“I’m the one who said I didn’t want to pursue it.” She ran a brush through her hair, then twisted it into a clip.
“What then? You’re still upset that…”
She turned to stare at him.
His jaw was clenched, his mouth tight, his gaze flinty.
“You’re not going to say it?” she asked on a bitter laugh. “Yes, I am still upset that you don’t love me.”
“Joy.” He flinched.
“I know that’s not something you can control. I don’t blame you for it.” Her voice broke. “I just can’t help thinking there’s a reason you can’t love me. That I lack something—”
“Don’t.” He threw off the covers and stood, then yanked on his underwear. “The flaw is in me. I don’t know how to give you what you need.”
“Then why keep me here?” The words blurted out of her.
He paused closing the fly on his jeans to stare at her. “Is there somewhere you’d rather be?” His tone was very deep and ominous.
“I’m asking what you gain if I stay.” Her heart was in her throat, thinning her voice to a strident pitch while her lips stuttered out the questions that had been plaguing her. “What do you need me for now that you’ve got Vorstoben? You don’t need to shove me down Otto’s throat. You don’t need to prove to anyone that this is a real marriage. I don’t know how much longer I can keep pretending it is.”
His head snapped back. “It’s as real as it’s likely to get.”
“Yes, I know that.” That was why she had completely lost faith in it.
His zip was overly loud as he yanked it closed. “So you want to leave?”
“I can’t, can I?” Silently, she ordered herself to shut up. She was ruining everything, but her mouth kept going. “I can’t leave you unless you release me. That’s what LaShonda said. If I walk away, I lose all the support for my father. That’s what I get from this marriage, but what do you get? Orgasms? Was I supposed to give you one of those this morning?”
“Those are voluntary, and I was under the impression you liked them as much as I do. But if you want my permission to leave, then you have it,” he snapped. “Go. I release you.”
She sucked in a breath, astonished by how easily he said it. By how much it hurt. He wasn’t even going to try to fight for her? He really didn’t want her.
Her phone alarm began to burble. She snatched it up to silence it, remembering why she’d set it. She scooped up her handbag from the table by the closet and started down the stairs.
“That’s it? You’re leaving?” His voice seemed to echo off the rafters. “That tells me exactly how much you love me, doesn’t it?”
She stopped on the stairs and looked backward at him, unable to believe he’d said that.
He stood in the open doorway to their bedroom. His bedroom. His house. She’d never felt more like a houseguest in this marriage.
“I’m due for my costume fitting,” she said with the last threads of her fraying poise.
It was a white lie. The alarm was to remind her to wake up in time. She didn’t have to leave right now. She only wanted the excuse to leave, before she fully broke down in front of him.
“And you never even wanted my love,” she reminded him. “So fine. I take it back. I release you.”
* * *
“Frau Severin.” The doorman looked up with a smile as she came out of the elevator. “This came for you this morning. I didn’t want to call up too early—are you all right?”
“Fine,” she lied and took the envelope he offered her, shoving it into her bag and walking outside. That was when she remembered her driver wasn’t coming for another hour.
She started walking. She knew the route well enough by now that she covered the distance to the studio in steps of blind fury and acute heartache, arriving early for her fitting.
Thankfully, the appointments were staggered, so there were only a few people in the room when Joy walked in with swollen eyes and a face splotchy from crying.
“What happened?” Inga asked with startled concern.
