“We’re married for now,” I poke. His jaw clenches.
“I’ll never let you divorce me so you can get that thought out of your pretty little head.”
“This is ridiculous.” I throw my hands up. “We aren't even really married!” I want to stomp my damn foot like a two-year-old but I get control of myself. I’m a grown up, I remind myself.
“I have a marriage license that says otherwise.” He folds his arms over his chest. I do the same. His gaze flicks down to my chest. I look down, seeing that I’ve pushed my boobs up, making them almost peek out of my top. I drop my hands, putting them on my hips instead. He’s being ridiculous so he doesn’t get the pleasure of seeing any of the goodies.
“It was a business deal you made with my father five years ago. Isn't it time for us both to move on?”
“I’m not moving anywhere.” His lips twitch. “Except if you’re ready to move your things into the master bedroom finally. Then I’m all about this moving thing.”
“Why do you keep saying these things? You really think we’re going to have kids? I don’t think that was part of the deal you struck with my father.” Every time he hints about something more there’s a longing inside of me that comes pushing forward. It’s one I try to keep hidden away because it might be something I’ll never have. No use in getting my hopes up only to have them shot down.
“I know the deal I struck.” He drops his arms. I swear he always says as little as possible. I can get more words from him when I text him apparently. I still don’t understand why he agreed to the marriage. What does he really get from it?
“Don’t you want to fall in love? Be happy?” I stare at him but he doesn't say anything. “Forget it. If I want to buy the store I’ll figure it out myself.” I go to move past him to head toward my room, but he reaches out his hand, wrapping it around my arm. I stop, looking up at his too handsome face again, not understanding why he would ever need a fake marriage.
“If you want the store then I want you to have it. I want you to have anything you ever want.” His words are sweet but they aren’t true. I look at his hand. He drops it away. I miss his touch instantly. Is it him that I miss or just a lack of affection in general?
“You can’t give me what I want. I don’t think you’re capable of it.”
“Orchard.” He says my name gently.
“People don’t always get what they want. Trust me. I know,” I admit before leaving him alone in the kitchen before I say something I’ll truly regret. Or tell him it’s him that I want.
5
Heath
She says I can’t give her what she wants and the fucking tragic thing about that statement is it’s true. I’ve given her everything these past five years and none of it has made her happy. The memory of our wedding night is seared into my head. Even before we were married, she hadn’t spoken but a handful of words to me. She wouldn’t even meet my eyes, but kept her own gaze pinned to the floor whenever her father brought her into my presence.
Her old man kept those visits to a minimum, probably knowing that at one point Orchard would crack and run from the room, screaming that she wasn’t going to marry an old man like me. At twenty-eight, I was the youngest man in every boardroom and at every deal; but to her, I was one day away from checking into the nursing home. I wanted to tell her that other women found me attractive. We had to start holding the poker meetings in each other’s houses because every time we went out, the women would not leave us alone. I’ve had more napkins with phone numbers written in lipstick and eyeliner thrown in my face than I’ve closed business deals.
But that didn’t seem the kind of thing I should be telling my young wife. Instead, I reassured her that she would not be required to fulfill any wifely duty. She could go to college and I would pay for that. She would get a regular allowance funded automatically through a trust so she did not feel dependent on me. In addition to that regular allowance, I topped it off every month so she could buy herself something special like a piece of jewelry or one of those fifty thousand dollar purses she once talked about on the phone with her friend, Abigail.
She didn’t spend much of the money and definitely never bought any purse worth fifty thousand bills. She did go to college and allowed me to pay for it. Her repayment was nightly dinners with me. It was part of the deal that we worked out without me even realizing what was going on.
I should have expected this. She didn’t want to marry me. She told me that on our wedding night.
“I’m not a whore.” The words stop me in my tracks. The hand at my throat that’s pulling on my bowtie freezes.
“I never said you were,” I reply.
She stands there with her neck bent and her hands tucked to her sides. Her cheeks are as pale as the ivory shift she changed into after the reception. The pink lipstick she wore to the wedding ceremony has disappeared, wiped off in disgust probably.
I want her. Badly.
I have since I first laid eyes on her. She’d burst into her father’s office at the shipyard, her golden hair messily tucked into a ballcap, dressed in jeans, sneakers and a T-shirt, to tell him that another ship had been late. She was frustrated and showed more passion for the business than her old man had ever. He told her that the shipyard was no place for a girl and to get out. I wanted to kidnap her and get her away from him, but kidnapping isn’t allowed in our modern society. More’s the pity. Instead, I bought her because somehow that’s okay.
But now that I’ve bought her, she hates me. My body has no understanding of this. She can hate me in bed, says my throbbing cock. No love words need to be exchanged so long as I can hammer inside of her until my dick falls off.
“I’m not sleeping with you.” Her head comes up and the brown eyes that meet mine are sparking in defiance. “You can put all the money you want in my bank account. You can buy all of Dad’s shipyards. You can buy the whole damn world and I will never get in your bed. I will never want that”—she points at my obvious erection—“anywhere near me.”
Even those words aren’t enough to kill my boner, but my pride is pricked. “Don’t worry. I can get my dick serviced by any woman I want. I didn’t ask for you in this deal. I wanted your father’s business. I took you in as a favor.”
She flinches as if I delivered a real blow. “Great,” she says, a mean smile tipping up the corners of her mouth. “We’re on the same page. You don’t touch me. I don’t complain about who you sleep with. We never even have to see each other.”
Oh no. That’s not happening. I may have agreed to never fuck her, but if I can’t see her? I can’t spend any time with her? That’d be actual torture. I’d smell her in my house, see traces of her existence in discarded shoes or empty dishes in the sink, but she’d be like some fucking ghost? No way.
“The price of you getting to stay your pristine virginal self is dinner with me every night at 7. If you miss, the deal’s off.”
“Fine.” She spins around on a pair of two thousand dollar red bottom satin shoes I bought.