Binding Rose: A Dark Mafia Romance(48)

It’s completely soulless.

And I fear that trait fits Tiernan’s personality down to a T.

“Let me show you to your room,” he says, walking to the back of the apartment in long, fluid strides.

I have to quicken my step just to keep up with him.

“Wait? My room?” I ask when his hand is already clutching at a door handle.

Instead of gifting me a response, he opens the door so I can take a peek inside.

Another room with little color and even less imagination.

“Across from you is my home office, and at the end of the hall, my bedroom. I’m going to take a shower, and then there is some work I still have to do tonight. Help yourself to whatever Elsa has cooked us for dinner. I already ate.” And with that explanation he leaves me to it, strutting towards his bedroom, leaving my mouth agape while staring at his backside until he slams his door shut.

Great.

I was stupid to think we were making progress by him moving me into his home. It seems he just switched one prison cell for another.

I slam my bedroom door loud enough for him to hear and fall on my mattress, wondering how my life got this way.

After an hour or so has passed, my stomach begins to grumble, demanding that I venture out of my room in search of food. When I crack my door open, I can hear Tiernan in his office, talking on the phone at the same time he clanks on his keyboard. I slip out and head towards the living room and kitchen. The yellow post-it left on the counter by Elsa tells me I can find a pot roast in the oven. I slice myself a few cuts and add the vegetables to my plate, heating it up in the top-of-the-line microwave. After it dings, I take the plate out and plop onto a nearby stool and begin to eat my dinner.

Alone.

Again.

I should be thankful that my husband doesn’t want to spend any time with me. Wasn’t that why Alejandro had suggested I get pregnant as soon as possible? So I can have a life away from my betrothed? But this doesn’t feel like living. It just feels like I’m letting the days pass me by without any joy to speak of. This isn’t a life.

No.

Alejandro’s plan is a good one.

If I have a child, an heir to the Kelly dynasty, then I’ll finally be able to have a life worth mentioning. Tiernan might not want to be around me—for which I am truly thankful since the man gets on my every last nerve— but he will no longer see me as a nuisance if I just bear him a son. Right now, it’s plain to see he doesn’t know what to do with me. He doesn’t want to be married to me, that much is clear, but he doesn’t know more than that, either. He’s grasping at straws on how to deal with the awkward situation we find ourselves in. As I see it, two lives are being put on hold for the sake of the treaty. His and mine. We are both stuck on an eternal pause button, and neither one of us knows how to press play and just get on with our lives.

With a child, or maybe even more than one, both of us will have some kind of neutral ground to work with. I’ll gain his respect as the mother of his children, and he will leave me to do with my days as I see fit, only conversing with me in regards to his heirs.

He will no longer feel burdened with the shackles of the treaty and will feel free to live his life parallel to mine. Most made men have girlfriends on the side. Some even have homes for their mistresses and share their beds on the daily, leaving only the weekends occupied with their real family. It’s not the fairytale marriage most girls dream about having, but it’s a marriage I can live with.

Who knows?

If I please him enough, Tiernan may even be open to the idea of me having paramours of my own.

Although, as I ponder the idea, it doesn’t seem very likely.

After I’ve had my dinner, I tidy up the kitchen and then take my luggage that his men left beside the elevator doors back to my room. Instead of unpacking, I decide to go back into the living room and spend the rest of my evening watching TV. I scroll through the channels to find something worth watching, but nothing really grabs my attention. I leave it on some show about rich wives and how they go about their spoiled days. I’ve never been a fan of reality television, but their train-wreck drama is preferable to wallowing in thoughts of my own. I’m not sure how long I watched the show for, but somewhere between one blonde slapping another housewife on the show across the face and another making a drunken fool of herself in some swanky restaurant, I must have dozed off. When my lids flutter open, I see that the television has been turned off and that someone has placed a fleece blanket on top of me as I slept.

No. Not someone.

My husband.

Since he’s the only other person in this apartment with me.

Still a little bit groggy, I get up from the couch and walk back to my room. As I walk down the hall, I realize that Tiernan is no longer in his office. A quick glance at the grandfather clock inside his office tells me that it’s not even midnight yet. Either my husband’s busy week has finally taken its toll on him, or he’s avoiding me in his room.

How am I ever going to get pregnant if the only way I can get my husband to touch me is when I’ve somehow pissed him off, so he feels the need to spank me?

If I’m to get what I want, true freedom, then I have to take my future into my own hands and do something about it. With a new resolve, I go into my room and take a quick shower. Once I’m finished, I go in search of the bag that holds my honeymoon lingerie. I pull it over my head and quickly check myself in the mirror to see how it looks.