Chapter 39

Being completely naked, with an almost visible baby bump, in a mildly cold lake was beyond Mary's comprehension. Of course, she wanted adventure, and she got it. Stupid, yes, but this isolated privacy was all she needed, of course, to think about her life, as she had immediately tucked herself in the warm, cold embrace of the lake as she shivered, unable to even fathom her foolishness, but was she crazier? Tyler had become nothing but sweet and overprotective of her, not that marrying her and bearing his child was any weirder, but yes, now she had more questions than answers. Besides, she heard him talking to Elizabeth, and it was not civil enough. She believed that the bitch was threatening her and her child's lives. Where the bitch had come to know puzzled Mary even more. Not that Tyler's treatment of her had done anything but threaten her heart, and though she wasn't expecting more, expecting too much of his sweet, caring demeanour towards her made her uneasy. But, of course, she knew better than to expect more.

No, to be fair, that wasn’t entirely true. Her heart flipped from the reality that Tyler was kind because of his heir. She’d known more in a month’s time than many husbands and wives did during the entire course of a marriage. Yes, they argued a lot, but in the end, they ended up fucking each other, so what was the point of denying her true feelings?

Mary thought about her and Jasper's relationships. Even Dave hated the man, and she’d refused to believe how naive she'd been over the years. How many breakups have there been? At least three? She couldn’t even remember why she’d refused to believe her friends and even her own brother. No reason, really, except that Jasper seemed to be perfect for her... Yet he fucking betrayed and cheated on her.

But perfect?

Tyler Johnson was perfect. More than perfect. He was the epitome of a man who could shatter an already broken heart. Mary knew for sure; nothing involved Tyler didn't end in tears, and right now she was waging a battle she knew she could never win.

Was that so much to expect?

She shook her head, aware that she sounded silly and spoiled. No, she didn’t need someone perfect. She just needed someone perfect for her, and Tyler was perfect for her. Perfect to hurt her all over again.

Somehow, she knew what the common sense of stupidity said about her. She was too demanding—worse than foolish. She’d end up a spinster—no, they didn’t say that anymore. They said she was already far beyond that, which was true months ago. One doesn’t reach the age of nothingness without hearing whispers behind one’s back. Or thrown in one’s face. Not that Amaya was any better—of course, her yoga classmates were way worse, but... Mr. Perfect was too hard to find.

But the funny truth was, Mary didn’t mind her circumstances. Or at least she hadn’t, not until recently. Being pregnant and secretly in love with her husband was something so out of the ordinary. It had never occurred to her that she’d always be a fool, and besides, she enjoyed her life quite well without a man in it for two freaking years. She had the most marvellous friend one could imagine—a brother in all.

But lately...

She sighed, unexpectedly feeling quite a bit more exhausted from fighting her feelings towards Tyler. She wanted to tell the world she loved him, but... She knew it was a risk she couldn't take for the love of God. Lately, she hadn’t been feeling so cheerful, not that their every-night lovemaking was any better. In fact, it gets better and better, and she was not about to complain about it either. It was perfect—more than perfect.

But was it too much? Too little? Was she expecting anyway? Besides, recently, she’d been starting to think that maybe those old fears were right, and she wasn’t going to find herself a man who would love her. Maybe she had been too unlucky or too determined to follow the example of her friends, all of whom had found an intense and serious love for their spouses. Maybe a marriage based on mutual respect and companionship is better than none at all.

But it was difficult to talk about these feelings with anyone. Before Tyler's proposal, her brother had spent so many months urging her to find a boyfriend; as much as she adored Dave, it would be difficult to listen to him when he was nothing but like Tyler, who changes girlfriends like he changes his clothes. Her brother would have been no help whatsoever. But Dave would probably have taken it upon himself to personally select a suitable boyfriend and then browbeat the poor man into submission. But he was too much of a dreamer, and besides, he rarely came down to London anymore, preferring the quiet of the country. As for her—well, that was another story entirely, quite worthy of its own paragraph.

She reckoned she should have discussed Amaya or Jane, but every time she went to see them, they were so bloody happy, so blissfully content with their lives. How could someone like that possibly offer useful advice to someone in Mary’s position? And Amaya seemed half a world away from giving her good advice. Besides, Mary didn’t think it was fair to bother her friend with her stupid discomfort. Amaya had things to settle and problems to solve. Her fears and worries seemed insignificant by comparison.

And maybe all this was why her resemblance to Tyler had become such a guilty pleasure. Johnson was a large family, rich, elite, wild, and raucous. It was nearly impossible to keep anything secret, especially from Tyler's cousins, though she had only met three of them at the wedding, and Sir Anthony, Tyler's grandfather, could probably have won the war against COVID-19 in half the time if the scientist had only thought to draft him into the intelligence assistance.

The old man was, in his own strange way, very pleased to have her as a granddaughter-in-law. The one thing she’d never expected from the old man was that she was too kind to him, joking about his health and even worrying for him as a real granddaughter would. She was always with him on his hospital visits when Tyler couldn't accompany him. Yet his decision to marry her off to Tyler was shocking.

And because she had actually secretly loved Tyler, she’d been able to create him as her perfect man in her mind. If ever there was a perfect man, surely it had to be the Tyler Johnson of her imagination.

And now he wants the child? But he never told her about his feelings for her or the status of their relationship. Yes, they fuck almost every night—maybe more than she can count—but he never told her about his feelings. Was he scared of hurting her? Or was he just too preoccupied with his heir? And ruin what was supposed to be the perfect, no-strings-attached relationship?

But then the impossible occurred. Jane was married. And what’s more, she’d married a lawyer and been happy ever since. Well, maybe not too happy in the bed department, but who cares? The man loves Jane so much. And Mary wanted that kind of love. But if Superman had suddenly dropped from the sky and landed in her backyard, Mary could not have been more surprised. Of course, she was happy for Jane and even happier with Amaya. Truly, she was. And she was happy for Dave, too. They were quite possibly her three most favourite people in the entire world, and she was thrilled that they had found happiness: Jane with her family, Amaya with her career, and Dave with her arts. No one earned it more. But that didn’t mean that their achievement hadn’t left a sunken spot in her life.

She deemed that when she’d been considering her life as the unlucky one and trying to convince herself that it was what she really wanted, the three had always been there in the picture, crying with her, and were happy right beside her. It was acceptable—almost encouraging, even—but this sudden marriage was never in her plan, nor was the accidental marriage in Vegas. And the worst part, the part that left her wracked with grief, was that she’d never given a thought to how Amaya might feel if she married first, which, in truth, she’d always assumed she would do, but she knew Amaya was happy with this marriage. Even as fake as it was. Right?

However, Mary must have thought that this convenient marriage was a wonderful thing. But suddenly, Tyler's bold proposal—tucked away at the very bottom of her heart—told her she was not expecting anything more because she knew him. He was the playboy of the century, and she would never risk her heart for that matter, but she knew she already had. She put her hopes at the bottom of her broken heart, locked away in newly purchased confidence, just so that she wouldn’t be tempted to think about it ten times a day—well, it seemed a bit more fascinating.

More intriguing by the day, actually, as she grew more and more restless, more disappointed with the lot in life she had to admit she’d chosen. And so one day, after she’d gone to visit her doctor, only to be informed by the butler that the mansion was not able to receive visitors, uttered in such a way that even Mary knew what it meant, Tyler must have thought that this COVID-19 was a risk for her child, so she made a decision. It was time to take her life into her own hands, time to control her future, rather than attend to the boredom in the vain hope that the perfect man would suddenly materialise before her, never mind that there was never anybody new in a ten-mile radius, and after a full month of lockdown. So instead of enjoying the scenery of the lake, she shivered when Tyler's voice came from nowhere.

"What the hell are you doing here, Mary?"