65. Allie
Allie
Today was a day.
Not the Ugh, I need a drink and a bubble bath kind of day. No, this was the send me to a deserted island where my only problem is coconut-related kind of day.
Two of my line cooks called in sick, which meant I spent most of the night running around the kitchen like a contestant on a cooking competition show—only instead of Gordon Ramsay yelling at me, it was my damn inner monologue screaming, Why the hell do you still do this?
Physically drained? Absolutely.
Mentally drained? A slow, two-week-long spiral into an existential crisis.
And now, as if life wanted to give me one final screw you, my husband—my emotionally nonexistent husband—is standing here proving that I mean absolutely nothing to him.
Rico, in all his grumpy, broody, emotionally repressed glory, has finally confirmed what I’ve been trying to deny.
That he doesn’t love me.
That he will never love me.
That all those small moments I’d let myself believe were something—waking up wrapped around each other, the way he reached for me in his sleep, the way his body practically devoured me whenever I was near—meant absolutely nothing to him.
Like a fool, I thought I’d gotten through to him. I needed to believe that I was more than just a warm body he happened to share a bed with.
Turns out? I was wrong.
Painfully, stupidly, gut-wrenchingly wrong.
“I will not do IVF,” I snap, arms crossed as I gawk up at him, because fuck that. I might not be getting love out of this sham of a marriage, but I refuse to be reduced to some science experiment just because my husband wants to speedrun the baby-making process.
“You will,” he fires back, his tone clipped. “We got married so you could give me a child.”
And there it is.
Not, we got married because I wanted to build a life with you.
Not, we got married because I saw something in you worth fighting for.
Nope.
Just a transactional brief sentence that makes me want to hurl something at his stupidly flawless face.
I step into his space, shoving him. “And that can take months! You, of all people, should know that. Last I checked, you Google the shit out of everything, so tell me, does your research mention it doesn’t just happen overnight?”
His jaw twitches, his expression a perfect replica of a statue—completely unreadable. “It doesn’t with IVF either.”
He shrugs. Like we’re discussing a grocery list.
“I will have my baby the traditional way.”
“Our contract says otherwise.”
He folds his arms across his chest, and I catch the slight clench in his jaw. He’s grinding his teeth. Good. Let him be mad. I’ve been mad. And sad. And confused for weeks. Come join the party, hubby. Experience an emotion.
“We amended that contract,” I point out, voice rising.
“As you oh-so-kindly reminded me just minutes ago when you clearly wanted to have sex with me.” I throw my arms out, nearly knocking over the useless decorative vase on the dresser I put there just to piss him off.
“Is that all I am to you? Your personal stress relief on call every night so you can get off and hopefully get me pregnant?”
Something flickers in those amber eyes—something. A spark. A reaction.
Finally.
Then he opens his mouth and extinguishes it.
“You’re a good fuck,” his voice flat. “But that’s it. A warm hole to use until you get pregnant. Which, clearly, you can’t do.”
I freeze.
The words land hard, direct, and with surgical precision.
For months, I’ve been starving for words from him. Craving conversation, looking for anything beyond the grunts and clipped responses he gives me when he’s not currently inside me. And this?
This is what he shares?
“What about everything you say while we…” I trail off before I call it making love, because God, that would be pathetic. “What about all those secrets you share?”
His response is instant. Emotionless.
“Whatever gets you off.”
And that knocks the air from my lungs.
Not the sex.
Not the coldness.
Not even the confirmation that I’m nothing more than a means to an end for him.
It’s the casual indifference.
The realization that none of those moments meant anything to him. That I don’t mean anything to him.
And yet, like the fool I am, I still ask.
“So you don’t love me?”
Why am I doing this to myself?
Why am I begging for him to stab the knife deeper?
Because I need to hear it. I need him to pound the final nail into the coffin so I can bury whatever shred of hope I had left and move the hell on.
Rico stares at me. His jaw tensed. His Adam’s apple bobs.
Then, finally—finally—he speaks.
“No.” A slight tilt of his head. His tone was completely devoid of hesitation. “Why would I?”
And that is it.
The final blow.
The brutal confirmation that the last four months of me pushing—fighting, trying, hoping—were for nothing.
I nod, pushing past him, heading straight for my old room.
My room.
A room I haven’t slept in for almost four months. A room that was empty—because I made it empty. Because I moved all my things into his room.
Half to piss him off.
Half to push him into something resembling a normal marriage.
Push.
That’s all I’ve ever done.
Push him to share a room with me.
Push him to let me make our house a home.
Push him to go in public with me.
Push him to leave me those stupid, useless little notes.
Push. Push. Push.
And it never mattered.
Because he never pulled me back.
Not once.
And the worst part?
I love him.