AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Yes, I meant it. Yes, I love her.
But it doesn't matter.
Emery chews on the inside of her lip, sniffling faintly. "Do you want me? Or would you rather get rid of your annoying American wife? I'm in breach of that morality clause in our contract, for sure, what with naked pictures of me—" She chokes on the last word but gulps in a breath and keeps talking. "Naked pictures of me in a newspaper, for everyone to see. The contract says if I shame you in any way, then you can end this, and I won't get your money. Not that I want it, I never did, but I'm not sure if you really believe that, if you want me around anymore or what."
That infernal contract. I wish I'd never drafted it.
Pivoting on my heels, I stalk to the fireplace while keeping my back to her. I rest a hand on the mantel, though I have no idea why.
Neither of us speaks for a moment or two, or a thousand. I'd resolved to send her away, back to America, but now I can't even tell her that. My voice refuses to function. My muscles ignore my commands to move.
I hear shuffling noises at floor level, but my mind doesn't register it as meaningful.
"What is this?" Emery asks, her voice weak and almost pleading.
At first, I have no clue what she's asking me. Then I turn my head in her direction and see the papers I'd dumped on the floor, now clasped in her hands. She's holding up one sheet—the last sheet, where we were both meant to sign. Emery scrawled her signature on the day when I found her at Travellis Games and she agreed to marry me. I'd told her I would sign it later.
But I never did. So many times, I took out that contract and tried to sign my name. I couldn't do it.
"You didn't sign the contract?" she says, the words part question, part accusation.
I take three halting steps toward her, stretching one hand out as if I mean to rip the papers from her hand.
She flaps them in the air between us. "How could you not sign it? You said you would. You let me believe you had. The contract was a promise, you said that. A one-sided promise, turns out."
Aye, it was. I can't deny it, even if I could speak.
Her fingers crook into the papers, crumpling them. "Was this a big joke? Trick the stupid, silly American into marrying you. Is this your way of getting revenge on the gold digger? Except I don't give a damn about your money. I give a damn about you. The joke's on me, I guess."
My fingers twitch, curling toward my palms, then flex straight. I want to touch her, but that won't convince her to leave. She's doing that on her own. All I need to do is keep my mouth shut. Then it will be over, and I'll sink into oblivion. But at least she will have a chance at happiness.
"You promised to be honest with me," Emery says. "But you lied. You know how I feel about secrets, and still, you betrayed me. I poured everything I have into helping you because I believed you wanted my help, but you were just… What? Playing me? Using me? I don't understand what you hoped to gain from lying about the contract, I really don't."
Tears stream down her face, and her cheeks have turned bright red.
She'll give up any minute. Walk away in disgust.
But words keep tumbling out of her. "You don't love me, do you? I pushed you to do things you never wanted. I swore I didn't mean to change you, actually believed it too. But that's what I did, isn't it? I tried to turn you into something you're not. Maybe I deserved to be lied to and treated like a trophy wife."
Maybe it's best that she believes I never cared about her. That will make it easier for her to move on.
Emery mops at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. "I never cared about the stupid contract, but you should've told me you didn't want to sign it. We could've talked about it and… God, I don't know. You should've told me why you didn't want to sign. Tell me now, please, you owe me that much."
No, I can't tell her. The answer, the one I've just realized in the last five seconds, is that I couldn't sign because I've loved her since the first moment I saw her.
"At least tell me one thing," Emery says. "What was Skye about? The things you told me there. We got closer, a hell of a lot closer, and I don't think that was all in my head. It meant something, didn't it?"
Aye, it meant everything.
The ticking of the grandfather clock counts down the minutes until she walks away from me.
She covers her eyes with the heels of her hands as breaths hiccup out of her. When she lowers her hands, they fall limp at her sides. She shakes her head slowly. "You don't trust me. Nothing I say will change that. I spent so long trying to help you, to give you what you need, that I stopped thinking about what I need."
Finally, she's thinking about herself instead of trying to save our marriage. It was doomed from the start—by me.
"Say something," Emery demands. When I don't speak, she shakes her head again as tears roll down her cheeks. "I'm exhausted. Fighting to get you to let me in, even a little bit, it's like trying to drill through a mountain with a plastic spoon. I can't do this anymore, I can't."
My fingers twitch.
