Chapter 10 #2
“You are trying to manage me,” I fired back. “You treat this like an administrative problem. A security breach. A complication in your schedule. You tracked me down to retrieve me, like a piece of misplaced state property.”
“I came here because you are my wife,” he shouted, the wind tearing the words from his mouth.
“I came because I was out of my mind with worry. Do you think I want to be standing in this muck? Do you think I have time for this? I left a summit with the Prime Minister to drive out to this godforsaken coast.”
“Then go back to the summit,” I said. “Go back to the Prime Minister. Go back to your assistant and have him pick out an apology gift for me. Have him draft a statement. That is what you do best, isn’t it? Outsource the problem. Delegate the maintenance.”
He closed his eyes. The rain washed the mud down his face in dark streaks. When he opened his eyes, the anger had fractured, revealing something raw and desperate underneath. The impenetrable armor was cracking.
“The anniversary,” he said, his voice dropping into a lower register.
“This is about the anniversary. Natalie, I made a mistake. I was overwhelmed. The trade agreement was falling apart, the press was circling, and I lost track of the date. I asked Silas to handle the arrangements because I wanted you to have a perfect evening, and I knew I could not plan it myself in the time I had.”
“You did not just ask him to handle the arrangements,” I said. I felt the cold seeping deeper into my bones. “You asked him to pick the gift. You asked him to sign the card. You outsourced the sentiment, Henrik. You delegated the love.”
“That is untrue,” he insisted. He stepped over the vines, closing the distance between us again. “I love you. You know I love you.”
“I know you used to,” I said. The words burned my throat. “I know the man I married loved me. I know that man cared about my heart. That man is gone. He was replaced by a title. By an empire. By a man who looks at his wife and sees an administrative liability.”
“I am the exact same man,” he said, his voice cracking. He reached for me again, his hands stopping inches from my face, hovering in the air. “I carry the demands of this country to secure our future. Everything I do, I do to build a foundation for us.”
“I refuse to have a foundation built on my absence,” I shouted.
The anger boiled over, hot and consuming.
“I refuse to care about the country. I refuse to care about the legacy. I married a flesh and blood man. You gave me a title. I refuse to live in that museum and pretend that a diamond necklace chosen by your staff makes up for the fact that you have not looked me in the eyes in six months.”
Henrik stood paralyzed. His hands lowered to his sides. The rain beat against us, relentless and cold. He looked at me as if seeing me for the first time in years.
“I am standing right here,” he said, his voice thick. “I am looking at you right now.”
“Only because I forced a crisis,” I said. “Only because my absence became a problem you had to solve.”
He shook his head, a slow, disbelieving movement. “You are punishing me. You dragged me out into this storm to punish me. To make me stand in the mud and beg.”
“I did not ask you to come here.”
“I had to come,” he snapped. The commanding edge returned to his voice, fueled by desperation. “You are my wife.”
“I took the ring off, Henrik.”
He flinched as if I had struck him. He looked down at my bare left hand, gripping the rusted shears.
The pale skin where the band used to sit was red from the cold.
He stared at it for a long, terrible moment.
The reality of the missing gold band seemed to shatter the last remnants of his composure.
“Come home,” he commanded. The gravel in his voice was absolute.
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the severed wine cork.
He held it out to me, pinched between his muddy fingers.
“Come home, Natalie. We will go back, and we will fix this. I will clear my schedule. I will fire Silas. I will do whatever you require.”
I stared at the stained cork. It caught no light in the gray storm. It looked small. Insignificant. It represented a promise he had broken a hundred times over, not with cruelty, but with absence.
“You cannot fix this with an executive order,” I said. “You cannot schedule intimacy. It does not work that way.”
“Then tell me how it works,” he demanded, his voice breaking into a shout. “Tell me what you want from me.”
“I want you to leave,” I said.
The words hung between us, suspended in the freezing rain. Henrik stared at me, his face a mask of shock and rigid denial. He kept his hand extended, holding the cork out. The mud on his fingers stained the dark wood.
“No,” he said.
“Leave my property,” I said. I turned my back to him.
I walked down the row of vines. My boots sucked and pulled at the mud.
My muscles screamed in protest with every step.
The physical pain was a relief. It drowned out the twisting, tearing sensation in my chest. I felt the physical snap of my emotional tether to him.
The final break. It rang in the cold air.
I focused on the cottage. The gray shingles.
The dark windows. The promise of silence.
“Natalie!” his voice roared over the wind, rough and torn.
I did not stop. I did not turn around. I reached the end of the row and stepped onto the small stone path leading to the front door. The stones were slick with rain. I kept my eyes fixed on the wooden door.
“I am not leaving you here!” he shouted. I heard the frantic crunch of his boots in the mud behind me. “I am not walking away from this!”
I climbed the two wooden steps to the porch.
The floorboards groaned under my weight.
I reached the door. The handle was cold iron.
I gripped it, twisted, and pushed the door open.
The interior of the cottage was dark, smelling of cold ash from the fireplace and old pine.
It offered no warmth, but it offered walls.
It offered a barrier. It offered an end to the argument.
I stepped inside.
I turned back for one fraction of a second. Henrik stood at the edge of the stone path. The rain battered his ruined coat. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides. He looked broken, stripped of his authority, standing powerless in the freezing mud of my domain.
I closed the door.
I threw the iron deadbolt, locking it.