Contracted To Love

Chapter 12

David Favre was not a man to be easily confused, if ever. But lately he couldn’t trust his own thoughts, let alone his decisions. He felt confused about everything. Suddenly, he didn’t know if the feelings he’d been harboring were because they were genuine or because of the contract. Ever since that night he and Michelle made love, things had become even more complicated in his heart and mind. Days turned to weeks and the silence between him and Michelle grew so loud it was deafening. The ridiculous thing was that he missed her. He missed the dinner conversations, talking about nothing and everything all at once. He missed how her naked body felt. The smell of her skin and hair. The soft purr as she slept in his arms. He was afraid that he was perhaps never going to see her smile again. He was even more concerned now that his stepdaughter’s school was almost breaking for the holidays. The last thing he wanted was for Andrea to come home to that uncomfortable silence. He’d been able to avoid her for the few weekends she’d come over but he wasn’t so sure he could avoid her for eight weeks straight.

He’d been lucky enough that Andrea had made friends so quickly so she’d only been home thrice and one of those weekends was for Taggert’s funeral. The other weekends were spent at a school camp and then her best friend’s home.

Something deep inside David told him that he needed to make amends sooner than later but it might have been his pride, or maybe just his grief, that held him back.

*****

Michelle had tried to be understanding. It wasn’t easy to lose a loved one but he could at least be cordial. She’d tried as much as she could to get David to open up, to get him to express himself, but it seemed like the more she tried, the more he closed up. The silence was becoming unbearable and she’d taken as much of it as she could possibly bear. She missed him. She missed everything about her marriage and while she told herself that she could live without the s*x, the lack of communication was killing her. Eating away at her a little every day. After so long, she made up her mind. She was going to force him to talk. Either David was going to tell her what he wanted with her or she was going to leave him and finally file for divorce. It had been a long time coming, it seemed.

She didn’t understand why life would give her a second chance at love only to take it away. If that was the case, then she shouldn’t have loved him in the first place. She shouldn’t have fallen in love with David. She should have remained in her own little loveless world where she only had love for her family and her work. But this love… it was a thorn that had stung her so many times. First with Jean and then with the man who was supposed to be her knight in shining armor, David Favre.

Michelle was on her second glass of wine by the time David got home that evening. As usual he walked right upstairs and Michelle sighed loudly.

“Of course he goes upstairs,” she muttered. “He always does.”

She quickly drank what remained in her glass before she marched upstairs to his room.

“We need to talk,” she announced when she burst into the room, surprising him. He’d just taken off his jacket and tossed it aside and was now undoing the buttons of his shirt as he pulled it up, untucking it. “I said, we need to talk,” she said again when he didn’t say anything.

“Alright. I’m here. Speak,” he said. It was the first time he’d spoken to her in weeks and she was surprised that that was all he had to say.

“Just what is your problem? Huh?” she asked as she looked at him. “I’ve done everything to show you that I’m here for you but you just keep pushing me away.”

Silence and more silence.

“David, please… I need to know what you want because honestly, I don’t know if I can ask myself that question anymore.”

David exhaled loudly and looked at her.

“What do you want?” he asked and she shrugged.

“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked. “I want you. I’ve always wanted you…I don’t think there’s anything I’ve ever wanted more.”

He frowned.

“Why?”

“Because I love you,” she said in a small whisper. “I’ve fallen in love with you and it scares me that perhaps you don’t feel the same way.”

She stood there and waited for him to say something. For him to say anything, really. It didn’t matter anymore. She just wanted him to show some kind of acknowledgement for the big declaration that she’d just made. But again, all she heard was silence. So she did the only thing she could do. She turned around and walked out of his room and went straight to bed. She was going to cry herself to sleep and as she did she was going to consider all the reasons she needed to leave that miserable bas*ard. She was done with love. Even the marriage contract couldn’t hold her to him anymore. It was just a piece of paper. It could be torn apart or even burned, and just like that, it would cease to exist. Her marriage would cease to exist… as would her position with The New York Times, but she didn’t care anymore. She was going to move out.

*****

David was restless. The words that Michelle had said to him the previous night were unmistakably the most honest words she’d said to anyone in a long time. She’d been vulnerable with him. Perhaps the most vulnerable she’d ever been and he hadn’t said a word. She’d confessed her love for him and he had just stared at her. He exhaled loudly. He was a lousy bas*ard. Why was he so distant? Why was he hurting the one woman who’d made him feel alive for the first time in his life?

“These need your signature, Mr. Favre,” a young man said as he walked into his office, making him snap out of his deep thoughts and back to reality.

David raised an eyebrow.