6. Freya
— ? —
Freya
Annie was seated at the Waller family table, and Louisa had put her right next to Rex.
I stood in the doorway of Rex’s aunt’s formal dining room, taking in the scene before me.
Crystal chandeliers dripping light onto bone china.
Three generations of Wallers arranged around an expensive wooden table.
And there, in the seat that should have been mine, sat Annie Cooper with her perfect blonde hair and her perfect smile.
Her hand casually resting on my husband’s arm.
Rex saw me and stood immediately, pulling out the chair on his other side. “Freya. Come sit.”
I walked to my seat with my head high, refusing to let any of them see how much this hurt.
The table was full of people I’d spent a year trying to win over.
Aunts who looked at me like I was a stain on the family name.
Uncles who made jokes about gold diggers when they thought I couldn’t hear.
And cousins who’d grown up with Rex and still treated me like an interloper.
And now Annie, sitting in the middle of them all like she already belonged.
Dinner began with small talk I couldn’t follow. Rex’s cousin Bradley was telling a story about a business deal, something about stock options and hostile takeovers. Rex leaned in to listen, and Annie leaned with him, her shoulder brushing his.
I cut my steak into smaller and smaller pieces and didn’t eat any of them.
“So, Annie.” Bradley’s wife, whose name I could never remember, turned her attention across the table. “What brings you back to Texas? Last I heard, you were doing something fabulous in New York.”
“Oh, I needed a break from the big cities.” Annie’s laugh was musical, practiced. “And when Louisa invited me to stay at the ranch, I couldn’t resist. It’s been so long since Rex and I got to spend real time together.”
“They were inseparable as children,” Louisa added. “Do you remember the summer you two built that treehouse? You were covered in mud for an entire month.”
“Rex did most of the building.” Annie smiled at him. “I just handed him nails.”
“You did more than that,” Rex said. “You designed the whole thing. I just followed your blueprints.”
They shared a look. A look of shared history, shared memories, a whole childhood I would never be part of.
I took a long sip of wine.
“It’s funny,” Bradley said, glancing between Annie and Rex. “I always thought you two would end up together. Remember when you were sixteen and you asked Dad for advice on how to propose?”
Rex went slightly red. “I was sixteen. I proposed to four different girls that year.”
“But Annie was the first,” Louisa said warmly.
I set down my wine glass too hard. A few heads turned.
The conversation moved on, but I’d stopped listening.
Every laugh Rex shared with Annie felt like a knife.
Every inside joke, every childhood memory, every casual touch of her hand on his arm reminded me that I was the outsider here.
The interloper. The bought-and-paid-for bride who would never really belong.
Bradley’s wife turned to me with a smile. “So, Freya. What do you do to keep busy out at the ranch?”
“I help manage the household accounts. And I ride.”
“How nice.” She made it sound like a hobby for children. “Rex’s first wife will certainly have her hands full with such a large property.”
I went still. “First wife?”
She blinked, all innocence. “I’m sorry, did I say that? I meant current wife, of course. How silly of me.”
Across the table, one of the cousins snickered.
Louisa chose that moment to set down her fork and smile at the table.
“Speaking of the future,” she said, her voice carrying easily over the quiet conversations, “I have an announcement. Our dear Annie will be spending quite a lot more time with us going forward.” She reached over and patted Annie’s hand. “Soon, she’ll be part of the family.”
The table erupted in laughter. Not cruel laughter, exactly, but knowing laughter where everyone is in on a joke except one person.
I looked at Rex. He was staring at his plate, jaw tight, not laughing.
But he wasn’t saying anything either.
Say something, I begged him silently. Tell them they’re wrong. Tell them I’m your wife, not her. Just tell them anything.
He didn’t.
I pushed back from the table and stood.
“Freya.” Rex reached for my arm. “Where are you going?”
“Enjoy your dessert,” I said, my voice perfectly steady despite the fire burning in my chest. I looked directly at Louisa. “I’m sure Annie will save you a seat at the wedding.”
I walked out with my head high, my heels clicking against the marble floor, refusing to run even though every instinct screamed at me to flee.
The garden outside was dark and quiet, the formal hedges casting long shadows in the moonlight. I made it to the fountain at the center before my composure cracked. I sat on the stone edge and pressed my hands against my eyes, willing myself not to cry.
Don’t you dare, I told myself. Don’t you dare give them the satisfaction.
From inside the house, I could hear muffled voices. Rex’s voice, raised in what might have been argument. His uncle responding, lower but just as intense.
I couldn’t make out the words. I didn’t want to.
Then Rex’s voice came clearly through an open window, loud enough to carry into the garden.
“I don’t need relationship advice, Uncle Max. I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you?” Max’s voice was skeptical. “That marriage looks like a business arrangement that’s gone on too long. Be honest with me, son. Do you regret marrying her?”
A long pause. Then Rex, quieter but still audible: “Some days? Yeah. Maybe I do. It was a business arrangement. It made sense on paper.”
I stopped breathing.
Some days?
I had married him for my family, but somewhere along the way I’d fallen in love with him. I thought he was falling too. And he regretted me.
That was all I was. Not a wife. And not someone he’d chosen because he wanted me. Just a line item on a ledger. A transaction that came with land and water rights and a hundred thousand acres.
I didn’t wait to hear the rest. Whatever came next, I didn’t want to know it. Didn’t want to hear him explain to his uncle all the practical reasons he’d married me while his mother arranged his next wife inside.
When Rex found me by the fountain five minutes later, I’d rebuilt my walls. I was calm. Collected but empty.
“Freya.” He stopped a few feet away, reading my face. “What happened? You’re upset.”
“I’m done, Rex.”
“Done with what? With dinner? We can go if you want.”
“Done with your family.” I stood and faced him. “I’m done sitting at tables where they treat me like a joke. Done watching your mother plan your next wedding while I’m still wearing the ring from this one. And I’m done being humiliated in front of everyone while you just sit there and say nothing.”
“I was going to say something. I was about to…”
“When? After dessert? After coffee? Or after Annie moves into the master bedroom?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Fair?” I laughed, and it sounded broken even to my ears. “You want to talk about fair? Your mother offered me thirty fucking million to disappear. Your family just announced that Annie’s going to be part of the family. And you sat there like a statue. You didn’t say a single word.”
“You know how my mother is. She says things. She likes drama. It doesn’t mean anything. She could’ve meant it differently.”
“It means everything!” My voice echoed across the garden. “She meant it differently? How, Rex? Tell me how your mother saying Annie will be part of the family while I’m sitting right there could possibly mean something different?”
“I don’t know. I just mean…” He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. “She’s my mother. She’s not going to change. But that doesn’t mean I agree with her.”
“But you don’t disagree with her either. Not out loud. Not where anyone can hear.” I stepped closer, forcing him to meet my eyes. “What is this marriage to you, Rex? Really?”
He hesitated. Just for a second. Just a tiny pause before he opened his mouth to answer.
But that hesitation was everything. That single beat of silence told me more than a thousand words ever could.
He didn’t know what we were. Or he did know, and the answer was exactly what I’d heard through that window. A business arrangement he was starting to regret.
“Take me home,” I said quietly.
“Freya…”
“Take me home. I’m tired. I want to go to bed.”
He reached for my hand, and I let him take it because I didn’t have the energy to pull away. His hesitation had finally broken something inside me that I wasn’t sure could be fixed.
And I didn’t tell him I wouldn’t be staying.