Unwriting Our Vows

Kendra POV

In four years of marriage, I had asked Garrison Sterling for almost nothing.

That morning, I sat across from him at the long glass dining table, both hands wrapped around my mug so he would not see them shake.

I had rehearsed this conversation a dozen times in the mirror, but now, staring at his immaculate suit and the perfectly disciplined lines of his face, my throat felt like sandpaper.

“Gary...” I started, my voice trembling.

He paused, lowering his tablet. “Yes?”

I swallowed. “I was thinking... maybe we could stop preventing it.”

His brow furrowed slightly. “Stop preventing what?”

“A baby.”

Garrison’s fingers stilled against the edge of his tablet.

He said nothing. His eyes lifted to mine, and something unreadable flickered across his face before his expression hardened again.

“A baby.”

His voice was quieter this time, as if he were testing the words himself.

I nodded, my pulse hammering. “Yes.”

He stared at me for another beat. "No."

I waited for the rest of the sentence. No baby, because he was frightened. No baby yet. No baby until the company settled, until the timing was better, until we learned how to be something other than two people obeying a contract.

The rest never came.

I stared at him. “No?”

“A child was never part of our arrangement.”

“Garrison…”

That was it. No explanation. No discussion. Not even the courtesy of pretending to consider it.

He pushed his chair back, picked up his briefcase, and walked out the door. My husband ended this conversation the same way he ended board meetings: decision made, subject closed.

***

Later that night, the mattress dipped in the darkness, pulling me backward before the familiar heat of his body pressed against my spine. His hands slid around my waist, pulling me against him with the same quiet certainty they had always carried. For a moment, I lay perfectly still, afraid that if I moved, he might disappear as quickly as he had that morning.

He had said no to a baby. But he was here.

Maybe that meant something. Maybe he could want me even if he didn't want a family with me. Four years had taught me how little it took to keep hope alive—a hand at my waist in the dark, his jacket appearing over my shoulders when I was cold, the rare half-smile he never gave anyone else.

I had built an entire love story out of moments Garrison probably considered ordinary.

I let my eyes close as I gave in to the familiar rhythm of his touch.

I needed him. Not just his body. I needed the reassurance that this morning hadn't changed everything, that somewhere beneath all his rules and careful distance, there was still something between us that belonged to us.

Four years had taught Garrison everything about my body. He knew where I was sensitive, how my breathing changed, when to slow down. Our marriage never allowed only one intimacy. Kissing. In four years, my husband had slept with me more nights than I could count and had never once kissed me on the mouth.

As the moment's intensity overwhelmed my thoughts, I reached up and touched his jaw. My fingers lingered there before I gently pulled his face toward mine.

Just one kiss. One thing that belonged to lovers, not contracts.

I was not asking for forever anymore. I was asking for proof that, for one second, he could forget the rules and want me like a man wanted his wife.

His face stopped inches from mine. For a heartbeat, I thought he might finally let me cross that last line between us.

Then his hands closed around my wrists.

“No.”

The humiliation was instant. He could touch every part of me except the part that might make this feel like love.

"Gary..."

He released me and looked away, staring into the dark corner of the room.

"We have rules about that, Ken."

Rules. Of course we did.

He pulled away and dressed in the dark without another word.

I stayed beneath the sheets, listening as the bedroom door clicked shut behind him. I closed my eyes, letting my racing heart pretend the ring on my finger meant something real.

I lay awake long after he left, one hand over the place his arm had been. I thought the worst thing that could happen was losing the marriage I had spent four years trying to turn into something real. I had no idea our careful precautions had already failed.

***

By midday the next afternoon, I had escaped to the back lawn.

I sat beneath the oak tree with my laptop balanced on my knees and poured every sentence I could not say to my husband into a fictional woman who was braver than I was. Writing was the only part of my life that felt like me, something from the life I had before I became Garrison Sterling's polished, contract-bound accessory.

Kelsey Vance could write women who knew exactly when to leave.

Ken Sterling apparently couldn't.

The title at the top of the page made me wince: The Woman Who Walked Away. My heroine knew when a marriage had become too small for her. I had written three hundred pages about her courage while spending four years avoiding my own.

It was worlds away from Eleanor, my sweeping 800,000-word historical trilogy that had made my pen name famous years ago. This new story felt personal. Unforgivingly real.

The loud crunch of tires on gravel broke my rhythm.

I snapped my laptop shut and scrambled to my feet as a sleek black sedan idled to a stop near the lawn.

Garrison stepped out first and adjusted his cuffs. Wyatt, his lawyer, emerged from the passenger side carrying a thick cream-colored envelope.

Nothing good came in envelopes like that.

Garrison didn't come toward me immediately. He stood beside the car for a moment, his expression as controlled as it had been yesterday morning when he'd told me there would be no baby inside our marriage.

Then he looked at me. “Ken.”

Something in his voice made my fingers go cold. Wyatt shifted the envelope beneath his arm.

I glanced between them. “What is this?”

Garrison's face didn't change. “It’s time to get divorced, Ken.”

I thought I had misheard him.

“What?”

“You were always going to leave eventually.” His voice was even. “I'm just making it easier.”

I gave a small, breathless laugh that didn't sound like mine. “You really don't waste time.”

He drew a slow breath through his nose and gave Wyatt a brisk nod.

Wyatt stepped forward and held out the envelope. I didn't take it. My eyes stayed on Garrison.

“Last night you reminded me I wasn't allowed to kiss you.”

Something flickered across his face and disappeared so quickly I might have imagined it.

“And today you came home with divorce papers?”

“Take the papers, Ken.”

My hands shook as I finally reached for the envelope. I peeled back the flap and pulled out the white documents.

Printed across the top in bold black letters were the words: Divorce Settlement.

Four years of sleeping beside him. Four years of learning the rhythm of his footsteps in the hall. Four years of waiting for a contract to become a marriage. Reduced to two words in bold black type.

I stared at them. Four years reduced to two words and a stack of paper.

“Why now?”

Some stupid, humiliating part of me was still hoping Garrison would give me a reason that had nothing to do with me. Business. Timing. The contract. Anything I could turn over in my mind later and convince myself didn't mean what it obviously meant.

Instead, he said, “This was always temporary.”

Of course. I had simply been stupid enough to forget. I lowered my gaze before he could see how badly those words hurt.

“Right.”

Silence stretched between us until Garrison finally turned toward the car. That was when I noticed someone in the back seat.

Behind the dark tinted glass sat the faint silhouette of a woman.

I couldn't make out her face clearly, only the elegant line of her profile and one pale hand resting against a dark skirt. She was waiting in the car, watching the house.

My stomach dropped. I knew that profile.

Genevieve.

Genevieve had grown up in Garrison's world—the wealthy, polished daughter of one of his family's oldest friends. The woman his parents had once referred to, with irritating fondness, as his perfect match.

Before Garrison Sterling had needed a wife and, for reasons I had never understood, chosen me instead.

Garrison opened the driver's door. My fingers tightened around the divorce papers.

“Garrison.”

He paused.

I wanted to ask him if she was the reason. I wanted to ask whether he was finally clearing away the inconvenient wife so he could have the woman who belonged beside him.

But Genevieve remained a blurred, composed figure behind the tinted glass, and asking felt more humiliating than not knowing. So I swallowed the question.

When Garrison looked back at me, neither of us spoke. Then he got into the car, and the sedan pulled away.

I remained on the lawn with the settlement clutched against my chest, watching until the black car disappeared beyond the gates.

Only then did I look down again.

Divorce Settlement.

Yesterday, I asked my husband if we could have a baby.

Today, the woman everyone had always thought he should marry was waiting in his car while he ended ours.