Her vision was a bit blurry when she heard Den’s keys jingling and the front door being locked. She straightened her nightgown and unbend her legs on the sofa. She poured more wine into her empty ss. He said he wasing back by 5 PM, naturally, he arrived at almost 10 PM when she was already half drunk.


    “Hey, sweetie … enjoying your wine?” he greeted by the stairs.


    She forced a smile and tilted her head back on the sofa, “Hey … yup… since 5 PM,” she sipped on her ss.


    “I’m sorry, I had to stop by at the office to sign some papers, I don’t want to do it tomorrow … you know how it is,” he put down his briefcase and walked over to kiss her. He could taste the wine on her lips, and her breath was thick with its smell.


    “Hmm … I think I will join you … is there any left?”


    She scoffed, “Of course … you have to open another one, this one’s almost finished,” she picked up the almost empty bottle on the coffee table.


    Den raised a brow, “That’s what I meant … sure, I’ll just go get another one,” he stood up to get another bottle and an empty ss in the pantry. “So … have you thought about it again?”


    She sighed quietly, “Yeah … as a matter of fact I have.”


    He didn’t like the sound of her answer, he asked anyway, “And?”N?vel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive ? material.


    “I’ve decided that I don’t want to do it.”


    He didn’t answer. The sound of ss clinking and the wine bottle being opened echoed in the silent room. He poured a good amount into his ss and took big gulps. “Do you need more time to think about it?”


    She turned to look at him. His expression was serious, slightly annoyed. “No … I had plenty of time to think about it when you were gone, I don’t think I can get through it again … I can’t handle any more failures, it’s too much.”


    He looked at the inside of his ss and swirled it, “That’s precisely the point, we’re not going to fail this time … we’re doing this to seed.”


    “We’ve always been doing it to seed … but we never did … and the procedures I have to go through … I read so many failed attempts, I don’t think I can go through that again.”


    Den finished his ss and immediately poured some more, he sighed deeply, “Well … we’re gonna have to.”


    “What?” she was baffled by his determination, he didn’t really want to know how she felt about it, he was asking her whether she had changed her mind.


    “This is ourst chance to do it, Livy, there will be no other chance for us in the future, don’t you think?” he stared at her from where he was standing.


    She was stunned. She turned her back on him and drank her wine without replying.


    “This marriage needs a family,” he added.


    She chuckled, “Are you sure that’s what it needs?”


    He creased his brows, “What is that supposed to mean?” he walked over to her. “Of course it is … Ie home every night and find you drowning yourself with wine and champagne all the time, frowning in the gloom … how long do you think that willst you? This is the one thing you’ve always wanted … I don’t understand why you dismiss the idea altogether all of the sudden.”


    Her jaw dropped, “What do you expect me to do every night? Put on an apron and bake a cake? Put on a smile every time you forgot our date night which we haven’t had in months because you’re always workingte?”


    “I’m working on this deal with Brian Murphy, you know how important that is, which by the way … it’s a done deal now, we’ll be going to London next month to look for that house I told you about … that’s why I want to do this before we go, take a few days off to see the doctor and get the n moving … so what’s the holdup?”


    He was looking at her like she had utterly disrupted his n. His eyes were wide, he held a ss in one hand, and the other rested on his waist.


    “Don’t look at me like that … this is not a business n you need to execute in due course … this is our marriage we’re talking about, this is our lives … and I’m saying I don’t want to do that to myself again, you know how long I had to recover from the loss? … the constant failures? … oh wait …” she drank her wine, “You probably don’t remember ’cause you’re too busy fucking your whore.”


    “For Christ’s sake … really? Are we going back to that?” he put down his ss and started to loosen his tie. He realized he hadn’t even changed and they were already arguing.


    “Surely you can understand why I’m so reluctant to try again, Den? If you hadn’t done that to me … to us … to this marriage … this IVF thing may not even be a thing to consider, I would’ve dly done it years ago.”


    “I thought we’ve passed that? Haven’t I done my part to prove how sorry I am? I did all I could to save this marriage … at times … I felt like I’m doing it by myself … and I get that, I fucked up … but I owned up to it … everything I did … EVERYTHING … was to get us past that trying time so we can start again … am I not forgiven yet?”


    She covered her face with both hands, “You are forgiven … I’ve done that years ago … but it’s not that simple … what you did change everything, we can’t pretend it never happened, you showed me what you could do … and I believed you, and it hurt so bad … I will never let myself be that vulnerable again … not after what you did.”


    His stomach turned, and he clenched his jaw, “Vulnerable? How are you vulnerable by having our children? This is exactly what we need to strengthen our bond … to finally turn the page and move on with our lives if we haven’t already? It’s been 8 years, Livy, how much longer do you need?”


    She looked up at him, “I can’t believe you just said that … do you think it’s easy to live with your fuck up all these years?” She stood up, “Oh, I was having a nervous breakdown when my husband decided to fuck around with another woman, but … hey … I’m okay … it’s nothing … I forgive him, he didn’t mean it, and all is well again?”


    “That’s not what I meant, Livy, how many times do I have to admit it? How many times do I have to say I’m sorry … I fucked up, it’s over, you have to own up to your part of the deal and move past it if this marriage is ever going to have a chance of surviving.”


    “Maybe I don’t know how to! Maybe I can’t see it because you’re not here most of the time … I have to do everything by myself too, haven’t you thought about that? While you work day and night and day and night … I’m here alone … surviving this marriage … where were you?” she shot him a look.


    “Well I know how to … this is exactly how we’re going to do it, we try again, we’ll fight our way through this … we will seal it shut once and for all, once a baby is in the picture … just imagine how wonderful our lives will be, Livy? You, me, and our baby … he or she will end this feud once and for all … isn’t that what we both want? To put this nightmare behind us?”


    They stared at each other in silence for a moment. There were two ways she was looking at him. One was the man who cheated on her and she will neverpletely healed of his betrayal, a man who seemed smallpared to the man she was falling in love with because Roman would never do something like that to her. Two was the man who had done everything in his power to show her how much she meant to him and was constantly nning a better future with her, even in his absence, he was actually doing things for their lives together.


    “We’re having dinner with my mom next week … and we are telling her that we’re doing this, Olivia, because we are … please … get yourself together and realize how much you really want this, put aside your ego and pride … let bygones be bygones, you will regret not doing this in the long run … I know how much you want this.”


    Of course, he knew. He was the one person who knew her best.