The Comments Said My Husband Would Leave Me

Three years of marriage, and I had never once sent my husband away satisfied. I run cold. I married a man who does not.

I was turning him down again, same as always, when the comments showed up. [Three years in and the side character still hasn't fed the ML once.] [There he goes for another cold shower.

If he'd married the succubustype FL instead, I can't even imagine how well that man would be eating.] [The succubus FL already got hired as his executive assistant.

She starts tomorrow.

Good days are coming.] [The ML met with a divorce attorney today.] [One signature, one filing, sixty days, and this marriage is done.] [And the side character is still in the study, working.

I'm dying.] I set down the file in my hand and went to knock on the bathroom door. The water cut off.

Ronan's voice came through it, rough. "Something wrong?" "I'm finished for the night." I kept it polite. I kept it steady. "Can I shower with you?" Chapter 1 Nothing.

The bathroom stayed quiet for a few seconds, and I decided that was his answer. I was already turning to go. The door opened a crack. A hand came through it and pulled me in.

My back hit the door before I understood what was happening.

His face was inches from mine. "You're serious?" His eyes moved over me the way you look at something you have already caught. I was staring straight at his chest.

Below that, the flat cut lines of his stomach. Water ran down the grooves of it and disappeared into the towel at his waist.

I thought about what he was like when he stopped being careful.

My nerve went. "If you're done in here," I said, "you could just, um, go on out first." Out of the corner of my eye I caught the corner of his mouth lift. Barely.

His hand settled on my waist.

The look in his eyes changed temperature. "I can help you," he said. [She's playing hard to get again.] [Man's been walking around loaded for three years.] [She walked in here on her own.

That's not a rescue, that's gasoline.] [No way he lets her leave now.] [Hehe. She is not walking out of that bathroom tonight.] [He can carry her out.

That works too.] [He can carry her out and keep going on the way…] [She's not going to black out again like last time, is she?] [Oh, he's got it in him.] Something cold went down my spine.

I made a move on him once. Our first anniversary. I happened to have the day off, so I got it in my head to do the whole thing. Candlelit dinner. Rose petals floating in the tub.

He was not gentle that night. I passed out somewhere in the middle of it. I asked for a glass of water. He handed me an ocean and held me under. After that, I stopped volunteering.

So the comments had a point. I was afraid of a repeat. The comments also said he had seen a divorce attorney today. That he wanted it over fast.

Our marriage was arranged by the two families. My father once saved his father's life. Ronan hadn't wanted them anywhere near it.

I heard that when his father died, he tried to call the whole thing off. His grandfather stepped in and forced it through. The Hawthornes are old money.

My family is solidly middle class. I married up and everybody knew it. The good news was that he treated me well after the wedding. Paying down a debt, I assumed. I'm a botanist.

So that I would have somewhere to watch things grow, he signed a whole ridge over to me. Just like that. I used to think that was him giving me a home. Now I know better.

It was a bride price. It was also a severance package. Chapter 2 Hollow Ridge is covered in rare plants, and there is a medicinalplant preserve on the north face of it.

He spent a fortune putting a lab up there for me, and a cottage that belongs to nobody but me. Being Mrs. Hawthorne means never having to think about anything ordinary. No rent.

No commute. Nobody asking when I'm coming home. Just the work I love. Which is why I did not want a divorce. If we split, the ridge probably goes back to him.

Where exactly do I find another husband who hands over a mountain like it's a spare set of keys? No. It isn't the mountain.

It's that there is no second person on this earth who would look at my strangest habit and treat it like serious work. Besides, Ronan is young and he is very goodlooking.

Face, build, all of it top shelf. Any child of mine would come into the world with a father like that. Call it a head start.

And these three years, I was the one who left him out in the cold. If the reason he wants out is what happens in our bedroom, then I could try. A little.

An hour later he carried me out of the bathroom and set me down on the bed. Every muscle I had was gone. The mattress felt like a cloud. "Good night," I said. He went still.

Then he leaned down and touched my cheek. "Tired already?" I nodded. "I drove back from the ridge today. It wore me out.

You should get some sleep too." He looked at me for a long moment.

Whatever he had been about to say, he swallowed it. "Okay," he said. "Go ahead and sleep." I closed my eyes so I would not have to see what was still in his.

I had been very forward tonight. That was enough. Right? [Is she blind? The man is still starving.] [She changed. She changed about two percent.

Nowhere near enough.] [I think she has a serious misunderstanding about his stamina.] [That was a warmup.] [He was lacing up for a marathon and she crossed the finish line at the mailbox.] [Appetizers and soup.

She served appetizers and soup and never once got him to the main course.] [If he had married the succubus FL, tonight would have been a fullblown feast.] [Such a waste.

All that man, married to an ice cube.] [Theodora goes up to that ridge and doesn't come home for two weeks at a stretch.] [Every single time, he has to drive up there and find her.] [And when he does, guess what still comes first.

Work.] [She disappears into the lab and leaves him sitting in the cottage.] [Then turns him down because she's tired.] [When she's busy it's three months.

Three months, no meals.] [Most people get paid monthly.

She's got that man on a quarterly bonus.] [No normal man survives that, let alone one built like him.] [If I were him I'd file too.] [Don't you dare fall asleep.

He can go till sunrise.] I'm probably just wired cold. That hour in the bathroom was plenty for me. I did not have another ounce in me, and he could have gone until the sun came up.

I would sleep, I decided. Worst case, I would make it up to him in the morning. I would make it up to him twice.

That thought took most of the guilt off, and I was out before I finished having it. Somewhere in the dark, a hand pulled the blanket up over my shoulder.

I rolled over and went back under. He didn't leave. I know that because I kept surfacing, and every time I did, his side of the bed was still weighted down.

The moon went behind a cloud. The room lost its edges. Then I heard him pull in a breath, slow and deep. He always did that right before he said something I was not going to like.

Chapter 3 "Theodora," he said. "Let's get a divorce." I opened my eyes and looked at him. His face had gone dark and heavy. He had already decided.

This wasn't a question he was asking. The comments had spoiled it for me hours ago, so I didn't flinch.

I rubbed my eyes. "Can we talk about it tomorrow?" I said. "I'm wrecked today." Whatever was left of his expression drained out of it. "Fine." He stood up and walked toward the study. [I give up.

The side character does not have a heart.] [He opens with divorce and she says can it wait till tomorrow.] [At this point she's rooting for it.

She wants him to hurry up and file.] [She might as well have I DON'T CARE tattooed across her forehead.] [That man is done.

That's a done man.] [He only married her to square his father's debt anyway.

He never loved her.] [Once it's final he can go eat with the succubus FL.] [Honestly, the sooner the better. Set him free.] The comments had it wrong. It wasn't that I didn't care.

I'd been in the lab all the night before, running the same assay over and over.

I got back to the cottage at six in the morning and slept four hours before Simon called and woke me up. We've been working on a vine.

If a thorn breaks your skin, you bleed pale blue. Your whole body runs hot, about the same as swallowing an aphrodisiac. Worse, it hooks you.

People who've been stuck once start wanting to stick themselves again. Enough times and it rewrites the body itself. We named it the Succubus Vine.

We have no idea how many people out there have already been stuck by one.

Right now the project is two things: pull the active compound out of the vine, and build an antidote for it. That morning Simon said he'd found something.

So I got up, drove to the lab, and put my head down until six in the evening. Then I drove back to the Hawthorne house, ate, and sat in the study going through papers.

Staying conscious in that bathroom was already an achievement. The building could have come down around me and I still would have slept. [Sure. Sure. You're so elevated.

So cold and mysterious.] [Career first, husband can wait in the parking lot.] [Hold on, let me say it: it's a good thing she has a career.] [Sure, but what he actually needs is someone who has something left over for him at the end of the day.] [Which is why these two never should have happened.] [The whole marriage is forced.

They're both exhausted.] [He's had it.

Three years of being the last item on her list.] [He's in the study drafting the settlement agreement right now.] [Let her go marry the lab.] I dream about experiments.

That night I dreamed I was one step away from the antidote when the lab door swung open.

His bodyguard walked in with a notice and taped it across the door. "Ma'am," the man said, very politely, "Mr. Hawthorne is taking the ridge back. The lab gets sealed.

You have three days to clear out." The dream jumped. I was on the floor with my arms around Ronan's leg. "Please. Please don't do this.

Don't take the lab." He threw the settlement agreement in my face. "No," he said.

The next morning the comments woke me up. [I'm crying, what kind of fever dream was that?] [It's genuinely funny. She was on the floor holding his leg.] I put my hand on the pillow.

Wet. The comments kept scrolling, faster and faster, stacking until they covered the ceiling. They were waiting for me to get up.

They wanted me to see what was coming with my own eyes.

Chapter 4 [The contrast is unreal.] [If she had one percent of that instinct in real life he wouldn't be leaving.] [He went in to the office first thing this morning.] [He took the signed draft with him when he left, too.] [He's meeting his attorney this afternoon to go over the divorce.] [Theodora finally has a day off.

She should spend it packing.] I pressed my thumbs into my temples. Okay. The dream had been dramatic. Ronan has never once been cheap with me.

Even if we split, he wasn't going to come after my throat over it. And if it really was happening, maybe I could ask for the lab. Except I didn't want it to happen.

He backed my work. He gave me room, more room than anyone I've ever met, and he never once made me feel like the work was a hobby I should be embarrassed about.

I'm not going to find that twice. And somewhere in three years of living next to him, I'd fallen for the man. I knew that too. So I made up my mind. I was going to fix it.

As long as I hadn't signed anything, there was still a door open. [Yeah, no.

That door's shut.] [The succubus FL is bringing him coffee as we speak.] [She took one look and clocked exactly how long he's been going without.] [Men like that are the easiest ones in the world to knock over.] [One move from her and that office becomes a crime scene.] [Heh.

His office has a private suite off the back. With a full bath.] [He's got that place stocked. He planned for it.] [He hinted to Theodora about a dozen times.

She never once came to his building.] [All that stuff is going to get used. Just not on her.] [Soundproofed to the studs, too.

Nobody outside hears a thing.] I got out of bed in one motion. Then I did my hair, put on a dress, and decided to take my husband coffee and something sweet at his own office.

I made the pastry myself. Little cupcakes, topped with flowers and fruit and small green leaves. They looked like spring. [Okay, wow.

She actually baked for him.] [The makeup, the dress, the cupcakes. That's effort. I'll allow it.] [Has she finally woken up?

Because that is not an afternoon coffee run.] [That's her giftwrapping herself.] [Three years too late.] [She had all this in her pocket the whole time and only pulls it out once he's leaving.] [Doesn't matter.

He and the FL are all over each other in that office right now.] I know the man I married. Even if he wanted out, nothing had actually started yet.

He would hold the line. [Would he though.] [He'd hold it for any other woman on earth.] [But Poppy is the FL of this story. She's his FL.] [The ML and the FL are in the same room.

You know how that goes.] [Also. How long has it been since Theodora sent him away satisfied? Does she even know the number?] I drove the SUV over to the Hawthorne Group tower.

I walked into the lobby and was about to ask the front desk for directions when she recognized me. "You're Mrs. Hawthorne, aren't you?

Let me call up." I blinked. "You know who I am?" It was my first time in the building. She smiled. "There's a photo of you and Mr.

Hawthorne on the wall by the elevators." Then she picked up the phone and dialed the extension for the executive office. "Mr. Hawthorne? Your wife is here.

She's in the lobby…" Every comment on the screen scrolled the same three words at once. [Don't go up.] Chapter 5 "Send her up," Ronan said on the other end of the line. "Yes, sir." The receptionist hung up and walked me to the executive elevator.

His office is on the ninth floor. The doors opened. Down the hall, a young woman was coming out of his office, moving fast with her head down, and she walked straight into me.

The cupcake box went out of my hands and hit the floor. She did not look like anything I had pictured. Fair, scrubbed clean, glasses.

She had on a blazer and slacks and still read like a college senior who'd just started her first real job. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." She scrambled after the box.

The cupcakes had collapsed inside it. She saw them and her eyes went glassy. "Mrs.

Hawthorne, I'm so sorry, I…" I hadn't said anything yet and the comments were already losing their minds. [Poppy didn't do it on purpose.

Theodora better not make a whole thing out of this.] [They're cupcakes.

He doesn't even eat sweets.] [Even if they were perfect he wouldn't have touched one.] [Does she think she's above Poppy or something?] [Three years as Mrs.

Hawthorne and she forgot where she came from.] [She's not going to slap her, is she?] [I mean. Poppy is about to have that title.] The comments were good at this. Really good.

I had known this woman for eleven seconds. Before I understood a single thing about her, putting her on the other side of a line would be stupid.

I let it scroll. "It's fine," I told her. "Would you mind throwing them out for me?" She looked down at the box, and her face pulled. "They're so pretty.

That's such a waste." The executive assistant came out to walk me in. "Mrs. Hawthorne, he's in with the attorney. Come on through." [Wait, she didn't go after her at all?

That's an act, right?] [FYI, that attorney is the divorce attorney.] [Whatever she does, this thing is signed and sealed.] I went into the office.

Sure enough, the two of them were going over the settlement agreement. Ronan's eyes dropped to my hands. Like he'd been expecting something.

When he found them empty, he looked away without any expression at all. The whole thing took under a second.

I almost talked myself into thinking I'd imagined it. "Elliot," he said. "Give me a few minutes alone with my wife.

Wait outside." "Of course." The attorney stood, and passed close to me on his way out.

Then it was just the two of us. "Theodora." He took his time with it. "Are you here to talk about the divorce?" There were two copies of the agreement on the desk. "You already had it drawn up?" I picked one up and went through it fast.

He'd had it drawn up. Which meant that if I stood here and said I don't want this, I'd just be handing him something to be embarrassed for me about. I read the terms.

If we split, what came to me ran two full pages. I went through it carefully. The ridge wasn't on it. Neither was the lab.

Those were the only things I wanted. "Why isn't there—" I said, before I could stop myself.

He looked up and finished it for me. "Why isn't the thing you want most on there?" I nodded. "Right." Something moved behind his eyes. "Theodora.

What do you want most?" "What I want most is