The following morning, Selina was awake early despite the weight of their intimacy.
She headed straight to Zane's room to call him for breakfast, having finished preparing his favorite meal.
She knocked, and upon his permission, she stepped just inside the doorway. Her hands clutched her thighs as she watched him dress to leave.
"Breakfast is served," she said. Her lips pressed into a thin line before she added, "I'd like us to have breakfast together. At least once."
"Not today," Zane declined, his voice clinical as he focused on the mirror.
Selina took a desperate step into the room. "Is it something so urgent? It's just for a moment. It won't take much of your time."
Zane reached for a necktie from the bed. "I need to take Maura to the hospital. Her condition isn't improving. You should eat without me."
Not today. It was his constant refrain—a rejection wrapped in a delay, leaving her to starve on the crumbs of a hope that never came. Her finger instinctively brushed against the smooth surface of the silver wedding ring on her left finger. It felt empty.
Selina swallowed the familiar sting, her voice trembling. "But Zane…"
"Zane?" He echoed the name, his tone calm yet frosty.
His brows snapped together in a flicker of sharp disapproval. He turned to face her.
"When did we become close enough to spare formalities? Where are your manners, woman?"
"I'm your wife, Zane! Whether you want this to be real or not!" The frustration finally broke through her voice.
"My wife?" he repeated, tilting his head. A short, ridiculing snort escaped him as the weight of her expectations became clear.
"I made it clear that I would grant you vanity and status. Nothing else. Do not burden me with your expectations," he declared, the reminder landing with brutal finality.
Selina dipped her head, closing her eyes tightly. He had been clear from the start, but she had foolishly believed that unwavering devotion would eventually soften him. She had traded her identity and a promising career to save her father's company, choosing him over her own life, only to find herself falling harder for a man of stone.
She took a shaky breath, finally asking the question that gnawed at her daily. "I know this is a contract to you. But I shouldn't be neglected this way. Is it because I'm not pretty enough? Am I not profitable like the women in your circle? Like Maura?"
She wondered if her appearance fueled his displeasure. She had spent years hiding her true beauty behind dull makeup and a plain facade, a disguise she wore as a shield.
For a split second, Zane's stoic expression faltered. He saw the raw hurt in her eyes, and a flicker of something unreadable crossed his features.
But it vanished as quickly as it appeared. He hardened his heart like unbreakable steel before she could glimpse the crack.
"Don't be sensitive, Selina," he muttered dismissively, looking away. "This is the reality of our marriage. You have no choice but to accept it."
A soft, sad smile touched her lips as she approached him. Zane was donning his necktie, his movements precise and calculating, yet his eyes never left her.
Selina stopped inches from him, her breath hitching as she reached out. Her fingers trembled against the silk of his tie. As she worked, her mind spiraled toward the secret growing inside her. It had been a month since that drunken night—the only forty-eight hours of intimacy they had shared in years of their marriage recently.
The hope she had been nursing felt like glass, and Zane was about to shatter it.
Should I tell him? The question burned her throat.
She knew better than anyone that she wasn't strong enough yet to raise a child alone, but his indifference was a wall she couldn't climb. The uncertainty of his reaction and the timing twisted her stomach.
"What's on your mind, Selina?"
His voice was a whip-crack.
Selina jolted, her eyes snapping up to meet his unreadable stare. She blinked hard, realizing with a surge of panic that she had been fumbling. Instead of loosening the knot, she had tightened it into a jagged, messy lump against his throat.
"The tie... it was a mistake," she mumbled, her fingers dancing frantically to undo the damage. "I'll redo it. Just give me a second."
"Let it be." Zane's hand clamped over hers, his grip firm and cold.
He pushed her hands away and began fixing the silk himself, his narrowed eyes never leaving her face. He was dissecting her.
"You look pale. Unwell," he observed, his voice dropping to a dangerous register. "Are you sure you have been taking the pills?"
The air in the room felt thin. Selina stared at him, a bitter laugh dying in her chest.
"It seems you are terrified of me conceiving. Do not worry," she lied, her heart hammering against her ribs. "I took extra."
"Good. Because I'm terrified." Zane admitted without minding how harsh he sounded. He stepped closer, invading her space until she felt the heat of his anger. "I don't want needless distractions. I don't want the responsibility of you. It would be kind of you to remember your place: serve me in bed, and nothing more."
Selina recoiled as if he'd struck her. It pained her that he wasn't merciful with his words.
This cold-hearted man has always been straightforward. Unapologetic.
Tears burned, blurring his harsh features. "I am a woman, Zane. Not a fixture. Why should I stay in a marriage where my only joy is forbidden? How much do you hate the idea of your own seed inside me?"
"My animosity is none of your concern," he said, his eyes piercing her gray ones like shards of flint.
"It is my concern because I am the one bleeding from it!" Selina snapped, the tether of her patience finally snapping. "Tell me you don't want me, and I will walk out that door right now!"
The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating. Zane stared at her, his jaw tightening as if he were holding back a flood of something unpleasant.
Without a word, he turned, striding toward the door. He swung it open, the hinges groaning.
"What if there was already a child?" Selina's voice was small, desperate, stopping him in his tracks. "Wouldn't you give us a chance? I don't want a child to grow up in the shadows, Zane. Not like I did."
She didn't want her child to grow up yearning for its father's love in the shadows. For the sake of her unborn child, she wanted to give her marriage a second chance and prayed Zane would accept it.
Zane's back stiffened. His grip on the doorknob turned white-knuckled, the metal creaking under the strain of his hand as if he'd bulge it out.
"Then get rid of it," he declared, not turning around."Let me be clear, Selina: you will never be the mother of my child. Not now. Not ever."
The words were rock, heavy, and lethal as they rang in her ears like a funeral bell. The tension in the room thickened, pressing on her chest until she could barely breathe.
Her eyes snapped across the room as if searching for something. Maybe anything to anchor herself from breaking. A cold chill ran down her spine, reminding her of the indifference in their marriage.
"And if it were someone else?" she choked, her voice trembling. "Any other woman?"
Zane finally turned, a cruel, taunting smirk twisting his handsome face. "That would be preferable. Even if she were a whore from the street, as long as it wasn't you."
Selina stood utterly dumbstruck with her tear-filled eyes locked on him. She felt numb and unable to process anything.
And just as she was about to dilute his rejection, he hurled another straight to her face.
"So you should understand our intimacy…" he trailed off, causing Selina's heart to skip a beat.
She swallowed hard, dreading to hear anything about it since she had been avoiding the topic. Now, his voice sounded more serious than it ever had.
She wasn't ready to face this either.
"There's no need to talk about what happened. You are always drunk, and I allowed it," she muttered, her tone trembling as she quickly turned her back to him. Not wanting to see his cold gaze filled with contempt and indifference anymore.
"Right. It has always been a fling," he murmured finally, his tone stern and far from hurt. "A mistake we must do well to forget."