Reborn For The Alphas

TAYLOR'S POV

"Good evening hubby."

"Shut up!" Flynn dropped his keys on the counter and loosened his tie without looking at me. "Can't you just say a simple welcome? Must you always display your foolishness and illiteracy?"

One and a half years and I still had not found the right greeting. I had stopped looking.

"Shall I dish your food now?" I asked.

He dashed upstairs without answering.

I went to the kitchen and dished his food quietly and arranged the plate the way he liked it and set it on the dining table. Then I stood by the doorway with my hands folded and waited.

Some minutes later he descended from the stairs with a refreshed look, shirt changed, face washed. I stood up straight and bowed my head. Flynn stopped beside me and observed me for a long while before speaking.

"Is your head bowed from birth? Taylor can you just stop being meek and all sluggish? Can't you forget how you worked at the bar after almost two years?"

"I'm sorry," I said. "I only wanted to be a good housewife."

"A good housewife," he repeated with a scoff. "Is that what you call this?"

"I cooked your food. I cleaned the house," I said. "What else do you want from me Flynn?"

"I want peace and quiet when I come home," he said. "Is that too much to ask?"

"Then stop picking on me the moment you walk through the door," I said quietly.

He blinked. I held his gaze and did not look away.

Flynn hissed with disgust and slumped on the sofa, tuning the TV to his favourite football channel without sparing me another glance. I quietly sat down opposite him and waited.

The match went on. Flynn leaned back with his plate balanced on his knee, completely unbothered by my presence the way someone is unbothered by furniture they have stopped noticing. 

I sat with my hands folded in my lap and watched him eat without tasting anything and laugh at something on the screen without the laugh reaching his eyes. I thought about how I had cooked that food for two hours this afternoon and he had not said a single word about it. Not one word. I waited for the first commercial break.

"Em, Flynn I..." I started.

"I know that your brain is telling you that I'm watching TV right now and I'm not ready for your lullaby isn't it?" Flynn said without looking up.

"There's something I want to tell you," I said.

Flynn muted the TV and turned to look at me with the expression of a man setting a timer.

"Flynn there's an ad for adult education sponsored by the government," I said. "I want to join."

"How is adult education sponsored by the government any of your concern?" he asked.

"Because I want to better myself, Flynn," I said. "Is that so wrong?"

"Better yourself?" He let out a short dry laugh. "Taylor, you are a bar girl. What exactly are you bettering?"

"I have a middle school certificate," I said. "The program accepts that. I want to join."

"And you are telling me this because?" he asked.

"I cannot sign in without a guarantor," I said. "The person must be a civil servant just like you. I am not asking you to follow me anywhere. I only need your signature on an attestation letter."

Flynn laughed out loud. "You expect me to sign papers for a bar girl enrolling in adult education? Have you forgotten that everyone in this country knows me as a dignified lawyer? So you want them to know that the wife of that dignified lawyer cannot read past middle school?"

"Nobody has to know you are my husband," I said. "Just your signature Flynn. That is all."

"Just my signature," he repeated coldly. "Taylor, my signature is not something I put on any paper that comes my way."

"It is an attestation letter not a court document," I said.

"I said no," he said.

"Flynn please," I said. "This is the one thing I have asked you for in one and a half years. One signature. Just one."

He looked at me like I had said something deeply offensive. "Are you begging me right now?"

"I am asking you," I said.

"It looks like begging from where I am sitting," he said.

"Then let it look like begging," I said. "I don't care how it looks. I just want a chance to be more than what you keep reminding me I am."

He stared at me for a long moment then set his plate down on the cushion beside him.

"A chance," he said slowly. "Taylor let me put something straight. Have you forgotten that we are not real? This marriage is all fake and set up."

I sat very still.

"I married you because of family requirements," he said. "Now that I have gotten what I wanted, what reason do I have to keep you?"

"Flynn I..." I started.

"Stop," he said. "You don't have to keep loving me or trying to please me. I will advise you to erase all the feelings you have gathered for me because I love someone else."

"What did you just say?" I asked.

He stood and walked closer and grabbed my jaw and made me face him directly. "I said I love someone else. Or did you expect me to love an illiterate bar girl like you?"

I looked him in the eye and said nothing and kept my hands folded in my lap.

"Can you leave me now?" I asked.

He released me and pocketed his hands. "I will sign the attestation letter. I will honour my promise of giving you money but we have to wait until the right time. You also have to honour your promise by staying out of my life forever."

He went back to the sofa and turned the volume up and the football filled the room again like nothing had happened between us.

I dropped my gaze to the floor and stayed very still.

Was staying out of his life supposed to feel like a punishment or a relief?