The Lived in son-in-law Wants Divorce

2

Sophia Morgan stopped in the kitchen doorway, heels clicking to a halt against the tile. She looked exactly like every photograph the tabloids loved printing of her, sharp suit, sharper eyes, patience worn thin as old paper. In his old life the sight of her would have sent his heart pounding so hard he could barely breathe. Now he simply watched her the way a man watches a storm roll in, something to note and wait out.

Her gaze dropped to the pot on the stove, then to the dirty bowl by his elbow, and her mouth curled with open disgust.

"You're cooking now?" she said, voice cool enough to frost glass. "What is this, some kind of little performance for me?"

"It's dinner," Ethan said. "People eat it."

He stood and stepped back from the counter without thinking, putting distance between them, and something in him noted with mild surprise that his own body no longer wanted to close that gap. In his old life he would have crossed the kitchen to take her coat like an eager pet waiting for a scrap. Tonight his feet stayed exactly where they were.

Sophia's eyes narrowed at the space he'd left, as if she noticed it too.

"Kyle called me an hour ago sobbing that you're seriously ill," she said, crossing her arms tight. "Now I come home and find you standing here fine as ever, boiling noodles like nothing happened. Are you two putting on some little show to drag me out of my office?"

"I didn't call anyone," Ethan said evenly. "Ask Kyle why he lied. That's his mess, not mine."

"Don't play innocent with me." She crossed the kitchen fast, grabbed his collar, and twisted it hard enough that her knuckles pressed against his throat. Her face hung inches from his, furious and beautiful and completely without warmth. "You think I don't know how this family works? Everyone wants something from me. Everyone always has their hand out like a dog begging at the table."

Ethan gripped her wrist and pushed her back, not roughly, just firm enough that her fingers fell away from his collar. He watched her stumble half a step, watched surprise flash through her eyes before the anger swallowed it whole again.

I begged this woman for years to look at me like a husband instead of an obligation, he thought, his throat still tight from her grip. I gave her everything I had left in me. She still looked at me like something scraped off the bottom of her shoe. Nothing I do will ever change that. So why keep trying at all.

"I want a divorce," Ethan said.

The kitchen went completely silent. Sophia's arms dropped to her sides. For a moment her face went blank, as if the words hadn't landed yet, and then her eyebrows drew together into something between disbelief and fury.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I want a divorce, Sophia."

"Is this some kind of joke to you?" Her voice climbed sharp and thin. "You know exactly why we're married. My grandfather was dying. My family needed this arrangement to look solid for the board. And now you think you can just wake up one random Tuesday and decide you're done?"

"I'm not deciding anything you don't already want for yourself," Ethan said. "I saw the doctor at the hospital today. The one you keep looking at during dinners when you think I'm not watching. I know what he means to you. I won't stand in the way of that anymore."

Something shifted behind her eyes, quick and guarded, like a door slamming shut before he could see what was hiding on the other side. "What are you talking about."

"I'm talking about the fact that you love him," Ethan said, calm as still water. "And I'm telling you I won't fight you for a marriage that was never really mine to begin with. Go be happy, Sophia. I mean that."

Her jaw tightened, and when she spoke again her voice had dropped low and dangerous. "Is this blackmail? Did you dig something up and now you think you can squeeze money out of me before you disappear?"

"I don't want your money." Ethan's voice stayed level even as something old and tired ached behind his ribs. "I want out of a marriage where I spend every single night alone in a house that was never a home. That's all this is. Honesty, not leverage."

For a long moment Sophia only studied him, like she was trying to read a language she'd never learned. Then she stepped closer again, slower this time, her heels clicking softly against the tile with each step until she stood close enough that he could feel the heat coming off her skin. Her lips curved into something sly.

"So the little bachelor is lonely," she murmured, tilting her head, watching his face for a reaction the way a cat watches something small and cornered. "Is that it? All this talk of divorce and honesty, and really you're just a man who wants attention like a puppy whining at the door."

In his old life this closeness would have undone him completely, made his pulse stutter and his resolve crumble into nothing. Now it only felt like pressure, uncomfortable and unwanted, a woman standing too near a man who had already decided he didn't want her there.

"Step back, Sophia."

She didn't move. Her smile only widened, cold and amused. "No," she said simply. "I don't think I will."

Then, straightening abruptly, her voice turned brisk and final, every trace of teasing gone as fast as it came. "And no, you don't get a divorce. I didn't start this marriage, so I decide when it ends, not you. If you're bored and lonely, go find yourself some pretty little distraction on the side, I don't care, as long as it doesn't embarrass me in public. But we stay married until I say otherwise."

She turned on her heel and walked out without waiting for an answer, her perfume trailing behind her like smoke, leaving Ethan standing alone with his half finished bowl of noodles and a plan that had already hit its first wall.