Acting Royal #Wattys2017

Chapter 50

6 Months later

ZAYN

Zayn sat in the jet opposite her. They were having another fight. Of course they were, all they did was fight. The fight was about the usual too...sex.

She wanted it, he didn't. She wanted to start trying for a child, he did not. Not that he didn't want a child, but he didn't want a child with her. He wanted a child with Jenny. That's who he wanted, and who he wanted to have a family with. In the last year and a bit of their marriage they'd had sex a handful of times. And on all of those occasions he'd had way too much to drink and she had just been there to take his frustrations out on. But it had been six months since they'd slept with each other and this was the gist of today's fight.

She and her OBGYN had drawn up a schedule and given him a copy. Ovulation times were marked in pink on a little calendar, the little window in which he would need to perform like a performing monkey. Times and dates when he needed to have sex with her in order to get her pregnant. He looked over at her and sipped his whiskey watching while she texted away on her phone.

She was dressed in the most expensive clothes, dripping in jewelry and her make-up was perfect. It was always perfect. She had been groomed and bred her entire life to play the role of queen. And outwardly, she was doing a good enough job.

She looked up at him and glared. He matched her glare but truthfully he was so sick of fighting with her. He hated himself for doing it, and hated the way it made him feel, and her too. He didn't hate her. He didn't want to hurt her and make her cry, but, well, he didn't love her and he didn't want to have a baby with her. Not now anyway. At some stage he would probably need to bite a bullet and do it. Not that he wouldn't love his own child, but.. fuck it was complicated.

It was complicated because Jenny was all he could think about. Everyday. Every night. Always. She was the last face he saw when he went to sleep and the first face he saw when he woke up in the morning. And when he wasn't seeing her face every five minutes, he was thinking about her and trying to imagine what she was doing and whether or not she was happy? He hoped she was happy, even if she still hated him. That was the part that killed him the most.

He often wondered, now that some time had passed, if couldn't he just call her up and tell her the truth. Tell her that he did love her and that everything between them had been real. He'd thought about that conversation a million times before.

"Hi Jenny. I did love you, I still do love you and think about you all the time, but I'm married to someone else now." It sort of seemed like a cruel conversation to have. And maybe she was getting on with her life and had met someone else. The idea was both terrifying and comforting. He hated the idea of her with anyone else, but he also didn't want her to be alone and lonely.

"We could say we are struggling to fall pregnant and we could go for fertility treatment? That way you don't have to touch me, you can just do it into a cup, if that's what you're into." Her voice was cold and biting. He didn't really blame her.

"I'm not into doing it in a cup." Zayn said coldly.

"Well, you're not into doing it the other way either. So what will it be?" She crossed her legs and put her phone on the table in front of her.

Zayn finished his glass and poured another one. "I'll think about it."

"That's what you said last month, and the month before." She barked.

Zayn got up and walked away to the other side of the plane and sat down. He put his head in his hands. He could not believe this was his life. This was it. He looked out the plane below and for a moment wished the plane would just crash. Go hurtling to the ground so that he didn't have to live like this anymore, didn't have to spend one more day loving her and not being able to be with her.

He honestly didn't know how he was going to carry on like this...