4. Anika
— ? —
Anika
I read his words back to him slowly. Letting each one land.
“She’s been distant lately. I don’t know when it started. I feel more like myself in a room where people want things from me.”
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t interrupt.
“Note: her birthday. Have Giovani handle it.”
Something flickered across his face. There and gone.
“I don’t know if we’re compatible anymore. I don’t know when that happened, which is probably the answer.” I closed the diary and set it on his desk. “That one’s my favorite.”
“Anika…”
“You wrote that we’re not compatible.”
“I wrote it on a bad day.”
“You wrote that I’m distant.” My voice was rising now, swallowed frustration clawing its way up my throat. “I’m distant because you left me alone at the last gala. You delegated my birthday to Giovani. You left me in the car on one of our anniversary week nights.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because the diary says it’s my fault.”
“You’re right,” he said.
I blinked. “What?”
“You’re right. About all of it.” He ran a hand through his hair, and for a moment he looked almost human.
Almost like the boy I’d married. “The gala was my fault. Your birthday was my fault. The anniversary. All of it. I wrote those things because I was frustrated, and instead of talking to you, I blamed you.”
“That’s not an apology.”
“I’m sorry.” He said it simply, without deflection.
“I’m sorry for the gala. For making you stand there alone while I worked the room.
I’m sorry for your birthday. For delegating it to Giovani like you were a task on my calendar.
I’m sorry for the anniversary. For leaving you in the car. For not seeing what I was doing to us.”
My throat was tight. I wanted to believe him. Wanted it so badly it felt like a physical ache.
“Sorry doesn’t fix it.”
“I know.” He took a step closer. “But I’m going to fix it anyway. The real anniversary date. Friday. I’ll redo it. I’ll cancel my original plan with Sundream to celebrate our real anniversary. I won’t look at my phone or call Giovani. No work. Just us.”
“You’ve made promises before.”
“And I’ll keep making them until I prove I can keep them.”
He was close now. I could smell his cologne, feel the heat radiating off his body. My heart started beating faster despite everything.
I hated that. Hated that even now, even with his words still ringing in my ears, I wanted him. Eight years of marriage had conditioned my body to respond to his presence like a reflex.
“I’m still angry,” I said.
“I’m angry at myself too.”
“I’m so angry I can barely see straight.”
“I’m sorry, baby.”
“I don’t forgive you.”
“I deserve that.”
He reached for me. His fingers brushed my jaw, tilting my face up to his, and I should have pulled away. Should have held onto my anger, wrapped it around me like armor.
But I was tired. So tired of being angry and being hurt. Of sleeping alone in our bed while he worked in his study.
He kissed me.
It wasn’t tender. It was a claim, demanding, like he was trying to win an argument with his mouth. His hands gripped my hips and lifted me onto his desk. I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him closer, anger and want tangling together until I couldn’t tell them apart.
“I hate you right now,” I gasped against his lips.
“I know.” He yanked at my shirt, his movements rough, impatient. “Hate me all you want.”
This wasn’t making love. This was something desperate, both of us reaching for a connection we couldn’t quite find. His mouth was hot on my throat, his hands pushing my clothes aside, and I arched into him even as part of me screamed that this wouldn’t fix anything.
He freed himself from his slacks and pushed into me without preamble. I gasped at the sudden fullness, my nails digging into his shoulders, and he groaned against my neck.
“Look at me,” he said.
I looked. His eyes were dark, intense, searching my face like he was looking for something he’d lost. But even now, even buried inside me, even holding me like I might disappear, there was a distance. A wall I couldn’t breach.
He started to move. Hard, fast strokes that rocked the desk against the wall. I wrapped my legs around him and held on, chasing the feeling, trying to find him in the rhythm of our bodies.
But it was hollow.
Even as the pleasure built, even as my body responded to his, I felt the emptiness underneath. We were going through the motions of intimacy without any of the connection. Two people using sex to avoid a conversation neither of us knew how to have.
He reached between us, his thumb finding my clit, rubbing in tight circles. My body clenched around him, responding to the stimulus even as my heart stayed locked away. I came with a cry that echoed off the walls, and he followed moments later, burying himself deep.
For a long moment, neither of us moved.
Then he pulled out and stepped back, and the distance between us rushed in like cold water.
“I meant what I said,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to my forehead. That brief, distracted kiss. “I’m going to make this right.”
“Okay.”
He helped me straighten up. Handed me my clothes and kissed my forehead again.
“I need to make a quick call,” he said. “The Sundream thing. Ten minutes, and then I’m all yours.”
“Okay.”
He disappeared into the bathroom. I heard water running, then the low murmur of his voice as he made his call.
I cleaned up in the powder room down the hall, avoiding my reflection in the mirror. My body was still humming, but something in my chest felt hollow. Like we’d tried to fix a crack with sex and only made it wider.
When I came back to our bedroom, I could still hear him on the phone. His social voice, warm and punctuated by that laugh.
I got into bed and waited for him to join me.
He never came while I was awake.
I lay there in the dark, listening to the distant murmur of his voice, until exhaustion finally pulled me under. When I woke, the sun was streaming through the windows and his side of the bed was cold.
Untouched.
He’d never come to bed at all.