4. Freya
— ? —
Freya
One fucking full week of watching Annie fall off horses she knew perfectly well how to ride, and I was done keeping quiet.
Rex sat behind me on our bed, his thumbs digging into the knots between my shoulder blades. Any other night, this would have melted me. His hands were magic. Warm and exactly right, the way they always found the places where I held my tension without me having to tell him.
But tonight, every touch felt like a lie.
“You’re so tight,” he murmured against my hair. “What’s going on with you lately?”
What’s going on with me?
I almost laughed. I’d spent the past week watching another woman throw herself at my husband while his mother smiled in the background like she was watching her master plan unfold.
I’d eaten dinner after dinner where Annie told stories I wasn’t part of, where Rex laughed at jokes I didn’t understand, where I sat in my own house feeling like a ghost.
And now he wanted to know what was going on with me.
“Your mother offered me money to leave you.”
His hands stilled on my shoulders. “What?”
“The day Annie arrived. While you two were at the stables.” I turned to face him, tucking my legs under me on the mattress. “She sat me down for tea and offered me thirty million dollars to walk away from this marriage. She said you deserved someone more fitting.”
Rex’s face looked confused, then he settled in disbelief. “Mom said that?”
“Word for word.”
“She didn’t mean it like that.”
The immediate dismissal was not what I expected. “How else could she have meant it, Rex? She literally had the paperwork ready.”
“My mom’s old. Old people say things they don’t mean. They just want someone to talk to, someone to listen.” He reached for me, trying to pull me back into his arms. “She’s always been dramatic. You know how she is.”
I pulled away. “I know exactly how she is. She brought Annie here to replace me.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? Annie answers your phone when I call. I called you about the grilled cheese and she picked up. Told me you were too busy to talk.”
Rex frowned. “She was just trying to help. My hands were full with the mare.”
“And the falling? The constant slipping into your arms every single day?” I heard my voice rising and couldn’t stop it. “She owns a ranch, Rex. Her family has hundreds of horses. She knows how to ride. But suddenly she needs you to catch her every five minutes?”
“Freya, come on. She’s harmless. They have a different horse breed they’re raising. They’re smaller and gentler than ours so there’s a learning curve.” He shook his head like I was a child having a tantrum. “You’re being silly.”
Now that word landed like a bomb.
I stood up so fast the bed bounced. Rex looked up at me with genuine confusion, like he couldn’t understand why I wasn’t just accepting his explanation and moving on.
“I am not being silly.” My voice came out low and hard. “I have spent the past week feeling invisible in my own home. Your mother tried to buy me off and you’re calling me silly. Another woman is openly flirting with my husband and you’re calling me silly.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Then what did you mean?”
He ran a hand through his hair, frustration creeping into his expression. “I meant you’re tired. You’re stressed. You’re reading into things that aren’t there.” He patted the mattress beside him. “Come back to bed. Let me finish your shoulders. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
I stared at him. At this man I’d married, this man I’d fallen for despite every reason not to, this man who could read a boardroom full of hostile executives but couldn’t see what was happening right in front of his face.
“I need you to see this, Rex. And I need you to actually hear what I’m telling you.”
“I hear you. I just think you’re overreacting.”
“And I need you to say something. To your mother, to Annie, to anyone.”
“Say what? That my wife is jealous of a family friend?”
He made me look like I was some possessive shrew who couldn’t handle her husband having female friends. Like the problem was me and my insecurities, not his mother’s scheming or Annie’s obvious campaign.
I walked to the closet and pulled out my pillow.
“What are you doing?” Rex asked.
“I’ll be in the guest room.”
“Freya, come on. Don’t be like this.”
I turned to look at him one last time. He was sitting on the bed, sheets pooled around his waist, looking confused and maybe a little hurt. Like he genuinely didn’t understand what he’d done wrong.
And maybe that was the worst part. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t see how every dismissal, every you know how she is, every you’re being silly landed on me like a blow. In his mind, he was being reasonable. And he thought I was the problem.
“Goodnight, Rex.”
I walked out before he could respond.
The hallway was dark, lit only by moonlight streaming through the balcony doors at the end of the corridor. I stopped when I reached them, drawn by the silver glow spilling across the hardwood floors.
Through the glass, I could see the ranch spreading out beneath the moon.
The pastures where Penny grazed. The stables where I’d spent so many quiet mornings.
And the lake, just visible in the distance, where Rex had laid me down on a blanket and made love to me under the stars exactly eight days ago.
It felt like a lifetime.
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass and let myself remember another night. Another view through these same doors. The night I married a man I’d known for fourteen days and tried to convince myself that everything would somehow be okay.
He’d made me a promise that night, standing right here on this balcony, with the weight of our impossible situation pressing down on both of us.
I’d believed him.
And now I was standing in a dark hallway with my pillow clutched to my chest, wondering when exactly I’d started feeling more alone married to Rex than I ever had in my father’s house.