The Wrong Wife by Maya Alden
Chapter 30
Esme
Everything hurt.
I groaned as I tried to get up and felt shards of ice go through my face.
“Sweetheart, let me help you.” Declan wore jeans and a white dress shirt, his home attire.
“What are you doing here?”
“I live here, honey.” He helped me sit up and then, as if giving up, slid an arm under my knee and another around my neck and picked me up.
“I’m heavy,” I protested.
“No, you’re not, and no, I’m not too weak to carry my wife. Bathroom first, I imagine?”
I nodded and snuggled into him, enjoying the woodsy smell of his body wash and cologne.
He gave me privacy in the bathroom so I could use the toilet. I even managed to brush my teeth. I put on the T-shirt and pajama shorts that he or Calliope had conveniently left in the bathroom. It wasn’t too bad, I thought until I looked at my face in the mirror. I looked like something out of a war movie. A sob tore through me.
“Esme?”
“Declan, I look terrible.”
He came inside the bathroom and stood behind me, a whole foot taller and way more handsome than anyone had a right to be. “You look beautiful.” He kissed my hair.
“How am I going to go to the gala tomorrow?”
“You’re not.”
I pouted.
“There will be other parties.”
“You haven’t asked since that first time, and now you finally did. Maria was going to let me borrow a dress and shoes. I was going to look pretty for you.” I gulped some air and then started to bawl like a baby. He picked me up again and took me to bed. Calliope had just finished changing the sheets, and he set me down on the fresh linen.
Calliope quickly came to fluff pillows behind me so I could sit up.
“How are you, Esme?”
“I look like a monster,” I whimpered, bursting into tears.
“Oh no, no, you don’t,” Calliope soothed.
Declan held me in his arms.
“Now, my love, it’s just a gala. You weren’t going to enjoy it anyway.”
“But I was looking forward to it. I thought I’d look nice and you’d…be proud of me.”
He pulled back and looked at my puffy eyes. “My love, I’m always proud of you.”
But for the fact that painkillers were still running through my system, I’d have never asked. “Why do you keep calling me your love?”
I heard Calliope snicker before she left the bedroom.
“Because you are my love. My wonderful, beautiful love.” He kissed the bruise on my cheek, closed eye, and nose.
“Not beautiful.”
“Gorgeous. If going to the gala means much to you, we’ll go.”
“Looking like this?”
“We’ll fix you up. We can appear and leave before your painkillers wear off, okay?”
I looked at him in disbelief. No one, and I mean no one, had offered to do something they didn’t want to do because I liked it.
“You can’t fix this up,” I lamented.
“We’ll get the best hair and makeup person. You’ll look amazing. But if you want to go, you must rest all day today and tomorrow.”
I sniffled. “Okay.”
“Good girl.” He kissed my lips softly. “You scared me but good, Esme.”
His tone was serious now.
“I scared myself a little as well. I didn’t know I had security.”
“Bodyguards, yes. Raya kept them discreet, but now you must let them be with you. And I want you to take a car and driver. No more public transportation and no walking late at night.”
Hell no. My lips straightened into a revolutionary line.
“Esme, please, for the sake of my mental health. I can’t…I can’t see you like this again. It’s killing me that you got hurt, and I couldn’t protect you.”
He looked so miserable that I nodded reluctantly. “Can they not wear suits? They’ll stand out like sore thumbs at Safe Harbor.”
“Deal.”
He brought me some fresh pea soup that he fed me as I sat like a queen in bed being served. I took some more painkillers and immediately went to sleep. According to Declan, healing took time, and I needed all the healing I could get.
I woke up several hours later, feeling sore but a bit better. The clock on Declan’s bedside table said it was seven in the evening. I slept for nearly eight hours. Those painkillers were industrial strength.
I sat up and heard raised voices from the living room. I managed to get to the bathroom as that was urgent, and then I brushed my teeth. I wanted to do more, but I was worried about who Declan was arguing within the living room. I walked out barefoot, wearing the t-shirt and pajama shorts I had been sleeping in.
Viv and Julien were in the living room, sitting on the sofa across from Declan, who was in the red swan armchair.
They all looked at me as I came into the room.
Declan immediately rose and walked up to me. “How are you?”
“Okay.” I looked at my father and sister. “Daddy. Viv.”
Were they here because I’d gotten hurt? That would be a first. But it warmed my heart. Maybe they were finally starting to care for me.
“Wow,” Viv exclaimed. “You look like hell.”
“I know.” I leaned against Declan.
“You should go to bed.” He helped me sit down on the armchair he just vacated.
“I’ve been in bed all day.” I was conscious of my black t-shirt and pajama shorts, and as if he could read my mind, Declan picked up the cashmere throw that rested in a basket next to the sofa and draped it around me like a shawl, covering all of me and keeping me warm.
“Esme, maybe it would be better if you were not here,” my father said acerbically. “This is a family matter.”
“She’s family, Julien.” Declan sat down on the side table next to me.
“Come on, Dec, be reasonable,” Viv interjected. “She knows nothing about the Hartley Industries or Knight Tech. She’ll be bored.”
“Then that’s her problem,” Declan retorted.
“No, that’s okay. I’m tired, and I can—”
“Stay,” Declan ordered. He then looked at Daddy and Viv. “The merger will be completed in two months—and I’m not changing my mind. We’re sticking to the plan, Julien.”
“Now, Dec, you know these things take time. Let's extend the timeline to the end of the year. That way, Viv and you have enough time to resolve—”
“There’s nothing to resolve,” Declan bit out.
Now I didn’t want to be here. They wanted Declan to get our marriage annulled. They’d been pressuring me, and I would do it if my husband agreed, and he didn’t. He insisted he’d tell a judge how we were indeed married and that if I wanted to get rid of him, I’d need a divorce which would take several months and include a separation period, all of which would get us past the one-year contract period mark anyway. In addition, the merger would be at risk as a divorce, unlike an annulment, was mentioned in the Hartley Industry bylaws as a derailer.
“Do you want to stay married to Dec, Es?”
Before I could say anything, Declan spoke. “That’s between Esme and me, wife and husband, and none of your business.”
Daddy looked at me with disgust, and I recoiled. Declan took my hand in his and squeezed.
“My wife is recovering from an attack on her, and I’d like you both to leave.” He patted my hand as he set it back on my lap and stood up.
“Dec,” Viv pleaded. “Please, don’t do this.”
“Do what? Ask you to leave my house?”
“Our house. This is our house. We got it together. We decorated it…hell, I decorated it.”
“I bought it; we did not. You couldn’t afford it. And you didn’t decorate it; an interior designer did,” Declan corrected her.
Viv shot a glance at me. “Are you enjoying sleeping in the same bed he and I made love in?”
My shoulders slumped. I was tired. I didn’t want to fight with my family.
I rose, holding the cashmere throw around me. “I’m going to go to bed.”
Declan picked me up like I weighed nothing and carried me to his room.
He tucked me in. “I’m sorry. I’ll send them away.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if we annulled our marriage,” I offered. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what?”
“Fighting with Daddy and Viv; my mother is upset with me. Why not give them what they want?”
He nodded. “And you? What do you want?”
I smiled weakly at him. I knew I wanted him, but there was no way I could admit it to him or anyone else. In fairytales, Cinderella married her Prince; in the real world, they never met, and even if they did, he didn’t want her.
“How does that matter?”
“It matters to me.”
I closed my eyes. It was too tempting. He was too tempting. “I’m tired, Declan.”
“I know, sweetheart.” He brushed his lips on my forehead. “Sleep tight, my love.”
He was almost at the door when I let my heart break, “Please stop calling me that.”
He turned and looked so sad that I cringed. “My love?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I may start believing it and…I can’t let myself get hurt.”
He seemed far away all of a sudden, his eyes shuttered. “I do, Esme. I lo—.”
I didn’t let him finish. “Please, Declan.”
“Sleep well, Esme.”
He left, closing the door softly behind him.
I wanted to believe him. But I was afraid. No one had loved me; why should he? All my life, I waited for my family to care about me. I was madly in love with my husband and wanted to build all those castles in the air my father had warned me to stay away from. I couldn’t take the risk with Declan because it would destroy me when he walked away from me, as he most definitely would. It was already too late.