When we get to the elevator, I watch Tiernan insert a key to gain access to the top floor.
“Who is Elsa?” I ask curiously, since the name doesn’t sound Irish to me.
Latvian, Polish, maybe even German, but definitely not Irish.
“My housekeeper and cook. I told her to have everything in order and a meal ready for us when we arrived.”
“Oh.” I bite my lip.
“Who did you think she was?”
“I don’t know. A friend. A colleague. A mistress even. I don’t know that much about you to make an informed guess on who you let into your apartment.”
“Aside from Elsa, no one else,” he rebukes dryly, making it painstakingly clear that he wished things would stay that way.
I really don’t understand him.
If bringing me home is this much of an inconvenience to him, then why do it?
Unless, of course, this is his olive branch. His subtle way of wanting to give this marriage an actual shot. If that’s the case, then I will milk this opportunity for all it’s worth.
When the elevator doors swing open, we step right into a living room with bare floor-to-ceiling windows all around, giving way to the city’s lights beyond them. My shoulders slump as I take in his sanctuary. The apartment is extravagantly cold and practical. Just like Tiernan. The colors of the interior design never stray from the basic white, black and grey—a bachelor pad if I ever saw one.
“There is the kitchen.” He points to the open-space kitchenette filled with the latest gadgets that I’m sure only Elsa ever uses. “This, of course, is the living room.”
“It’s nice.”
It’s not.
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.