Chapter 137 Talia

Chapter 137 Talia
Talia's POV

The hospital released me early the next morning, just like Adrian said they would.

He thanked Camille more times than necessary before we left, his words coming out smoother than I'd ever heard them. Camille just smiled.

“Take good care of my baby, if I hear that something like this happened again, I'll have your head” Camille joked and I chuckled.

He didn't smile, in fact he looked like a man on a mission.

He drove us home himself, Noah strapped into the back seat babbling about the hospital vending machine and the cartoons he'd watched on Camille's phone, completely unaware of how much had shifted in the world around him over the last two days.

The moment we walked through the front door, Adrian moved like a man on a mission. He had Noah settled in front of his toys within minutes, then disappeared upstairs, and by the time I made it up after him, I found the bathroom filled with steam, a hot bath already drawn, the water at exactly the right temperature, like he'd somehow known how I liked it without ever once asking.

I stood in the doorway and watched him light a small candle on the edge of the tub, and something painful twisted low in my stomach.

This was the version of a partner I had wished for, for years, with a different man's face attached to it. I used to imagine Alexander coming home and doing exactly this, drawing me a bath after a hard day, taking care of small details without me having to ask. He never had. Not once in all our years together.

"Come here," Adrian said, snapping me out of it.
He crossed the room and scooped me up before I could protest, carrying me the short distance to the bathroom like I weighed nothing at all.

"I can walk," I said.
"I know you can," he said. "I just don't want you to, problem?."

He sounded so smug I had to restrain myself from biting his head off.

He set me down gently on the edge of the tub and started undressing me with a kind of careful, practiced patience, like he had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it.

"Adrian," I said.
"Mm."

“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice rising an octave in surprise.
“We hate do you think I'm doing?” He threw back and I gulped, he was sexy as fuck when I took control.

"I want to talk about the contract."
“What contract? I'm listening” He whispered, his breath fanning my neck, I shivered.

Goosebumps pebbled my skin.

“The marriage contract, the one you proposed, you know what I'm talking about” 
His hands paused at the hem of my shirt for half a second before continuing. "It's not a contract."

"Then what is it?"

He didn't answer right away. He finished pulling my shirt over my head, set it aside, and knelt down in front of me, his eyes finally meeting mine.

"You remember the first night," he said. "In my office."

I did. I remembered every word of it, even now, the way the memory had carved itself into me like something permanent.
I remembered asking him what he wanted, my heart pounding so hard I thought he must have been able to hear it from across the room. 

I remembered him studying me for a long moment before he finally said it, that Alexander wanted an open marriage, and that he wanted me, publicly, as his lover.

I remembered telling myself I had nothing left to lose, and saying yes anyway.
I remembered him laying out the rules like a man building a fortress around both of us.

Rule one, that it wasn't love, and if either of us developed feelings, it ended. Rule two, that betrayal would not be forgiven, that he would destroy me if I crossed him. Rule three, that once we started, there was no walking away until we'd gotten what we came for.

I remembered telling him he was asking me to risk everything.
I remembered him leaning close and telling me I had already lost everything, that revenge was the only thing left, and that this way, I could win.

"I remember," I said quietly.

"That's what this is," he said. "Not a marriage. Not a contract. An arrangement built on rules we both agreed to."

I looked down at my hands, my fear finally finding words I couldn't keep swallowed any longer.
"What if it doesn't end," I said. "What if Alexander never lets it end, what if we're stuck like this for years, married on paper but bound by nothing real underneath it. How am I supposed to live the rest of my life with a man who will never let himself love me?"

Adrian's expression didn't shift much, but something behind his eyes did, something that looked almost like it hurt to hear.
"Why," I asked, before he could answer. "Why won't you let yourself love me?"

He was quiet for a long moment, his hand resting against my knee, his thumb moving slow and absent against my skin.
"Because love makes men stupid," he finally said. "It made my father stupid. It made Alexander stupid enough to think he could keep two women happy at once and lose neither of them. I watched what it did to both of them, and I promised myself a long time ago that I would never let it do the same to me."

"That's not an answer," I said. "That's an excuse."
"Maybe," he said. "But it's the only one I have."
He reached up and brushed a strand of hair away from my face, his touch gentler than his words had been, and for a moment I couldn't tell which version of him was the real one.
I let him finish undressing me anyway, the question still sitting heavy and unanswered in the space between us.

I told myself I would let it go for tonight. I told myself there would be other nights to push him further, other chances to find the crack in whatever wall he kept building around himself. 

But sitting there in the steam, watching him work through the rest of my clothes with that same patient focus, I wondered if I was lying to myself about how much time I actually had left before the question stopped mattering and the arrangement became simply my entire life.

He must have noticed something change in my expression, because his hands slowed against the last button of my pants.
"You're somewhere else," he said.

"I'm thinking about what happens when this is over," I admitted. "Whatever shape that ends up taking. I'm thinking about whether I'll be able to stand still in it."
"You'll stand still in whatever I build for you," he said. "That's the part you keep missing. I don't lose things I've decided to keep."

It should have frightened me. Some small, exhausted part of me chose to find comfort in it instead.
His hands came up to my hair, wrapping it expertly into a bun with a claw clip with precision that surprised even me.

“You're beautiful Talia, let me take care of you”