His unwavering support warms my chest. I wish I had his confidence. Nerves swarm in my belly, knotting me up, and I palm my stomach to ease the pressure, remaining silent but not for long. The silence invites thoughts of him.
“What are you after, Tristan?”
His fingers tighten around the wheel. “You know damn well.”
“Stop wasting your time.”
“So stubborn.”
“What you call stubborn, I call self-preservation,” I huff. “You fooled me once. I won’t make the mistake of trusting you a second time.”
He swerves the car, parking it on the side of the road, and gets in my face.
“Let’s get one thing straight. You’re my wife. We’re married. For life. You want us to be miserable? Fine. But I will try until my last breath to win you back. You should trust me because I would fucking die for you.”
My heartbeat picks up at his nearness. “I’m not asking you to do that,” I say haughtily.
I know I am not helping either of us with my rigid attitude. I should attempt to salvage this marriage for some tranquility, but my hurt demands retribution.
He rakes a hand through his hair. “What do you want from me, Viviana?” he asks, sounding as pained as pensive.
I stare him deep in the eyes. “The truth. Not all at once, but in increments. And I want a baby. Just one. Not right now, but in the future. You either give me those or I will sabotage every attempt of yours at winning me back.”
His jaw sharpens to the point that a muscle ticks.
You can’t stop loving someone on command. I am not even trying to punish him for what he did. I saw tidbits of him, of that side he kept under lock for me. I just wish he had trusted me enough with his plan.
The realization lights up out of nowhere. I don’t think he trusted me or my love. That’s the only plausible explanation. He needed to seduce me first, trap me in his sinful web to have me for good.
He really thinks he’s a monster, and I would have woken from the spell and rejected him. Like this, he could have me with no risks.
Silly man.
His silence is the loudest answer—the sentence of lifetime misery.
I guess we’ll continue living like this.
He clears his throat. “If you think of our marriage as a business deal, it leaves room for negotiation.”
Oh, no. It’s all or nothing with me, needing to know him better than anyone else. Not only to soothe the wound he carved in the middle of my chest, but to understand his reasoning. What made him this cold-blooded, rationally ruthless and emotionally distant man?
I will spend my life with him. I don’t want just the shiny parts, but the broken ones. Dahlia said something I only glimpsed, and I need to uncover it.
“Our marriage is not a business transaction, Tristan.”
“Really? My fucking bad. It sounded like you think I have everything to lose if I don’t accept your terms.”
A headache throbs behind my temples facing his rigidity. What am I even doing? He doesn’t see that I am trying to salvage us. No, he perceives my attempt as a loss. Me knowing him. Him giving me a child.
He wants only surface level. Fine. So be it. What do I care? I won’t force him.
“You’re right. Keep your secrets. Let the demons consume you,” I grumble, trying to infuse as much indifference as I can. “I knew you’d never accept it. That’s why I proposed it.”
For the rest of the drive, the silence persists, thick as my sorrow, suffocating as his inflexibility.
The moment he parks, I stumble out of the car, needing a few moments to gather myself.
I don’t wait for him to follow me. I pass his men nodding my way, content that my smile doesn’t falter to betray how I truly feel on the inside—desolate.
