Always Loved You

“You can’t take off like that.” He takes a step toward me. I debate taking one back but something inside me tells me this isn’t the time.

“What’s the matter? You don’t like when you don’t know where your things are?” I snip, pushing right back.

“I don’t care about things. I care about my wife and her fucking safety!” He raises his voice on that last part. “You know what could have happened to you? I’m a rich man, Orchard. People will use you to get to me.” My anger comes rushing back at his choice of words.

“Use? Use!” I shout back. “But you can use me. To be your little wife. To have your babies. To pretend!” Those last words hurt me the most out of everything.

“Our babies,” he corrects, taking another step toward me. I swallow the lump in my throat, shaking my head no.

“I can’t do this.” My voice cracks. “I won’t do this.” I push on. “I won’t have a fake family. To try and love a man that will never love me back. I can’t, Heath.” I plead with him, looking down at the ground. “Let me go.” I whisper the last part. Every part of me is screaming on the inside not to do this, but I have to. He doesn’t love me. I lift my chin to look at him.

“I want a divorce.”

21

Heath

Divorce? My head reels. I’ve never heard her say the d-word.

“Never,” I spit out. I grab her by the shoulders. “The deal was forever and I’m holding you to it.”

She wrenches away like I’ve burned her. She tucks her arms close and hunches her shoulders over as if she can physically disappear if she makes herself small enough. I don’t know what to do. There’s no shareholders to call, no stocks to buy up. She’s the only one I need to convince, but I can’t reach her. I don’t know what to say to her, what she wants. Frustrated, I drag a hand through my hair.

“Just go, please. Just go,” she says in a low, quivering voice. “We never should have gotten married and we can’t make it worse by having a baby together.”

“How is it worse?” I hate hearing that from her. Having a baby with me somehow makes her life worse? “If you don’t want a kid then we won’t have a kid. I want what you want.”

Her chin goes up. “I told you I want a divorce.”

My tender feelings harden. There’s only one thing I won’t give her and that’s freedom from me. “No.”

“Then your promises are empty.” She glares at me.

I throw my arms out in exasperation. “How can I keep any of my promises to love and cherish you if I give you a divorce?”

“You never meant them in the first place,” she accuses.

“Of course I—“ My phone rings, cutting me off. It’s Grant’s ringtone and I know he’s calling about the grocery chain. I know it’s insane to answer a call in the middle of an argument, particularly one where Orchard is accusing me of not loving and cherishing her, which is fucking bullshit since that’s all I’ve ever done since the beginning, but I’m trying to buy this thing she wants and if I don’t take the call, the deal might fall through. My hand slides over to my pocket. Orchard spots the movement and lets out a harsh, unhappy laugh. “See. You love and cherish money. You love and cherish power. You do not love and cherish me.”

I still. “I was going to turn the phone off.” It rings again.

“Answer it. I don’t care.”

She obviously does, but as I weigh the harm here, I decide that losing the grocery chain is the bigger problem. She’s here and the grocery chain isn’t in my grasp—yet. As I answer, I keep my eyes pinned on Orchard, who makes no move to pack her small bag or pick up her purse. Encouraged, I turn my attention to Grant. “How is it going?”

“Grandma Firenze sold out to another bidder.”

“What? I thought we were high? Did you offer her more money?”

“Yes and yes but she doesn’t like—and this is word for word—dickless vultures like you.”

“That’s anatomically inaccurate.”

“I’ll take your word,” Grant replies. “But now what?”

“Are there any other large blocks out there?”

“None. The best you can do is buy it up on the market, but once you start moving shares like that, the price will skyrocket. It will become unnaturally high and you could lose a fortune. The market’s closed anyway. You can call me in the morning,” Grant says.

We hang up and I shove the phone away. “How important is that store to you?”

“What?” Orchard sounds surprised, as if this is the last thing she was thinking of.

“The grocery chain? How important is it?”

She shrugs. “It’s everything.”

Dry mouthed, I consider my options. Orchard’s the only thing that I have of any value and if I lose her, then what does the money matter?