I Used To Cling To Him At Night, Now I Turn My Back Chapter 01

I Used To Cling To Him At Night, Now I Turn My Back Chapter 01

Once again, I clung to my uptight husband who couldn’t stand me and insisted he put body lotion on me.

Lines of floating comments drifted across my vision.

[There she goes again, the stand-in getting all the perks. Not that I’m jealous. Every move the side character forces on him? He’ll just turn around and use it all on the real female lead.]

[Last time the side character gets to torture him. Tomorrow his first love comes back, he files for divorce, and the main storyline finally kicks off.]

[Just wait until the side character ends up covered in burns. She literally terrifies the female lead and the kid, and she can’t even land a job as their nanny. Hilarious.]

I tightened my grip around the pregnancy test with its two unmistakable lines and slipped my nightgown off my shoulders.

“No… not tonight.”

—

Callan Holloway frowned, his palm still covered in lotion.

One of my nightgown straps was still looped around his fingers.

His eyes stayed fixed on me as he held out his hand.

“You sure?”

[You can literally see the disgust on his face. He just wants to get this over with.]

[Last time she forgot the lotion before bed, she threw a fit and kept him up half the night. The CEO of Holloway Holdings skipped work, walked away from a fortune. RIP to everyone’s quarterly targets.]

The floating comments kept scrolling past.

Pretending nothing was wrong, I slid my foot out of his hand.

“It’s too hot. I hate how sticky it feels. I’ll skip it tonight.”

His lashes lowered. His throat bobbed—he really did seem impatient.

He wiped the lotion off his hands with a tissue, then got up to turn down the thermostat.

This marriage had always been my choice.

For him, it had only ever been an obligation.

I couldn’t keep throwing myself at someone who never wanted this in the first place.

The man who had watched over me and kept me in line since I was little now sat beside me as my husband.

I twisted the comforter between my fingers.

“If… someday we aren’t together anymore, would you…”

His hand froze around the hot water bottle for the briefest second before he cut me off.

“We won’t.”

“I promised your parents I’d take care of you.”

[I thought she’d start another dramatic scene. Turns out she’s just playing hard to get.]

[Poor guy. Trapped by obligation while the woman he actually loves is worlds away.]

So he remembered how cold my hands and feet always got.

He warmed them with a hot water bottle—not because he loved me, but because he felt responsible for me.

A sharp ache spread through my chest.

I kicked the blanket aside and took the hot water bottle from him.

“I’ll do it myself.”

Callan frowned but didn’t argue.

He reached over and turned off the light, and the bedroom sank into darkness.

As always, he slept in a full set of pajamas, lying perfectly straight and stiff.

Normally, I’d curl against him like a cat, clinging to him until he couldn’t escape. But not tonight.

I turned my back to him.

Behind me, all I could hear was his breathing—ragged and uneven.

So he had been annoyed with me all along.

The room was pitch-black.

My fingers brushed across my smooth skin as I tried to process everything on my own.

Being burned over my entire body was too horrifying to imagine.

If nothing I did could ever shake the hold his first love had on his heart… then maybe the best thing I could do was simply stop bothering him.

At least then, when this marriage finally ended, we could still part with some dignity.