfairly won.”
If he really wants me for the long run, then he needs to tell me. I’m desperate to hear him admit that he feels even one tenth of the feelings I have for him.
To know that I’m not alone putting my heart on the line.
Instead, his whole body shakes with the force of his anger. He looks like he’s holding on by a thread, only seconds away from completely losing it. But that’s all I want. That total abandonment of his senses that’ll lead him to say the words I want to hear.
“You’re my wife. Deny it again and you won’t sit for a month,” he snarls. “I knew I wanted you from the moment I saw you and I stand by that. I never wavered from it. You judged me the second you found out who I was. Fine. I own who I am, I’m not ashamed of it, but you would never have given me a chance because of it. So I took you. I can’t apologize for that. You want me to tell you I regret forcing you to marry me? I don’t. I never fucking will.”
Emotion forms a mass that blocks my airway, making it hard to breathe. I look off to the side, blinking away the tears in the corners of my eyes.
I need more from him.
More than just his possessiveness and territoriality over me.
Real emotion. Real feeling.
I deserve that.
“You’re right,” I admit. “I would never have let myself get anywhere near you if given the choice.” I stare up at him. “And maybe there was a very good reason for that.”
Anger flashes in his eyes. Instead of forcing me to bend to his will like I expected, he takes a step back. I feel the loss of his body immediately, like a ship becoming unmoored and drifting away in the ocean towards an uncertain future.
“You’re pissing me off.” His voice is flinty, his eyes hard as steel.
I snap. My bitterness and resentment overflow and make me fling careless words I don’t mean. Words I regret the second they leave my lips.
“You should give Claudia another look then, she might be a better match for you than me.”
Thiago cuts me a lethal look that would wither any other living organism down to ash. His jaw snaps shut so violently that I hear it. His lip curls up into a furious sneer before flattening into an emotionless line.
Distance takes over his gaze and he looks at me like I’m a stranger, like he doesn’t know me at all.
“I’m done.” The muscle underneath his eye twitches volatilely. “I won’t do this with you.”
Without another look in my direction, he storms out of the kitchen. I assume he’s gone up to his study or our bedroom for some space. Then I hear the front door open and slam shut so violently that the walls shake.
I slide down the side of the kitchen island and fall to the ground like I’ve been cut off at the knees.
He walked away from me.
We’ve argued before, but he’s never walked away. Not once. This is the man who chased me across the continent and today he… left.
He just left.
No, he didn’t just leave.
I pushed him away.
And now, with him gone and nothing remaining with me except the silence of his absence and the cold sinking into my bones from the loss of his warmth, all I feel is fear.
Did I push him into another woman’s arms?
The thought eats at the lining of my stomach, causing physical pain. It’s like he pulled on a loose thread when he walked out, but it was a catastrophic one that unravels the entire piece with one tug. He unknowingly pulls and takes the whole fabric of my heart with him when he walks out that door.
When he’s still not back hours later, I pace and I pace and I pace. My phone is gripped tightly in my hand and I look down at the screen for the thousandth time, hoping to see a message from him.
There’s nothing.
I want to call him, but I’ve already caused enough damage. What if I make it worse?
So I keep pacing, refusing the dinner the chef offers me and choosing to stare out of the front windows instead, hoping to catch sight of him when he comes back.
But he doesn’t.
He never comes home that night.
And I lay alone in our bed, my knees held tightly against my chest, and I cry.
