Bought For A Baby, Kept For A Lifetime-Chapter 162: Wife Only In Name

Anne almost flinched at that gaze. Those eyes seemed to be hiding storms that couldn’t be tamed.

"Go back inside, the wind here is too strong." He spoke nonchalantly, as if he wasn’t affected or hurt by anything but somehow, Anne could feel a silently suppressed pain radiating around him.

Why did he force himself to avoid internal pain?

Why run away from it when it would always be there no matter how much one avoided or denied it? In fact pain hurts more when someone refuses to acknowledge it, the only way one could get rid of it completely was by accepting it’s existence, feeling it, then slowly letting it go.

"If you’re in pain right now, you should let yourself feel it, running away from it will only..."

He suddenly turned a sharp gaze to her, fixing her with those black as night eyes that seemed to burn as if something she’d said was extremely wrong.

"Pain?" He questioned with a furious tone. "Pain is nothing but an illusion that only the weak fall victim to. I don’t feel hurt if that’s what you’re thinking, so save your damn sympathy."

His sudden anger directed at her made Anne feel a small stinging pain in her chest. But the more she looked into his eyes, the more her heart swelled with empathy for him. It felt as if she could see through his walls, tall and unbreakable as they were she could see through them.

His heart was hurting, it had been hurting for a long time but what made him harden this much was because no one had seen his pain, his loneliness. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

She understood him now.

Maybe it was because of the feelings she now had for him, maybe it was because her heart was feeling deeply for him with each passing day but she saw his loneliness now and it made her heart ache.

"No, you’re wrong. You do feel pain, just because you have always closed your heart and refused to feel anything for anyone doesn’t mean you’ve lost the ability to feel. You were once hurt and now you block yourself from feeling anything human not because you’re strong but because you’re scared, you’re scared that if you open up too much you’ll hurt again." She countered his words steadily.

His face suddenly turned stormy. His eyes boring down at her with unbridled fury, but even if he got angry at her, she still wanted to tell him the truth. She wasn’t telling him this because she wanted to annoy him, she merely wanted to help him recognize that it wasn’t wrong to feel this way. He had a rough childhood and that was enough to build a wound in anyone’s heart, but like any wound, the path to healing wasn’t easy, but it had to start somewhere, and he had to start by acknowledging his pain.

His father’s return must have awakened something he’d buried inside him in the past, she’d seen it in his eyes earlier at the dining hall.

"Even if you try to hide it, I see the emotions you keep inside, and that makes you human just like everyone else but I assure you it doesn’t make you weak. The things that happened to you in the past, what your father did was..."

Her words were suddenly silenced by a sudden force that suddenly trapped her, whirling her till her backside pressed against the stone railings of the rooftop. The wind blew her hair rapidly from behind. He cornered her there, gripping her arms so tightly with the force of his anger until it hurt.

Her eyes misted and she stared at him with pained bewilderment. His voice that growled out made a sudden cold fear wash into her whole body,

"Don’t you dare call that man my father! You don’t know half of what you think you do. Nothing and no one in this world can hurt me. You’re wrong, I’m not like everyone else. The pain you’re talking about doesn’t affect me because I don’t give a fuck about anything or anyone, and that is because I’ve done the one thing everyone should have done in their lives. I’ve eliminated all of those darn petty emotions everyone holds so dear and that is my power, it makes me invincible. You think I can get hurt? You’re terribly mistaken." His words were a fierce growl, a sneer hung in his lips showing a faint disdain as he continued.

"It’s only been a few days, don’t tell me you’re starting to forget the fact that you’re my wife only in name. I’m never going to take you or anyone as my wife. Our marriage is bound to end so make sure to stay the hell out of my life! Do you understand?"

His last words were a low warning. As his rage filled voice fell, so did her heart sink painfully down to her stomach.

A tight ache radiated from the left side of her chest, travelling to every part of her that it made her tremble slightly.

Hot tears accumulated in her eyes, glimmering in the sun like fine crystals crafted from heartache.

In that moment, as the clear trace of hurt began to reflect in her eyes, the man’s enraged expression suddenly went stiff.

It felt like the hard demon of rage that had engulfed him only a moment ago began to dissipate.

Slowly, he released his tight grip around her skin, noticing how red the spot had gotten as he slowly began to release her.

His jaw clenched tightly, his hardened gaze slowly softening as he shifted his eyes away from the glistening painful expression on her face as if seeing it scalded him.

Her voice was quiet, almost like a whisper but he heard every word as she said them,

"I’m sorry Mr Sterling, I almost forgot my place. You’re right, I’m not truly your wife and I should never presume to act like one. It was my mistake for stepping over boundaries I should be aware of, from now on I’ll make sure it never happens again."

His eyes snapped back to hers as she continued,

"Whether you’re in pain or not, it doesn’t matter to me. Whether you feel anything or not, it doesn’t matter to me. And someday I’ll disappear from your life like I never existed."

A tear slid down her face just before she slipped away from where he cornered her against the railings.

He didn’t turn to look but he heard every sound of her feet as she ran away.

Slowly, his eyes closed. An expression one could describe as sheer agony took over his rigid features. It was a kind of expression one wouldn’t see on the face of someone who truly felt nothing at all.

But how does a person who’d never let anyone see their pain, suddenly learn to show vulnerability in front of someone else?

Their place of comfort is showing the world that they feel nothing at all, their place of comfort is keeping people at an arm’s length, their place of comfort is to never let anyone in, because eventually, no one truly stays.

.....

"Hey, what happened to you?"

Anne had just stepped out of the elevator that brought her down from the rooftop when someone spoke to her making her stop in her tracks.

Looking up, she found Gabriel Sterling who had a cigarette hung on his lips, he was evidently going somewhere secluded to smoke when he bumped into her.

Having someone in front of her made Anne realize that tears had been pouring down her face. She quickly moved her hands to wipe them off feeling embarrassed that someone actually saw her crying.

"Nothing happened." She said dismissively, not willing to talk to Gabriel, she began to walk past him when he suddenly grabbed her by the elbow stopping her.

"Did you actually think, that you’d be happy with my brother...?"