Bought For A Baby, Kept For A Lifetime-Chapter 201: Enough

"What?" In her confusion, Anne blurted.

"Simple question, simple answer Annelise. Where have you been?"

She suddenly felt like a school girl under a strict teacher’s scrutiny. Even with the distance between them with him sitting in the arm chair and her very nearly reaching the stairs his eyes still took her in from head to toe as if assessively trying to ascertain where she had gone to just with his eyes.

"I asked you a question first, you didn’t answer me, so why should I answer you? You’re making things difficult for me at work, talking to me in front of everyone, and taking my scarf, what were you trying to do?" Maybe the boldness decided to suddenly spring up on her out of nowhere but she countered his question despite feeling her heart wavering slightly on the inside. She spoke back to him so boldly, one would almost believe she wasn’t at all intimidated by him.

Just as her words fell, what she dreaded happened. He rose from his seat, standing at an intimidating height which became more apparent as he stalked towards her, usually she would subconsciously feel the urge to back up away from him, but somehow she didn’t want to him to see that she was intimidated by him, not tonight when she had just spoken so boldly to him, so she stood her ground even until he reached her.

"I do what I want, when I want, I’ll damn well talk to you in front of a thousand people watching if I wish to." When he was close enough to her, he gritted in a low menacing voice that rumbled against her entire being like thunder.

"But the contract states that we are going to live separate lives, this marriage will never be known by the outside world and you are..."

"Contract this, contract that, don’t you ever get fucking tired of always mentioning the damn contract?" He snarled, his pitch gravely infuriated.

"What else is between us other than that contract?" She raised her voice without meaning to, she just couldn’t understand him, his actions were confusing her immensely.

She was a contract wife, a contract surrogate and she was nothing more than that to him. It was very clear to her, but she couldn’t help but feel like lately, he was disregarding the contract and that wasn’t good for her mind.

As her voice fell he averted his gaze to the side as if controlling something within himself, she saw how his jaw worked, clenching and unclenching momentarily as if he were gritting his teeth.

The silent tension of this moment seeped into the room like poison gas, invisible and suffocating. What started as a mild exchange of words seemed to have awakened several emotions.

To be honest, Anne hadn’t intended to take it this far, to upset him, but deep inside she was struggling, struggling to keep her heart in a safe place when it had clearly fallen for him.

"I’m not tired of mentioning the contract because that was how this whole thing started. I walked into this place months ago because I was desperately in need of the money, I sold off my first child to you all for that money, I know what kind of person you think I am just because of that and I don’t blame you for it, so just like you said to me, let’s keep to the terms of the contract. I’m just your contracted wife, nothing more."

Her last words seemed to hit him heavily, she thought she saw a subtle flinch to his shoulders. His eyes were not cold, but they suddenly burned with a turbulent fire she had never seen before.

He parted his mouth to speak with the burning fury in his eyes but seemed to stop himself, in the end he turned his back to her like a clear indication that their conversation was over. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Anne stared at his proud back for a while, for some reason, her eyes stung with unshed tears and she suddenly felt the urge to cry.

Suppressing that urge that had come out of nowhere she began to make her way towards the stairs to quietly go upstairs into her room and let whatever emotion choking her heart out when a deeply low voice stopped her steps,

"You’re wrong, I don’t think badly of you...that night you sold yourself to me out of desperation, think me a monster if you want to but don’t ever presume I view you in a terrible light."

Anne whose steps had halted lingered in place for a moment before turing back in his direction, for no reason she could point out, a burst of anger welled up in her chest like a suffocating weight sitting against her throat which wouldn’t go away until she let it out so she stalked back towards him.

"Then tell me, how exactly do you think of me?"

He whirled to face her and despite the fact that his eyes always intimidated her, she continued,

"Do you see me as a saint? A noble person? You don’t expect me to believe that do you? Ever since you met me you’ve always made it clear how badly you thought of me, should I mention a few things you’ve said to me before?

I know your type of woman, women like you would do anything for money." Anne quoted one of the things he once said to her and she visibly saw a strange emotion tighten his brows together and he quickly turned away from her.

She couldn’t see the biting regret that visibly marred his face, he closed his eyes tightly feeling a sharp ache assault his chest.

"Your goal has always been to nab one of the Sterling sons for your own benefits, and since the great Andrew Sterling didn’t fall for your trap you chose a second option instead. Girls like you disgust me." She quoted another one of his own words, and it cut him sharply from deep within but she didn’t stop.

The more she spoke, the more the invisible chains around his heart tightened even more painfully. The agony was too overwhelming that he uttered in a low voice,

"Enough."

Had he truly said all those things to her?

Hearing everything he had once said to her coming from her, he realized how much his past words must have hurt her to hear. In the past he had judged her without any basis and he had no right to do that to her, he suddenly realized this blazing feeling in his heart was self reproach, self hatred.

"Enough? But there’s so much more. You say you don’t think of me badly but every single thing you’ve said to me in the past says otherwise. Everytime you used to make it clear to me that you saw me as nothing more than a gold digger, you hated me because I signed a damn contract with you..."

"That’s enough." The words were a low growl, a warning from a man on the edge. She didn’t know the inner turmoil her words were causing inside of him.

In the past he said things to her to avoid himself from sitting with the feelings she brought out of him, but now he could feel the pain of the words he said and it was unbearable.

"No it’s not enough, I need you to tell me just why you always..."

Everything suddenly went silent in an instant.

His sharp movement had been a swift decisive closing of the distance between them. One second he was a few feet away and the next she was grabbed so forcefully, so powerfully her body could have melted in his grasp. The words she had been about to utter silenced by a hard force clashing against her mouth.

He kissed her, stealing the remaining words from her lips.