Chapter 6 #2
“Thank you for understanding, darling. It’s important we make sure we’re projecting a certain image. I’m glad you’re starting to get it.” His hand reaches out and brushes along my cheek, and for the first time since I’ve met him, I have the strongest urge to jerk away from his touch.
Dinner was exactly as I expected. A vomit-inducing, ass-kissing fest with a side of “whose dick is bigger.” These businessmen love to hear themselves talk, and man, they don’t shut up.
I’m unsure if they even hear half the bullshit that slips between their lips or if their brains are just completely detached from their tongues.
As the waitress comes back to the table, I toss back the remainder of my red wine and hand her the glass with a smile of gratitude on my face. “Another one, please? And you are more than welcome to keep them coming,” I request.
“She’s just joking. Thank you,” Blake chuckles. So, he is aware that his fiancé has a pulse and is sitting next to him. I wasn’t sure, since he hasn’t said more than ten words to me since we got here.
I cock my head to the side, leveling him with an uncharacteristic glare. “No, no, I wasn’t. I’d like another glass, please. Thank you,” I say, turning to look directly at her. The waitress nods once at me and walks away from our table.
I can feel the stares from Joffrey and Lexi, who are clearly appalled, and I find myself not mad about that fact at all.
Quite the opposite, actually. The heat radiating off of Blake is palpable, and when he clears his voice and picks up the conversation with his friends as if there hadn’t just been thick tension thrumming between us moments prior, the knowledge starts to settle deep within my bones.
Blake doesn’t give two shits about me when it comes to his image.
The waitress soon returns and places my wine in front of me with a wink.
I pick it up, the glass cool in my hand, and tip it ever so slightly in silent cheers toward Blake.
Taking two rather large gulps, I sigh, letting the warmth from the alcohol consume me, a steady pulse flowing through my veins, controlling my heart rate and steadying my breathing.
Who am I tonight? Kira would be proud.
The conversation continues around me while I sit there by myself and finish off my second glass, staring out the window at the lively street, watching the hustle and bustle of the little city move around me.
A couple, hand in hand, stops momentarily, the man pulling the woman into his arms. He looks down at her with such adoration, such desire, that goosebumps break out across my arms.
I feel like I’m intruding on an intimate moment, but I can’t look away. What would it be like to be looked at like that? Before I realize it, my mind travels to Rhys.
The way my body heated from head to toe when he looked at me, the way my heart flipped over, and butterflies took flight in my stomach.
Has there ever been a more gorgeous man to walk the planet?
I don’t think so. And for a man to be graced with looks and such a pure heart?
The way he was so concerned with the dogs, how he handled them so delicately with all the love in the world.
I’ve always known you can tell everything you need to know about a person based on how they treat animals. And Rhys? He’s gold.
The check came and went, and soon Blake and I were back at our house after another silent ride home.
I fully expected him to call me out on my behavior, especially after our little pep talk in the car on the way there.
But how dare he tell me I can’t have another glass of wine?
I don’t even like wine, but it was that or some stuffy hard alcohol that I knew I had no interest in sipping on all night.
Who even likes scotch and whiskey? They burn.
I’m a grown-ass woman, and Blake, fiancé or not, can’t treat me like that.
“What the hell has gotten into you, Bristol? You embarrassed me tonight in front of our closest friends!” I expected it, I guess I should be thankful he waited until we were at home rather than in the car, where the Uber driver could listen in on it.
His words grate on me, and while I would normally slink away and avoid this conversation, I’ve had enough.
“Closest friends? Are you serious, Blake? In case it wasn’t obvious, I can’t stand Joffrey and Lexi!
Have you even been paying attention? You really think they’re our closest friends?
” I snap as the tears break through and cascade down my face.
Crying has always been a traitorous affliction when emotions are too strong, and the goddamn wine isn’t helping keep it at bay now.
“What are you talking about, Bristol? You like them!” Blake’s voice rises, and my stomach swoops.
“You and Lexi get along just fine. They may be above the level of people you like to spend your time with, but I work with them, and this is part of the gig. I don’t know what happened tonight, but you need to text Lexi tomorrow and apologize for any awkwardness.
The last thing I need is for there to be tension between you and them.
I’m not going to tolerate it. Not from anyone, but especially not my soon-to-be wife.
” The last phrase is said with so much venom that it almost feels like a threat.
I stare back at the man I’ve been with for the past few years of my life and can’t believe he doesn’t understand. He stands there in his pristine suit, his perfectly coiffed hair without a single strand out of place, and I wonder who the hell he is, because I don’t know anymore. Maybe I never did.
I’m a smart woman, but I’m struggling to catch up with the reality of what’s happening right now. Does he truly think he can control me this way? Has my compliance led him to believe that he has the right to dictate any part of my life?
“Blake,” I say calmly, wiping away my tears as they quickly cascade down my face, internally cursing my body for making me appear weak.
“I’m not texting either of them. I have nothing to apologize for.
If you hadn’t tried to dictate how much I was drinking, which by the way, was two measly glasses of wine, it wouldn’t have made things awkward.
” I take a steadying breath before continuing, wringing my fingers together in my opposite palm.
“You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do.
You’ve been snappy, rude, and hurtful lately.
I’ve made nothing but excuses in my head for the way you’ve been treating me, and I’m not going to do it anymore.
We have to make some changes. I’m not happy with the way things have been going.
” I release the words through my tears. It was the truth I had been masking, and now it was out there, floating in the universe and unable to retract.
His face remains stoic, unmoving, and not at all like a man who had just been told the woman he was marrying was unhappy, the woman he supposedly loves.
As if I needed any more proof of the state of our relationship, this was it.
Blake looks at me like I’ve inconvenienced him rather than ripped his heart out, forcing mine to plummet to the bottom of my stomach.
“What do you even want me to say to that, Bristol? I have busted my ass to start this life for us. Everything I’ve done has been for us.
If you only fucking knew! You have no idea the lengths I’ve gone to provide this life for us!
” he yells, turning and pacing the length of the living room.
His voice echoes off the walls, angry and scaring the shit out of me.
I back up until my knees hit the edge of the couch.
“You’re so fucking ungrateful. I hardly ask anything of you, and you can’t even play nice with our friends at dinner because I interrupted your plans to what?
Sit on your ass and watch reality television? Good use of time, Bristol!”
I stumble on my feet as he throws the words in my direction, falling down onto the couch, shocked.
Blake has said his fair share of backhanded comments, but nothing ever this straightforward.
Never while yelling. My hands shake as the tears flow steadily over my cheeks, blurring my vision as I process his words.
Should I have been more understanding? Should I have done more? Possibly, but Blake could make me feel like a priority, like my needs and wants matter just as much as his do. And he shouldn’t be fucking yelling at me. None of this is okay.
Blake rubs his hand along his clean-shaven jaw and lets out an irritated huff, his shoulders dropping like the weight of his anger is dissipating before my eyes.
He walks over to me, standing tall above me.
I can’t bear to look at him as I bat the stupid tears from my eyes with my trembling fingers. How can he treat me like this?
“Look, it’ll be fine in the morning. We’ll figure it out,” he says with a gentler tone. His fingers run through my hair. The flinch is automatic this time. I jerk away from him, looking up to meet his eyes.
“No.”
He jerks back as if I smacked him, true shock written all over his face, but then it morphs into something I can’t quite decipher.
Something more sinister that makes my skin crawl.
His eyes seem to darken right in front of me, his voice dropping to a deeper baritone that I’ve never heard from him before.
“I’m sorry, what do you mean, no, Bristol?”
I brace myself, my nails digging into the arms of the chair as I pull my shoulders back.
“Exactly what it means, Blake. We will not be fine in the morning without talking all of this through. You can’t treat me like I’m disposable, like I’m your property, and just expect it to wash away while we sleep.
We have bigger problems than just dinner out with your friends. You really don’t see it?”
“What are you saying, then, Bristol? And be explicitly clear.”
“I just can’t continue on the way we have been.
I can’t be here alone. I’m alone, Blake!
We don’t have sex, we don’t spend time together.
Do you hear the way you just spoke to me?
The way you spoke to me before dinner? I have been making excuse after excuse for why we aren’t in sync, for why we don’t spend any time together.
For what you snap at me and dictate things.
You prioritize work, and I love that for you, I really do. But I need more than that.”
He stares at me for a long moment, the silence deafening.
My heart does a funny thing in my chest, not breaking like I would expect it to, more like frozen in shock.
We’ve never fought before, not really. But I stand by everything I said.
I had to communicate how I’ve been feeling.
If this relationship, this eventual marriage, is going to work and last, we have to talk through it all; we both have to work to make sure the other person’s needs are being met and considered.
Blake nods slowly, his lips pursed as if my emotional and desperate meltdown is a frustrating inconvenience. “Okay, Bristol. I hear you. I promise everything will be okay. You know I love you. No one will ever love you like I do. Everything will get better, okay?”
I want to believe him, goddamn, I really do.
Exhaustion weighs on me like a thick blanket, a mix of my emotional purge and the wine not doing my body any favors tonight.
I nod in agreement. Holding out my hand to pull him in next to me on the couch.
Wanting to be comforted, wanting to be held and reminded why we’re together in the first place.
Instead, he clasps my hand in his, his skin cool to the touch, and gives it a firm squeeze.
“I’m going to get some work done. I’ll be in my office.” He drops my hand without any further action, his footsteps retreating until I hear the click of his office door being shut behind him.
My eyes stay glued on the empty space that separates us, the distance both literal and metaphorical. I’ve felt the distance growing each day, a fissure expanding until we both stand on opposite sides of a cavern.
I don’t know what I expected of him, but it wasn’t this. Not after deciding to spend the rest of our lives together. I sure as hell expected more of a conversation.
He didn’t look me in the eye.
He didn’t reach for me the moment I started crying.
He didn’t want to comfort me or make me feel better.
No emotion.
Just a promise that it will get better. I hope he’s right.
It has to get better. Because if it doesn’t, I’ll have to leave.
I deserve to feel the love of the person I’m spending my life with.
I deserve to not be alone. My self-worth always wars with my guilt over asking for more of him when I know how stressed he is, when I see how hard he works.
I move to the couch, wrapping myself in my favorite blanket and allowing the waves of sadness to crash over me. The last thing I see before I fall asleep is a pair of soft green eyes that hold so much warmth behind them, I can’t help but feel the heat.