Alex took the foil and opened it up, seeing a sandwich. It would be her father’s famous guilty cheese and pickle sandwich. She loved it.
Her father rarely cooked, and he never set foot in the kitchen. Unless Millie was sick, or to cheer her up, he’d make her something.
Picking up the sandwich, she took a bite and smiled.
“Did your dad make this?”
“Yes.”
“It’s … great.”
She laughed. “You should have seen it when he first put it together. It was amazing.” She missed those days. Spending hours playing out in the backyard, when her father had once said she’d be safe, protected, and loved. “What brings you out here?”
“I don’t know, sitting in your room and reading your diary seems wrong with you outside.”
“You shouldn’t be reading my diary. It’s an invasion of privacy.”
“I know you don’t want to be married to me, but I think I speak for both of our parents when I say that it does have to happen,” Roman said.
“You don’t like me,” Alex said. “I embarrass you.”
“You’re … different, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like you.”
“Please, you always look angry. I get it, I’m not like those beautiful women that are passed around your families.”
Roman tapped his thigh. “It’s not an escort service. They don’t get passed around. Marriages form strong alliances. They build power and wealth.”
“And they forget about love. Women don’t need to feel that, right?”
“Love is never brought into the equation.”
“Have a lot of successful marriages?” she asked.
“Yes. We have zero divorce.”
“Just unhappy marriages for the women?”
“You’re infuriating.”
“And I don’t want to be married to you, Roman. I don’t like you. I know you’re probably sleeping with a gazillion women, and this life isn’t for me.” There she had said it. After spending the day with Stuart and being back home, she had come to the decision she was going to ask for an annulment.
This wasn’t going to work. It was doomed to fail right from the start.
“I know what you want, Alex, and to be honest, I don’t know if I can give it to you. What I can do is offer a compromise.”
“Don’t you want to be free?” she asked.
“No one has ever asked for a divorce or even started proceedings.”
“We won’t be getting a divorce.” Did she have to point that out to him as well?
“You are determined to make a mockery of me, of everything our family built?” Roman asked.
“I want to set us both free.”
“And how many lives are you willing to take to get it?”
“There will be no lives lost.”