“I don’t… I’m not incapable of answering.” The look he gave her was a picture of uncertainty. “I just don’t understand why you are asking it. I thought we were in a good place. I assumed that things between us were going well. Are they not?”
“If they are going to well, why can you not say so?”
“I just did.”
“No,” she emphasized. “What you have done is dance around a question that should be effortless to answer. If you are happy, if we are in a good place, why not just say it?”
“Because I shouldn’t have to!” He shouted that final part, the frustration of the moment finally breaking him. “I should not have to justify myself to you, Sophia. After everything that we have been through, I would have thought we were passed that point by now.”
“I thought we were too.”
“Then why?” he demanded. “Why the sudden questions? What brought this about?”
Was she and Gabriel in a better place, an argument like this might not have escalated the way it did. Gabriel could have gone to her, taken her hand, pulled her into him and held her close. A simple kiss and he might have diffused the tension entirely, proving without having to say anything that Sophia’s worries were in her head.
Of course, he couldn’t do that because they did not have that kind of relationship. And that was the problem.
“What do you want from this marriage, Gabriel?” The anger was gone, as was the depression. In truth, Sophia was at a point now where she just wanted answers… to know if she was wasting her time.
“What do I…” Gabriel hesitated again. He bit into his lip, seeming to understand the change in tone of the conversation. “You know what I want.”
“I know what you told me you wanted,” she said. “When we first married, the reasons given, those I am aware of. But so much has changed since then, Gabriel. Surely, you can see that? And I want to know, have you changed as this marriage has? Or am I wasting my time?”
“Sophia…” He took a tentative step towards her. “Wasting your time? I don’t know what you mean.”
“I have been thinking.” She swallowed back the lump in her throat. Her hands shook and her body started to sweat. “These past weeks have been wonderful, but they aren’t enough. And should we continue, I need to know if it is worth it. Where are we going? And how long is it going to take?”
“Should we continue?” He leaned back in confusion. “Are you suggesting that you might wish to end our arrangement?”
“Do I need to?” she pushed back. “I know what I said I wanted, Gabriel. I know where we began. But things have changed. I have changed. And I need to know, have you changed? Are you capable of such a thing?”
A shadow of understanding passed behind his eyes. “You wish to know if this marriage will develop into something more. A love match.”
“I want to know if you want it to.”
“Where did this come from?” he asked. “Why now? Have things not been going well? Are we not in a good place?”
There was a part of Sophia that wanted to tell him. She wanted to explain what she had heard in the washroom, what Clarissa had said, and how it sat on her subconscious.
If she did that, however, she feared it might give him a way out. A chance to lie to her again. Once he knew what was in her heart, he could easily manipulate it.
“I thought we were.” She dropped her voice and looked away. “And I want to believe it. But I need to hear you say it. Has this marriage reached its end? Or do you have more to give? Do you even want to?”
She knew what he was going to say, even before he said it. It was the way he looked at her that gave him away. The pain behind his eyes. How he could not look at her directly. The change that took her husband in that moment was palpable, a sudden dispassion that was emblematic of the man she once knew.
Gabriel’s expression hardened and he straightened his stance. The emotion behind his eyes vanished, and when Sophia looked at him, she did not recognize the man who she was falling in love with.
“You knew what this marriage was, Sophia,” he said. “When I offered it, I told you exactly what was expected. And you accepted that. You even wanted it.”
“Things change,” she said, but without conviction.
“Things do,” he agreed. “But I do not. I am who I am, and you knew that going in. In fact, I had assumed that was why you said yes in the first place.” He cleared his throat. “You wanted freedom, and I wanted a convenient marriage. That is all this ever was and will be.”
Her heart cracked down the middle, and it was all Sophia could do not to shy away and crumple into a heap on the floor. “So…” Her voice cracked with sadness. “That’s it? This marriage. It is… this is as far as it will go?”
“It is as far as it was ever supposed to go. You knew that.”
“I thought…”
