The Marriage Contract by Natasha Black (best novels ever .TXT) 📗

“Good night.”

With that she went inside and shut the door behind her, and I heard the lock latch. She was gone, and I had a feeling she wasn’t coming back all night. It was still a little early in the evening, and I had planned on us cuddling up on the couch together and watching a show or her fiddling around on her laptop, keeping up with the reporters she admired so much. Instead, she was gone, locked away in the only room of the apartment I wasn’t allowed inside.

I went into the kitchen and contemplated making a pot of coffee. Maybe she would come out later and feel better. But I knew it wasn’t true. As I stood there, debating what to do next, I saw the light under her door flip off. She had gone to bed.

Without me.

28

Chloe

A few days after dinner with Matt’s family, I was still in the spare room. I hadn’t returned to sleeping in what I had gone back to thinking of as his bedroom, and I didn’t know if I ever would. My heart ached just thinking about him in there.

I lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as I thought about how I’d gotten here. All the different decisions I’d made and the paths I’d taken through life coursed through my mind. There were so many of them that I knew I should have done differently, and now I was positive this was one of them.

Sitting there in Hannah’s house with the Anderson family, watching them laugh and enjoy each other so much, hit me right in the gut. Not because they weren’t including me or because they were trying to keep me on the outside. Instead, it was because they weren’t. They were doing everything they could to include me and make me know I was one of them.

Only, I wasn’t. I deeply regretted this impulsive decision and where it had gotten me. Sitting there at that dinner, I realized just how far I’d gone and how much it had impacted so many people. I’d lied to every one of them, and I felt like I was lying to Matt every time I looked at him, too.

I was lying to him every time I looked at him because I knew I was falling in love with him.

It was something that had been tickling the corners of my mind and the edges of my thoughts for a while. It occurred to me only after the full meaning of it struck me at dinner that it was that growing love that created the weird feelings in me after our hasty wedding. I was attracted to Matt, obviously. I enjoyed being around him. He was smart and funny when someone gave him the chance, and we always had fun together.

But I had learned he was also sweet and caring, compassionate and courteous. He thought about others in the smallest ways that built up to the biggest meaning. It was what I didn’t want, what I knew I shouldn’t do, but I couldn’t deny it anymore. I was falling fully and completely in love with him.

And that was why I needed to be away from him as much as I could. This arrangement wasn’t going to work as long as I was feeling that way. We’d agreed from the beginning our marriage was on paper and on paper only. Like I said to him, it was to spite my family and prove to them they didn’t have the control over me they thought they did when I was in Los Angeles.

That meant I had to distance myself. In order to maintain this relationship at all, I had to remind myself firmly and unquestionably that there was actually no relationship at all. It was an agreement, an arrangement. One that Matt seemed to have no trouble maintaining at all. In fact, since that night when I went to the spare room, he hadn’t reached out to me at all.

In the last few days, I had barely spoken to him, exchanging words only when I absolutely had to at home, and if we were at work. He hadn’t tried to talk to me or to get me to open up. He hadn’t come to the spare room to find out what I was going through or as if I was alright. It was almost as if he was relieved that we’d settled into this pattern. And if not relieved, he just simply didn’t care.

That hurt me even more as it further accentuated my feelings for him and reiterated the narrative that it really was fake for him. I should have been more careful. I should have protected myself more and not let myself get too comfortable and happy.

I looked over at my phone and saw it was time to get ready for work. Matt had already left a little while before. He had taken to getting to the bar even earlier to make sure things were going well. I knew he was looking for ways he was going to be able to grow and improve the bar even more. They had only just opened, and already he was angling for more visibility, bigger crowds, and greater success.

That was the whole point of opening the second location, I realized, but there was a part of me that thought he might have started a little competition in his mind. He wanted to prove the Portland location of the Hollow didn’t have to be looked at as second-rate or a copy of the original. It could be its own thing and draw just as much excitement, enthusiasm, and loyalty from those who filled it every week.

I got ready and headed in. There were already people waiting to be seated, and I threw myself into work to get my mind off everything else. It wasn’t easy being there with him and having to keep on pretending for everybody around us. At least at home, I could