Chapter 80
When Gabriel got back, it was as if a flip had switched in him. His eyes were distant, cold, angry.
“If I wouldn’t have come here today, I would have never known about my kids?” He demanded.
“Your kids?” I raise my eyebrows. “I carry them for eight months, and they’re suddenly your kids?!”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, actually, I don’t, I scowl, “You chose to give me divorce papers. I left you a voicemail telling you I’m pregnant and that you’re welcome to be a part of the kids‘ life and I don’t want anything from you if you don’t want to be around for them.”
“What voicemail?” He asked, cutting off my little rant.
I tried ignoring his curled up fists. “The one I left you, about a month and a half after I left.”
“I didn’t get any voicemail, Sophia.”
I flinch at the coldness in his tone. “I called you and you never picked up. I thought maybe it’s because I called from an unknown number, so I left you a voicemail but I never heard back from you.”
“One voicemail? That’s how you wished to inform me, a voicemail?”
I scowl. “You should be thankful I did that, because I didn’t owe it to you after you served me divorce papers and when I called you, your f**king ex picked up.”
He takes a deep breath as if he was exasperated, as if it took every ounce of his will power to lean on the wall across me and not cross the distance between us. “I ran into Lily at a local cafeteria the day before you came home. We accidentally exchanged phones, and I didn’t even realise it till I was at my grandfather’s, who told me you were home. And when I rushed home, you were gone!”
If I hadn’t been manipulated by him before, I would have actually believed him. “Why are you lying to me? What are you going to get out of it?”
“Freckles… what?” His lips parted, and the way he called me Freckles in that little, surprised gasp hurt. “Why… Why would I lie to you?”
“I don’t know.” I raise my shoulders in a tiny, tired shrug. “I saw her call. At my grandfathers house, I saw the caller ID. It was her. You left me there and had to return because she called. You lied to me about it being a work emergency, and you continued lying to me all the days I was there. And you’re lying to me now giving me some bullshit story about how she ran into you and you accidentally exchanged phones.”
“Sophia…” he takes quick steps towards me, and stops in his way when I squeeze myself further aback into the chair, not wanting to be close to him. He takes a deep breath. “I didn’t.. I wasn’t…” He stutters.
I shake my head.
He goes on, “You’re right, I did get a call from Lily. The only reason I didn’t tell you that was because you were grieving your
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Chapter 80
grandfather and I didn’t want to upset you more. But I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t come back for her. It was my grandfather on the other end, calling from Lily’s phone. He called me back. He was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. I spent the three days that you weren’t there flying to the best oncologist in America, and then meeting Lily’s uncle Dr. Michael Grant at that cafe because if the paparazzi would’ve snapped me at his clinic, it would’ve been a PR disaster. That’s why I met him at the cafeteria and that’s where I met Lily. She just wanted to know if I was leaving you and going back to her, and I told her no. She left. That’s all.”
I blink, processing every word he said. Unable to find a proper response, I settle on, “Alister has cancer?”
Gabriel’s lips purse and he gives a small nod. “They caught it early. He doesn’t need chemotherapy. They did a surgery and he’s recovering just okay.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to.” His voice softens, as do his eyes. “When I got to know this, the first person I wanted to tell was you. Every call, it sat on my tongue. But Jim just died, and I wanted to give you a moment to process that before telling you Alister had cancer too.”
“There’s a picture,” I tell him, my head spinning. I couldn’t believe I was finding a way to believe what he was saying. “You and Lily in a cafe, you’re reaching out to hold her hand.”
“I’ve seen that picture.” The muscle in his jaw tightens again. “I reached to her to grab my phone before leaving. And I paid a hefty amount to wipe that picture off the net.”
“I saw it before you could do that, I guess.” My voice was so low, even I barely heard it. I look at him. “What about the phone
call?”
“What call?”
“I just told you, I called you when I found the divorce papers because I didn’t want to believe it..”
He cut me off. ‘Lily had my phone, that’s how she picked up and then wiped the call logs so I never find out.” A sinister anger coated his voice, and if I wasn’t sure that it wasn’t aimed at me, I would’ve long scurried out of this room.
“No. The second time.”
“The second time?”
“Mh–hm.” I nod. “I called, and you picked up.”
“Me?”
“You.“‘
Gabriel scowls. “And what did I say?”
Sunn eiv manthe ann I remembered it like it was
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Chapter 80
begs.
“Then who was It, Gabriel?”
- I would
“This is Lily’s doing, Freckles. You’ve got to believe me. I would never have left you. I would never abandon youor my kids.”
“Didn’t you once tell me you were just twelve when you realised this whole mundane thing is not made for you? That it’s boring and…” My voice fades.
“But with you? It is.” He simply replies, covering the steps between us. He sits on his knees in front of my chair, careful to not touch me. “If you want to be mundane? I’ll be mundane. I’ll be anyone and anything you want, Sophia. I don’t know about that phone call, but I will find out. I will prove my innocence to you, I promise.”
“What about the divorce papers?” I ask, ignoring the pain in my chest, the dizziness in my head.
+time was
“I ordered my lawyer to make them when we got married and signed our first contract. The only thing I felt that time suffocated because I was bound in a marriage I didn’t want.”
“An unwanted marriage.” I repeat, trying not to scoff.
A contract marriage,” he corrects me. “A means to an end. But you because so much more than that to me, Freckles.” His hands, shaking as they were, hold mine.
ignore the way my hands burn under his touch, how a simple touch ignites a fire in me that I thought was long dead. “I will never leave you,” He promises.
It’s too little too late, Gabriel.” I raise my shoulders. “I spent the entire time of our marriage scared that I would fall for you and you would leave me for Lily. I was always so terrified of you leaving me that I didn’t realise that me leaving you was an option too.”
You have lied to me from the start, Gabriel. You became everything I dreamt of in a man while there was a girl waiting for
- ou. You knew it, and you let me fall for you any way, the consequences be damned. And I was so crazy for you by the time found out, I lived with any pieces you offered. You didn’t even tell Lily that you wanted to stay with me till our six months -nded. I was insecure all the time. I was left feeling foolish and naive at the end of it.” Tears I was holding break free ilently. “So, Gabriel, I don’t care if you don’t want to leave me now; because I’m leaving you.”
took my hands off him and got up and walked away, just like he had done to me six months ago in my grandfather’s
ouse.
SEND GIFT
