The Bargain

She didn’t sleep.

By morning, the question had worn a groove in her mind.

Why did I marry you?

She replayed Chriss’s words until they became almost meaningless. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the way he’d looked away, as though meeting her gaze had become impossible.

She walked into the dining room already braced for another argument.

Chriss was waiting at the table, dressed in a crisp white shirt, scrolling through his phone. A cup of untouched coffee sat beside him.

He looked up when she entered.

“Where did you go yesterday?”

Toria pulled out a chair.

“We’ve done this.”

“You never answered my question.”

“Because it’s none of your business.”

She poured herself some coffee, keeping her hands steady.

He put his phone down.

“I’m your husband. Of course it’s my business.”

A humourless smile touched her lips.

“Interesting. You vanish for days, and I’m not allowed to ask questions. Last month, you were gone for four nights. Who was she, Chriss? Should I start wondering about her name?”

His cup stopped halfway to his mouth.

“Don’t be absurd.”

“Am I?”

She took a sip.

“I’ve smelled perfume on your jackets that isn’t mine. I’ve watched you turn your phone face-down every time it lights up. I’ve stopped asking where you go because I’ve realised you don’t owe me an explanation.”

His expression hardened.

“Be careful, Toria.”

“Maybe next time I go missing, it should be with someone.”

The cup hit the saucer too hard.

“Was that yesterday?”

She frowned.

“What?”

“Was there a man?”

A strange, ugly laugh rose in her throat.

“You don’t want to touch me, talk to me, or even sit across a table without hiding behind a newspaper. But the thought of another man makes you shake?”

“Answer me.”

“Give me a divorce.”

His face became unreadable.

“When I have my son.”

The words came calmly. Final. Like a door locking.

Toria stared at him.

“Why?”

He didn’t respond.

“Why, Chriss? If you hate being married to me, why would you want a child with me?”

He opened his mouth.

For a moment, she saw the same hesitation she’d noticed the previous night. A man standing at the edge of a cliff, afraid of what waited below.

Then her stomach lurched.

A hot, sick wave rolled through her without warning.

She slapped a hand over her mouth, shoved her chair back, and ran.

She was still on her knees on the cool washroom tiles when she heard his voice through the wall.

The study.

He was on the phone.

Toria reached for the sink, rinsing her mouth before standing.

She hadn’t intended to listen.

But then she heard her name.

“…I’m doing what we agreed.”

She froze.

There was a pause.

“No, she doesn’t know. She still thinks…”

Silence filled the room

“Alexa, I told you this would be a problem.”

Her father’s name went through her like a needle.

She moved towards the connecting door, which never quite met its frame, and pressed her ear against the gap.

“You said she’d understand. You said she married me knowing.”

Her father’s voice came faintly through the phone. Smooth and patient. The voice he used whenever he wanted someone to agree with him.

Then Chriss laughed.

“Because she was in love with me? That’s not an answer. That’s a convenience.”

Toria stopped breathing.

Knowing what?

What had her father told him?

“One more year, then. I give you your heir, and I’m released.”

His voice sharpened.

“A male child. Those were the terms. I don’t care what you promised her. I care that you promised me I could go back to my life. To Joan.”

The name landed like a dropped glass.

….

Toria had never heard that name before.

Yet somehow, she knew it.

It was the perfume on his jackets. The late-night calls. The turned-over phone. The four nights he had disappeared without explanation.

….

The world narrowed into a bright, roaring tunnel.

She had thought the nightmare was that Chriss didn’t love her.

The nightmare was that he’d never been hers to love.

She had walked down an aisle in a dress she hadn’t chosen, towards a man she hadn’t been told the truth about.

And the one person who was supposed to protect her had signed her away like a piece of land.

Her stomach turned again.

She barely made it to the sink.

When Toria finally looked up, the woman staring back at her in the mirror looked like a stranger.

She wanted to leave.

The thought came suddenly and refused to disappear.

But with what?

The accounts were joint. The cards were his. Her father’s influence stretched further than she understood. Even victoria’s little shop, the one place she could breathe, suddenly felt like another thing that could be taken away.

Chriss had money, lawyers, connections.

Her father had all three.

And she had nothing except a handbag and a marriage certificate.

The walls she’d thought were merely unhappy had become walls.

She washed her face, fixed her hair, and walked out of the bathroom.

Chriss was standing in the hallway, perfectly composed.

A man who had just discussed selling her future with her father.

“Lunch?” he asked. “Just us.”

She stared at him.

“We’ve been on one date.”

He frowned.

“Before we married. You spent most of it on your phone.”

“Toria…”

“I’m seeing victoria.”

She brushed past him before he could say anything else.

victoria’s shop smelled of paper and cinnamon.

It was one of the few places where Toria didn’t feel the need to measure every word before speaking.

Robert was standing near the poetry shelf, arguing with victoria.

“It sells nothing,” he said.

“It’s a beautiful shelf.”

“It’s the saddest shelf in the shop.”

“So is your face.”

victoria threw a duster at him.

Robert caught it, grinning, before pulling her towards him and kissing her temple.

Toria stood in the doorway, clutching her handbag.

Such a small thing.

Teasing. Warmth. Hands that reached for each other without thinking.

She watched them for a moment longer than she intended.

She had never been touched like that in her life.

Not even by her husband.

The bell above the entrance rang.

She turned.

Chriss stood in the doorway, his coat hanging over one arm.

“Don’t mind me. I was passing.”

Robert’s arm fell from victoria’s waist.

The atmosphere changed immediately.

victoria’s smile disappeared, and Robert stepped away from her as though he’d suddenly remembered something important.

Toria noticed.

She hated that she noticed.

The people she loved had become polite and careful around her husband, like children around a dog that might bite.

She excused herself and disappeared into the little kitchen.

Of course, Chriss followed.

“I want us to try.”

Toria turned around.

He stood near the doorway, his expression unusually restrained.

“Try what?”

“Us.”

She stared at him.

“After eighteen months?”

He didn’t answer.

“Right after you start talking about a son, you suddenly want us to try?”

“Toria, listen…”

“What happens when the baby comes? Be honest, just once.”

A long silence followed.

Then he said, “You’d keep him.”

Her chest tightened.

“Keep who?”

“Our son. You’d have full custody. I’d go back to Italy. I’d visit a few times a year.”

She stared at him, unable to believe what she’d heard.

“A few times a year?”

“He’d have everything he needed.”

“Except a father.”

For once, Chriss had no answer.

Toria looked away, fighting the tears gathering in her eyes.

“I’ve never chosen anything, Chriss. Not my dress. Not my wedding. Not this house, or even who I’m allowed to see.”

Her voice trembled.

“Your choices, my father’s choices. Everyone deciding what was best for me while I smiled and said thank you because I thought that was what love felt like.”

She swallowed.

“I did love you. That part was real. I walked into that church with a whole heart. You walked in with a contract.”

He flinched.

“It wasn’t only a contract,” he said roughly. “There was love in my reasons. Just not for…”

He stopped.

Toria’s eyes narrowed.

“Whose love?”

He said nothing.

“Whose love, Chriss?”

His gaze travelled somewhere beyond her shoulder, somewhere far away that she would never be allowed to visit.

That was answer enough.

“You have never been my husband.”

The kitchen fell silent.

Even the distant sounds from the shop seemed to disappear.

“I’m sorry, Toria.”

The apology sounded dragged out of him.

He turned and walked away.

A moment later, the shop bell chimed.

Toria remained standing among the teacups, trembling.

She felt hollow.

And, impossibly, a little free.

Then she noticed something.

Chriss’s phone.

It lay beside the sugar bowl, forgotten.

For the first time in eighteen months, he’d left it behind.

She stared at it.

She knew she shouldn’t touch it.

But the name she’d heard in the study was still ringing in her ears.

….

The screen lit up.

A message appeared.

…: I can’t wait any longer. Tell me you’ve told her.

Toria’s pulse thundered.

Told her what?

Her eyes remained fixed on the screen.

Then, slowly, her hand reached for the phone.