Arranged(76)

Well, that, coupled with my doubled security, was at least somewhat reassuring. The fact that she’d never face real justice? Less so.

“There’s more,” he said suddenly in a stricken voice.

I felt the blow coming like a shift in the air. It was heavier with his grief. Even so, I still wasn’t braced for what he said next.

“She’s pregnant.”

“She’s what?” My mind couldn’t deal with what had just come out of his mouth. It took a while for me to grasp it, for my brain to absorb it.

I studied him, feeling a little numb.

As with any fresh, deep wound, there was too much blood to see the cut.

He looked so wretched that I almost wanted to comfort him. Almost. That instinct battled with something building inside of me, something stronger than the urge to nurture.

It was the urge to hurt.

No. I didn’t want to comfort him.

I wanted to hurt him.

And I never wanted to touch him again.

I took three steps back.

He stood, and took one step forward, but the look on my face stopped him there. He took a very deep breath. “Fatima’s pregnant,” he said the words like a sickness being purged out of him.

“Is it yours?” I barely choked the question out.

He flinched and shrugged. “We don’t know yet. There’s a chance that it’s mine, and a chance it’s her husband’s. Either way, he’s left her. God, I don’t know why she wasn’t on the fucking pill. She’s never wanted kids. It makes no sense.”

My hands were tingling, but my body felt a little numb. My mind was following suit. “It makes perfect sense. She did it to keep you.”

He blinked rapidly, like he wanted to weep.

“How far along?” I asked.

“Three months.”

I hadn’t realized until just that moment what a fool I was. I’d always been aware that it was very unlikely he was faithful to our sham wedding vows, but right then, I realized that I’d always had some kind of pitiful, ridiculous, hopeless wish that I was wrong. I’d been shooting for the moon with that one.

“How likely do you think it is that it’s yours?” My voice came out surprisingly composed for that bit of desperation.

“Frankly not very. I always used condoms. She claims that one of them broke. I don’t remember it, but I was very drunk that time, so it isn’t impossible.”

All my mind snagged on was the fact that it had happened more than once, had happened so often that he’d forgotten the time in question.

I took another step back.

I never wanted look at him again.

Never wanted to breathe the same air.

It’s funny how all of your priorities can change in a moment. I wondered, somewhat idly, if they’d been changing for a while and I just hadn’t been willing to acknowledge it.

I shook off the thought. None of it mattered.

I’d never agreed to this. This was not in the contracts.

I had sold myself; my body, my face, my time.

But I had never agreed to sell my heart. To have it ripped from me. To have it stomped into the ground under his heel.

I didn’t care about the money anymore. Simply did not give one single fuck about it.

This hurt too much. No fucking thing was worth this kind of hurt. Certainly not money.

I didn’t just have regrets. I had every regret. I regretted every moment I’d ever wasted on my despicable, faithless husband.

I regretted it enough to walk away from every single thing I’d been promised.

“Were you sleeping with her the whole time she was married?” I asked him.

He didn’t have to say the words, the guilt was painted all over his face.

“Look I was not a good guy for a while there,” he said haltingly. “But I can be better. I want to be better. I will be better.”

So many years they’d played this disgusting little game with each other. Adultery must get them off. As disgust mixed into my bloodstream, it helped to mitigate some of the pain. “You’ve been carrying on with her all along,” I told him in a hollow voice. “We haven’t had one moment together that wasn’t tainted by her, have we?”

He shook his head, but his eyes were too desperate to trust anything about to come out of his mouth. “That’s not true. I swear—”

“Don’t swear to me. Don’t swear anything to me.”

His eyes were wide and wild, and his hands kept reaching toward me. Every time he did it I flinched, but though he kept checking himself, he couldn’t seem to stop. “Look, I messed up. I messed up bad. But I thought I hated you then. It was only during that first month after the wedding. I was a mess, and I did all kinds of messed up shit right after, more than I can even remember or name, but I’ve never lied—”

He was right. He hadn’t lied to me. He hadn’t needed to. I had done all of that work for him.

As soon as I’d started falling for him, I’d started deluding myself without him ever having to utter one deceit. It was no consolation at all.

“I don’t fucking care!” I was mortified that it came out as a rabid snarl. There was so much venom in that it made him gasp. “Lies. Truth. Nothing you could say or have said makes any difference. You fucked another woman after you fucked me. You fucked her.” That. Right. There. Her. That was the part that hurt the most. No. Not quite. Her having his baby. Them being tied together forever. That hurt the most. “Nothing else matters. We’re finished.” I laughed bitterly. “We never started. This was never a love story, but whatever it was, I want out.”