Chapter 42
GABRIEL
I didn’t believe in love.
I wasn’t an arrogant man who thought love didn’t exist, because I had seen it firsthand, how love brings the most powerful men to their knees.
I just didn’t believe love was made for me.
Love was a weakness, a distraction, a responsibility, a chore.
I loved. I loved my parents and I loved my grandparents in the way every child loves their provider, because of a sense of mediocre comfort they provided. My brother, who was younger to me and didn’t provide me with anything, I loved him too, by sense of familiarity and looked at him as someone I had to provide for.
That’s what love had always been to me- familiarity and a relationship of providing, either you’re provided for, or you provide
for someone.
That’s why I never had any relationships growing up. I slept around, but neither did I make promises, nor did I believe in any girl’s false ones.
And then, Lily came. She was a girl like anyone else- pretty eyes, blonde hair, and a b*dy she worked hard to maintain. I didn’t intend to keep her around, she just never left. She clung around, letting me do my own thing, insisting all she wanted was friendship.
I didn’t do friendships. I had a group of boys I considered brothers, and once that disintegrated, my brother was really the only friend I had until he chose a path I couldn’t follow or stop him from. The sense of failing him led me to find comfort in Lily.
She was familiar by then.
Comfort and familiarity- the two things I associated love by.
So, I provided for her. Took her out to fancy restaurants she liked, posed with her for pictures when she wanted, sent her gifts I knew she’d appreciate. She never tried making more of a relationship between us, because I didn’t know how. I didn’t know there could be a relationship built by connection, because I didn’t have any.
I was a lone wolf by choice.
I didn’t mind Lily. She was a nice girl, really, despite what Zach and Anna, my parents and grandparents think. Yes, we didn’t have any passionate and obsessive feelings between us, because those weren’t needed- for either of us. We had an arrangement that worked perfectly where she let me be as emotionally distant as I liked as long as I provided for her in a way that made her happy.
That didn’t mean I didn’t care for her. I would probably not lose sleep if she was sick, but if she was in danger somewhere or by someone, I would shield her. Like I said, I provided. Protection, safety, comfort, money, whatever might be the need.
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Chapter 42
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were nearing three years, I did what was expected of me. I bought a ring that I remembered she mentioned she really liked at her father’s company- not knowing Emerald was her birthstone, really. I didn’t even know the green stone In the middle was an emerald. I was never an appreciator of art or jewellery or anything in between. I know I was supposed to be, with my mom being a painter, but I wasn’t. I pretended to like what she did and picked up the pieces I disliked the most to hang in my own house so she wouldn’t get disheartened if they don’t sell as quick as her other pieces.
I was calculative. Logical.
Which is why I saw it a hurdle in my plan to fit into the norms of the society when my grandfather told me he wouldn’t let me marry Lily, and that I had to marry someone else instead.
A girl I didn’t know, I girl I had no interest knowing.
Sofia Baker was ordinary, a misfit standing in the expensive wedding gown and loads of make up and dark hair.
I disliked her. I liked being a provider- but only to those I wanted to provide for willingly. And she was a damsel, holding in tears under a facade of a miserable smile when I first saw her. Of course I wanted her as far away from me as possible, even at the end of the hallway on the other side wasn’t far enough until I walked to her room and there she was- In the robe, her sadness dissipated into anger.
She did have fight in her, I realised that day. She wasn’t a damsel. She was determined to shine through the darkness of our marriage, standing out like the freckles on her face. Hence, her nickname. Freckles. They remind of stars mapped across her face, even though lightly.
I did everything to avoid her business trips, late nights at work.
She crept her way into my life so easily, it baffled me. The worst part? She didn’t look like she was trying to. It was effortless to her, forming a bond with my parents, my grandparents, playing the role of a doting wife in public, and standing up to me..
No one had ever stood up to me.
Of course, I was intrigued. I was frustrated how easy it was for my mind to forget thoughts of Lily, the girl I had promised to marry at the end of my contract, and it was nerve wrecking.
It was frustrating till I cornered her in the kitchen and k*ssed her.
I thought I’d get her out of my system, but the want for more never left. So I took the coward’s way out–left for my trip without letting her know, but when I came back and saw her smiling in that bar with a man that wasn’t me, I lost the remaining of my self control.
Since that moment, I was a beast. I wanted to kill Arthur for every wrong thought that went through his mind about my wife. I wanted to kill James if he thought he could steal her time when I’m away.
I wanted to make her sit on my lap and do the most unspeakable, unholy things to her- all day, every day.
And when I found out Viktor was her boss, Viktor f**king Hart, the man waiting for an opportunity for a revenge, to do exactly what I had done to him, I realised what I wanted to protect was more than her b*dy.
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Chapter 42
I wanted her time. I wanted her attention. I wanted her past, her present, her future. I didn’t know her all too well- two months was a short time- but she was the only girl I wanted to know on a level I didn’t know anyone. Like her favourite colour and favourite dish and favourite city and all the stupid favourites like I was a fifth grader with a crush.
I lied to
o her- never told her about Lily hoping I’d end that chapter before she finds out. I manipulated her- stole hof away to Venice under the ruse of my Grandfather’s gift so I can come to term with everything I was feeling for her, about her, with her. I betrayed her- letting her wear the ring I bought for another woman.
That was partly why I took her to the jeweller that day, so she can pick one to her liking. Of course, my stubborn girl didn’t want to waste the money I had so much of, so I had to buy her a dozen rings.
A gesture of a little guilt, a little ownership, and maybe even a hint of shame.
I knew the mistakes I was making as I was making them, but I was new to this. The feeling was scary, the obsession I had with her was scary, and I tried hard and fast to term it lust, and her just my contract wife but when I saw the hollowness in her eyes after Arthur f**king Geller told her the truth before I could make sure I wouldn’t lose her with it, I cracked.
I told her everything, and I didn’t miss the way it affected her. What I was scared was real just for me- was for her too.
And still, I let her walk away when she asked for it.
I gave her time to process her thoughts hoping she would come back to me, hoping I would go in the next morning and be able to get back to the girl she was to me- the laughter I had grown to love, the smiles she brought out of me, the kindness she showed me when I had done nothing but be mean since the moment she came, even when I didn’t deserve it.
Time wasn’t a liberty I gave people around me. They danced to my commands and if they didn’t, they paid for it.
Yet, I gave it to her.
I
And I knew I had committed a mistake by letting her walk away that night when I found her room bare the next morning, just the ring- HER ring- shining on the dark sheets of the bed.
She had left.
