Chasing His Rejected Wife

"That won't happen in this case." Aiden informs me. He crosses over to stand in front of me, his expression filled with certainty. "And don't think this serves as a valid excuse for attempting to keep my child away from me, Jessica." "Trying to spare an unborn child a world of misery by knowing they're unwanted by their own father does not qualify as a valid excuse?" I had to tilt up my head again so he could see my disbelief.

"It does not." His eyes grew flinty. "You had no right to come to that decision all on your own without at least giving me a chance." He crouched down to stare directly at me. "Were you trying to get your revenge on me by doing this?" "Oh, wow. There it is once more with the wild accusations." I scoffed, hiding how much it stung. "You really do have a low opinion of me and everything I say and do is just yet another way I'm scheming to make your life miserable, isn't it." "You tell me." This time, there was no remorse, only cold anger.

"Well, I have nothing more to say to you." I leaned back in my seat and crossed my arms, glaring at him belligerently. "Feel free to accuse me of treason next, if you will, since you've already gone for attempted murder, right. I don't care anymore. This divorce cannot happen soon enough for me."

He chuckled at this, a sound that made me uneasy with how packed with ill intent it sounded. "Divorce?"

"Yes?" I peered at him, wondering what he was up to, but I'd never been able to get a good read on him before. "You know, the thing you've been hankering after since the day your dad basically pointed a metaphorical gun to your head and forced you."

He shot me a glare and I shut up immediately. Straightening to his full height, he turned back to the window and spent a few minutes looking out while I waited, breathless with dread.

"There won't be a divorce." The words fell on my ears like a death toll.

"What?" I shot to my feet, mouth agape, my heart thudding from so much adrenaline. "What...Aiden...what are you talking about?"

He shot me a dark look over his shoulder, looking none too pleased himself. "I said, there won't be a divorce, as in, you and I are going to remain married."

"But why?" The words came out as a loud wail, a spillover of the jumbled emotions surging through me at the same time. "Aiden, you can't be serious. Tell me this is some sort of April fool's joke?" It wasn't even April, but I was too harassed to care. My hands formed tight fists, knuckles whitening as I prayed that his next words would be that he was making a joke.

"Why? An eyebrow shot up as though I'd just said the silliest thing, which was absurd because right now, the one saying silly things was him.

Because you're going to have my child."

My mouth opened and closed, I was too flummoxed to even form coherent words. My legs suddenly felt weak and I sank down to the chair again.

"That's...that's not a good reason for divorce." I finally managed to argue. "Lots of couples manage to raise children in separate households after splitting up."

He turned away again, hands shoved in his pockets. "We are not other couples."

"We aren't even a real couple!" I exclaimed desperately.

Again with the lift of that arrogant eyebrow. God, I really hated seeing that expression because it usually boded no good and meant that Aiden had already set his mind and no amount of talking could change it.

"We are married. I don't see how that doesn't make us a real couple when in the eye of the law, we are husband and wife."

"Our marriage is only on paper." I countered, feeling the stirring of another headache as I saw all my plans crumpling before my eyes. God, this couldn't be happening, could it? "You've brought it up yourself several times in the last two years whenever you wanted to remind me of my place. And now you're shifting the lines?"

"I know. But that was before you got pregnant." He crossed over to me and sat back down, stretching out his long legs. "I'm well aware that other people raise children even though they are separated, but I don't believe in that. I want to give our child a stable home and some semblance of normalcy for him or her to grow up in."

"Normal?” My chuckle was near hysterical. "Aiden, once more, there's nothing normal between us. And what about Elisa's baby, hmm? Are you going to marry her too so the child will have a 'normal' home with three loving parents? Last I checked, polygamy is illegal in the state."

"Elisa's child is not your concern." He said in a dismissive manner. "I'll handle that privately, there's no need for you to bother about that. This is about us."

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"Elisa's baby concerns me as well." I leaned forward, scowling at him. "The fact that you slept with her while we married is reason enough to make me not want to stay with you any longer, couples have split up for less and you expect me to not bother me? Be for real, Aiden."

He sighed, mouth forming a thin line. "If you must know, Elisa lost the baby."

I gaped at him, sure I hadn't heard right. For the second- or was it third time today, I was stunned beyond words. What the hell was happening? For certain I was in some sort of lucid dream or nightmare, right? Maybe I was still unconscious, lying down in the hospital bed and still hooked up to machines and this was all one of those weird alternate realities that TV shows loved to bring up in their films.

Whatever it was, I wanted out of it as soon as possible. Surreptitiously, I used my left thumb and finger to pinch the skin on my right wrist hard and the resulting pain told me that yep, I was not hallucinating.

Wait though. You could still feel pain in a dream right? So this wasn't conclusive proof.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Aiden, if this is some sort of joke, it is not funny in the least."

"It's not." He ran this hands through his hair again and grimaced

"I would never joke about something like this." He replied with a deep sigh.

"When? How?" I asked, puzzled. The last time I'd seen Elisa, she'd still been very much pregnant and complaining of having to endure an extended bed rest.

"Yesterday." He replied while I struggled to digest the information. "There was a problem with the placenta."

"Oh...I'm sorry." I murmured, cradling my stomach. I could only imagine how much pain she must be going through right now. If I'd lost my baby - "How is she now?"

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Yesterday I'd been lying in my hospital bed, contemplating my next steps about going through with my plans while she'd been losing her baby.

Then a thought hit me. "Is she still here?"

If she was, it would explain why Aiden had been waiting in the hospital. It was not out of any misplaced concern for me or the child, but because the love of his life had lost their love child. "She was discharged this morning." The reply confirmed my suspicions and I tried to suppress the disappointment that shot through me.

"I'm sorry." I murmured quietly.

"It's fine." He responded with quiet dismissal that had me wondering what emotion he was hiding under that implacable facade. Was this the reason behind his decision to stay married?

I decided to try and persuade him once again. "Aiden," I started as gently as I could. "I understand that grief can make a person take rash decisions that may not work out, why don't we take some time to think about -" "There's no need." He cut me off abruptly. "I had already made my decision even before - the incident with Elisa."

"But-"

"I want to be a part of the child's life, Jessica. And I will not settle for parenting on a part time basis, I want to be fully involved and if that means we stay married and under the same roof, so be it."

His phone beeped a message and he glanced at it and grimaced. He rose to his feet, and fixed me with a hard stare. "I have to deal with an emergency at the office. When I come back, we'll continue our talk."

When he left, I slumped against the chair, my thoughts in disarray. How had my life turned out like this? Married to a man I loved but who did not care about me in return and now that I had managed to overcome my feelings for Aiden and get out from a toxic marriage, I was essentially trapped because Aiden now wanted to play father?