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“Isn’t that what’s expected from a couple like us? A pretense, a front, and an illusion that everything is glamorously perfect?”
He cuts his steak into minuscule pieces and places them in meticulous parallel lines. I’m pretty sure Eli has a mild version of OCD. He doesn’t touch anything used by other people, including his parents.
Leo and his driver always wear gloves whenever they’re in his vicinity—though Leo probably shares the disregard for touching anything. And I just realized that Eli barely eats anything whenever he’s at a restaurant.
Even now, he’s been content drinking and cutting meat, but he hasn’t eaten a single bite.
Hell, I don’t remember the last time I saw him eat anything. I know he has to, but he probably won’t touch any food unless it’s cooked by his precious ex-nanny, Sam, although I’ve never witnessed that myself. At least, not since I woke up in the hospital with spotty memories.
He used to eat fine at his parents’ house, if I remember correctly. But I don’t recall him consuming anything but drinks elsewhere.
“It doesn’t have to be,” he finally says, his attention still on the medium-well steak he’s not eating.
“Doesn’t have to be what?”
He lifts his head, pinning me with that dark-gray look. “It doesn’t have to be fake, a façade or a front.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “So you mean to tell me you’re willing to give me love, children, and your unbound protection?”
“You already have my unbound protection. I can give you children if that’s what you want. But love isn’t something I’m capable of. I presume you wouldn’t want that from me either.”
“You presume right.” My voice rolls out steadily, unlike the ball that forms at the base of my throat as constrictive emotion floods my stomach.
I thought my heart had already mended, but a few words from the bastard are enough to tear the messy stitches surrounding the useless organ.
The retort, ‘In fact, I want nothing from you, including children and protection,’ is on the tip of my tongue, but I douse it with the disgusting nonalcoholic champagne.
If I want to initiate this revenge properly, I can’t keep antagonizing him or pushing him away.
He needs to believe that I’m falling in love with him despite all his warnings. I have to make him so attached to me, so crazy about me, and then divorce him and move on with my life.
Preferably not in a psych ward.
Though marrying this prick in the first place was surely a giant step in that direction.
He swirls the champagne in his glass. “So you agree to dissolve the fake status?”
“I’ll have to think about it, though your behavior is far from convincing.”
“Oh? I thought my behavior was the reason you fell head over heels for me.”
“Fellis past tense. I’m not foolish anymore.”
“I stand corrected.”
“As you should.” I square my shoulders. “Also, if you want me to agree to anything, you better start by giving me what I want.”
“Such as?”
“Companionship.”
“You have Sam, Bonneville, Ariella, and Cecily, who you FaceTime every couple of hours.”
“I’m not married to them, am I?”
“I’m a busy man with a tight schedule.”
“There’s no such thing as busy men. Only unavailable ones. If you wanted to make time for me, you would.”
