Page 134 of Wrong Marriage. Right Groom
A faint breath left me. “Games?”
“Chess,” he said. “Tactile pieces. You can feel them. Cards with braille markings. Anything that keeps you outside that room.”
I swallowed.
“You think I need entertainment,” I said quietly.
“I think you need life outside routine,” he corrected.
The honesty in his tone made it harder to dismiss.
Rafael Pérez had entered my life like a controlled storm.
He had manipulated me into marriage, taken me to his late wife’s grave, and bound me to vows that denied love any chance of existing between us.
And still, his actions contradicted everything he had made me promise.
He should have been pushing me further away—toward hatred of him, of myself, of this marriage. Not drawing me closer.
My fingers tightened on the doorframe.
I nodded slowly, though the motion meant little in the darkness that defined my world.
My thoughts were no longer as sharp as they had been an hour ago.
Something in him—his steadiness, his certainty, the strange gentleness he never seemed to acknowledge as gentleness—was softening edges I had spent years hardening into armor.
It frustrated me.
It frightened me more.
“What do you say?” Rafael asked when my silence stretched too long.
I opened my mouth slightly, but no words came out yet.
Before I could respond, he continued, his voice lower now.
“During breakfast,” he said, “you will engage me in light conversation. Anything.”
I blinked at the instruction.
“The weather,” he added. “Tess’s drawings. A book you’ve listened to. Anything at all.”
My fingers twisted together in my lap, the fabric of my dress tightening under my grip as if I could hold myself together through sheer pressure.
“I’ll try,” I said quietly.
A beat.
“I can’t promise smiles,” I added, honesty slipping out before I could censor it. “And laughter feels... impossible right now.”
My throat tightened slightly.
“But I’ll try to talk,” I finished. “That’s all I can give.”
“That’s enough for now,” he said.
For now.
