Page 144 of Matteo
I’d written one letter for each day we had been married. Those were all the words I wanted to tell her, if only she’d let me.
It’d been four weeks of pure silence and my personal hell.
The man I hired wasn’t due back with supplies for another few weeks. We didn’t need anything, but I had to admit that monologues had started to get old. I had written a whole book full of love letters. They sat in front of me, stuffed in a folder that was thicker than an eighty-year-old medical file.
And at this point, I wasn’t sure how long it was going to take for my wife to submit.
I was so fucking desperate for a conversation that I was tempted to call her father. But thankfully, I had enough sense not to do that and kept my cell phone turned off, like it had been since Ireland. Arianna’s burner phone was also history.
Maybe I could have gone about marrying her and kidnapping her a different way. Even I wasn’t too proud to admit that.
When we first arrived on the island I bought in the Barents Sea, I could see excitement flicker on Arianna’s face, but then her eyes landed on me and all of it was extinguished.
I wasn’t deterred though. I truly thought I could make it work.
I had never been more wrong in my life.
There were a few moments of hope, like the time we went for a walk, bundled up and snow crunching at our feet as the blue and green lights of the borealis shimmered above our heads.
She stared in awe for hours but refused to say a single fucking word.
I was almost jealous of that natural fucking wonder.
But I was nothing if not a determined fucker who would make our honeymoon something that my wife never forgot.
She appeared at the table now, wearing nothing but a bathrobe. Her hair was damp, falling down her back, and her face glowed, but her eyes… They were sad and broken.
And that was fucking killing me.
“I was thinking we could take the boat out for a ride,” I said as she took a seat.
She shrugged, then her gaze darted out the glassed dome that’d been our home for the past four weeks. It was an Arctic glass igloo with two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a den.
A cozy, romantic honeymoon turned catastrophe.
At least it had two bedrooms because the moment we arrived, she promptly shut the door of her claimed room in my face and had kept me out ever since.
Of course, I could barge in, or even remove the door. But I needed her to want me, to let me touch her, to crave me as much as I craved her.
So I held on to this last shred of integrity.
“Magerøya Island is nearby,” I continued conversationally. “We can see the North Cape plateau and more of those lights you seem to love so much. We’ll just have to make sure to dress warm.”
No response.
I sighed.
“Ari, this has gone on long enough.” Her chin trembled, but she refused to look at me. “Please, baby. Talk to me. Use your words—” She stiffened and a flush crawled up her neck.
My brows furrowed and then understanding sunk in. I couldn’t help but smile smugly. She still remembered what those words meant when we made love.
“Use your words, and you’ll get whatever you want,” I said softly.
“I hate you.”
Okay, not exactly what I was hoping to hear after weeks of silence.
“I love you.” Someone told me once you have to kill them with kindness. Maybe this would work.
