Desperate Love

Chapter 3 The Proposal

counting the excruciating seconds until they would walk into the living room to face whatever monster Edward had been cultivating in the dark.

​The walk from the dining room to the living lounge felt like an executioner’s march. The heavy, polished mahogany table, which had just born witness to a completely untouched feast, was left behind in the shadows. Sandra kept her eyes fixed on Edward’s back as he walked ahead of her. He didn't offer his hand. He didn't slow his pace. The gentle, protective husband who habitually guided her by the small of her back seemed to have been entirely erased, replaced by this rigid, stone-faced stranger.

​When they stepped into the main living lounge, the atmosphere shifted completely. The room was expansive, beautifully curated with imported leather couches, muted gold accents, and warm ambient lighting designed to feel like a sanctuary. Tonight, however, the warmth was gone. The space felt clinical, sterilized, and terrifyingly cold.

​The living room felt exactly like a courtroom.

​Edward didn't sit next to her on the grand sectional sofa where they usually curled up together to watch movies or discuss their corporate goals. Instead, he walked over to the single-seater armchair directly opposite her, creating a physical gulf between them that felt thousands of miles wide. He sat down heavily, leaning his elbows on his knees, refusing to sit close to her. The physical distance alone made Sandra’s heart violently hammer against her ribs.

​For a long, torturous minute, Edward didn't speak. He simply rubbed his face with both hands, his palms scraping roughly against the stubble on his jaw. The sheer exhaustion radiating from him was palpable, but beneath it was that unyielding, terrifying resolve. He let out a long, shuddering breath, a sound so heavy it seemed to sap the oxygen right out of the room, before finally dropping his hands and looking directly into her eyes.

​"Sandra, you know I love you more than life itself," Edward began, his voice trembling slightly, cracking under the immense weight of what he was holding inside. He looked at her with a mixture of profound sorrow and desperate urgency. "And it kills me to see you dying inside every day because of this childlessness. I see the toll it takes on you. I see the tears you try to hide from me. I have been thinking, Sandra. Deeply. For weeks. And I have finally made a decision."

​Sandra’s hands gripped the fabric of her skirt. A tight, painful knot of anxiety tightened in her stomach, making it hard to draw a full breath. The formal delivery of his words felt like a corporate termination notice.

​"A decision about what, Edward?" Sandra asked, her voice barely a whisper, fighting to maintain her composure. "We make decisions together. What could you possibly have decided alone that requires this kind of distance?"

​Edward swallowed hard, his Adam's apple moving convulsively. He didn't blink. He braced himself as if delivering a fatal blow.

​"I want you to find me a second wife," Edward said flatly.

​The words hung in the air like heavy, toxic smoke.

​Sandra froze. Her entire body turned to ice, her muscles locking so tightly that she felt paralyzed. She stared at him, her eyes wide, waiting for his face to break into a smile. She waited for the punchline. She waited for him to jump up, pull her into his arms, laugh, and apologize for playing such a sick, twisted joke on her to test her reactions.

​But Edward’s face remained deadly serious. There was no grin. There was no remorse. His features were set like concrete, carved from a frighteningly logical madness.

​The silence returned, but this time, it was ringing in Sandra’s ears. The luxury lounge seemed to tilt on its axis. Six years of absolute fidelity. Six years of building a pristine, modern life together. Six years of being the power couple everyone praised for surviving the trial of childlessness without letting the world tear them apart. And here he was, dismantling it all with a single, clinical sentence.

​"What did you just say?" she whispered.

​Her voice dropped to a dangerous, low register, devoid of the tears that usually came so easily. It was the voice of a woman who felt the ground beneath her feet disintegrating into nothingness.

​"Hear me out, please!" Edward pleaded instantly, his clinical demeanor cracking as he leaned forward, reaching out across the empty space between them, though he didn't dare stand up to touch her. His eyes pleaded with her to understand the incomprehensible. "I believe in God, Sandra. You know I do. I believe in His power, and I know we have stood firm. But I also believe we are stuck. We are spiritually and emotionally deadlocked in this house."

​He shook his head, his words pouring out in a frantic, desperate torrent. "I have this strong conviction, Sandra. A revelation, if you will. I believe that if I take another wife, God will open the womb of this house through her. It’s about the atmosphere! I know, I just know with everything inside me, that once she gets pregnant, the spiritual blockage over our family will break. And once that door is forced open, you, my true love, my beautiful queen, will conceive immediately after. She will just be the key, Sandra. The key to our miracle."

​The sheer, absurd logic of his desperation snapped Sandra out of her paralysis. A volatile cocktail of betrayal, shock, and blinding rage surged through her veins, replacing the ice with pure fire.

​Sandra stood up so fast her chair scraped loudly against the polished floor, a harsh, screeching sound that echoed like a scream through the house. Her chest heaved violently under her silk blouse, and her face flushed with a dangerous heat.

​"Are you insane, Edward?!" she screamed, her corporate poise completely disintegrating. "A second wife? Under my roof? Capital NO! Never!"

​She pointed a trembling finger at him, her voice vibrating with raw agony. "How dare you? How dare you sit there, in the home we built together, and propose such an abomination to me? A key? You want to bring another woman into our bed, into our marriage, and call it a 'strategy' for a miracle? What kind of God do you serve that requires you to break your holy vows to give me a child?!"

​"Sandra, think about it practically!" Edward yelled back, standing up as well, his hands thrown out in defense. He looked frantic, desperate to make her see the twisted geometry of his plan. "I am not doing this because I want another woman! If I wanted to stray, I would have done it secretly in the dark like other men do! I am bringing this to you because I love you too much to ever go out and find someone behind your back!"

​"Do not use the word love to justify this madness!" Sandra shrieked, tears of absolute betrayal finally spilling over her lashes, burning her skin. "If you loved me, Edward, you would protect me! You would protect us! You wouldn't ask me to invite a stranger to share your body, your name, and my home!"

​"It is because I love you that I am asking you to choose her!" Edward pressed on, his voice cracking, taking a step toward her. His face was twisted in a grimace of pure psychological anguish. "Don't you see? If I go out there and bring a woman myself, she will be an enemy to you. She will be rude, she will be prideful, and she will try to usurp your position as the matriarch of this family. I don't want that! I will never allow anyone to disrespect you!"

​He took another desperate step, trying to capture her gaze, his voice dropping to an intense, urgent whisper. "That is why the assignment must be yours, Sandra. Look for a decent, humble, young lady. Someone from a quiet, struggling background who knows her place. Someone who will look up to you, who will listen to you, and who will be completely submissive to you by her own choice. If you choose her, she will never dare to raise her voice against you. She will just bear the child, the curse will be broken, and we will finally have our family!"

​Sandra felt a cold, sickening horror wash over her as she listened to him speak. He had mapped this out. He had thought about the logistics, the background of the woman, the hierarchy of the household. This wasn't a sudden, erratic thought; it was a deeply calculated plot that he had been nurturing during those three weeks of brooding silence.

​"You have lost your mind," she said, her voice shaking violently as she stepped backward, away from his approaching figure. "You have allowed the pressure of this world to completely rot your mind, Edward. I am your wife. I am the only woman who has a right to your bed. I will not cater to this madness. I will not hand-deliver a harlot to my husband just to satisfy your impatience."

​"It’s not impatience, Sandra! It’s survival!" Edward roared, his own frustrations exploding through his calm exterior. "I am tired of seeing you break down! I am tired of the empty rooms! I am tired of the silence! If this is the sacrifice we have to make to break the deadlock, then we must make it!"

​"Then let the silence kill us!" Sandra cried out, her heart shattering into a million irreparable pieces. "Because I will tell you this today, Edward, it will happen over my dead body. I will never, ever find a wife for you. And no second woman will ever step foot under this roof while I am breathing."

​Turning on her heel, unable to look at the monstrous stranger her husband had become for even another second, Sandra fled the room. She sprinted up the stairs, her heavy, desperate footsteps echoing through the house. She ran into the guest bedroom, slammed the door shut with a force that shook the walls, and turned the key in the lock.

​Downstairs, Edward stood entirely alone in the center of the vast, luxurious living room. He closed his eyes, his chest heaving, listening to the muffled, agonizing sounds of his wife’s wailing filtering through the ceiling. The battle lines had been drawn, and the sanctuary of their six-year marriage was officially gone.