Bought For A Baby, Kept For A Lifetime-Chapter 220: Don’t Always Be Soft

Razia quietly left the food cart and excused the couple leaving the room.

Upon hearing Andrew’s hard voice, Anne mistook his words for anger so she quickly raised her hand and wiped her face. She hadn’t even realized she had tears in her eyes when she had done her best to keep her emotions down.

The reason she got out of bed with the aim of going outside was because she had heard Andrew fire the girl who was talking earlier.

If Anne were to be honest, hearing Linda’s words had indeed hurt, but not in the way she had felt offended or held it against the girl, but in a way that it made her realize that it was evident to others that their marriage might not be real.

She had wanted to go out and ask Andrew not to fire the girl because she knew how difficult it was to find a job these days.

She had not been crying specifically because of what Linda said, the reason her eyes suddenly began to water was because her mind thought this was the perfect time to start playing a sad montage of heartbreaking scenes of every moment she spent with Andrew and the very moment she would have to leave his life for good. Those visual images in her mind had caused her to tear up, helpless to her own emotions.

Anne wiped her face once but more tears spilled, she wiped again wanting to open her mouth to say something but no words came out, instead more tears spilled and she quickly covered her face behind her open palms quietly cursing herself for suddenly being so frail and emotional.

She didn’t even hear the approaching footsteps, she only felt that her body had been suddenly swept up into familiar, strong arms filled with warmth. He moved while carrying her for some moment before she felt him settle down as they sunk into the couch still carrying her effortlessly, the tender familiar warmth of being in his arms beckoned to her and she finally pulled her palms away from her tear streaked face but not allowing herself to look up at him, she leaned into him and as she took her next breath, she inhaled his familiar musky scent of whiskey and spice and her eyes closed, subconsciously hiding her face in the crook of his neck as her hand reached out to grab around his shoulders for support.

This moment seemed to stretch for a while and there were no words exchanged, only the tender comfort of their proximity.

His large hand ran up and down her back slowly, in a comforting motion and her breathing slowly began to become steady when she hadn’t even realized that her breathing had been strained due to so much tension in her mind.

Andrew continued to hold her close, his arms protectively encircled around her as he lowered his head and pressed a gentle kiss over her bare shoulder where the baggy sweater she was currently wearing had slipped down revealing her smooth, fair skin.

As some time seemed to pass, he heard her deep exhale of breath and knew she was somewhat calm now.

"Are you feeling better now?" He asked in a low and soothing tone, his voice reverberating around her body like a warm breeze on a summer day.

He felt her fragile fingers tighten around his shirt on his shoulders, and he held her even tighter. His actions were fuelled by instinct, he had never comforted someone else before, never knew how to settle anyone’s emotions when he never allowed himself to have any, but his instinct wanted to make her feel better, wanted to console her and he’d done the first thing that came to mind, he could feel how holding her like this was somewhat comforting to her by how her breathing had calmed, but unexpectedly, holding her like this was making him feel calm too, really calm in a way that made him never want to let go.

"Yes." He heard her soft murmur against his shoulder and the ticklish sensation of her warm breath teased him slightly.

"Something like this won’t happen again, the staff should have learned from what happened today." After quite some moments of silence, he spoke once again feeling the urge to say more to reassure her.

"It’s not about that, all the staff are human and they’re allowed to have opinions of their own." Her reply was somewhat muffled since she was held so tightly against him and she seemed perfectly content to stay where she was, but he heard every word she said. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

"They should have damn opinions if they want to but not about you." He deadpanned and suddenly felt her stiffen in his arms before she slowly pulled back from his embrace. She seemed to avoid his gaze for some reason, choosing to keep her head down rather than look directly at him.

"Actually I don’t want you to fire her, what she said was not okay, but maybe she has a family to feed and needs her job, I’m sure she’ll take this as a warning to not do something like this again."

As Anne said this, Andrew’s brows furrowed in confusion.

"You’re defending her, why?"

"Because I know what it’s like to be in a situation where finding a job proves to be extremely difficult."

He immediately replied, "You’re different from her. Before you start thinking empathetically for someone, try to see if they were the ones who brought misfortune upon themselves. She disrespected you, it was unprofessional of her when she works in your home. Not just me, anyone else would fire her." He spoke in a somewhat reprimanding tone then slowly lowered his voice as he lightly caressed her face, "Don’t always be soft to people, they’ll take advantage of it, understand?"

Her searched her eyes with his gaze until she eventually gave in and nodded.

"Good. You should eat now, I’ll feed you." He said, then without letting her respond set her down next to him and straightened to grab the tray of food from the food cart and returned next to her, taking his seat and immediately began to feed her as if he had no intentions of giving her any room to protest or say no to the food.

He wasn’t forceful, he just refused to give her the chance to turn away from the food.

Anne didn’t know if it was because he offered to feed her, but the appetite she didn’t have all day seemed to suddenly return and she found herself parting her lips to accept the food whenever he brought it forward to feed her, and like that she finished the meal after which Andrew raised his bare finger to wipe off her lips.

This moment, she suddenly felt like his wife. She knew it was dangerous to entertain the idea, but the moment felt too sweet to push away, so she pushed her own thoughts back instead and lived in the present.

Andrew momentarily left her side for some time, going to give the staff some instructions and they came into her room several minutes later carrying some items in bags, they began to quietly change the sheets in her room into cozier and fluffier looking sheets along with some extra pillows for comfort. A large basket filled with snacks kept on her bedside table, they also lit nice smelling candles that filled the room with a sweet soothing fragrance.

As the atmosphere of her bedroom changed, Anne instantly began to feel a lot better.

A few times during the day Andrew would peek into her room, even though it was a rest day at work he still had his phone to his ear most times speaking of business matters, though he couldn’t talk to her most times because he was on the phone she felt like he was asking with his eyes if she was alright and she mostly replied with a smile.

The next morning Anne woke up energetic without the fatigue from the previous day, she still remembered Andrew’s warning about not leaving for work without him so she waited obediently until he came out fully dressed, they didn’t speak much throughout the ride to work until his car stopped at the company’s underground parking lot and they entered the elevator together.

"If you feel tired at anytime you can come to my office, I don’t use my break room, you can rest there."

Anne had been just about to reply when the elevator made an electric ding sound that indicated it had reached the designated floor, the elevator doors opened and Anne realized that they reached her floor so she made to step out of the elevator choosing to drop what she was intending to say to him initially.

"I’ll see you at home in the evening." She said as a form of goodbye and also to let him know she wouldn’t be interacting with him in the office so as not to give away their marriage to anyone else.

At the time Anne was about to step out of the elevator, she felt a shadow of someone coming and immediately turned away pretending she hadn’t been talking to Andrew but as if countering her intentions, Andrew chose to grab her hand at that very moment, stunning her as he suddenly pulled her back into his arms and crushed his mouth to her own, all happening in one swift motion not giving her a chance to speak.

Anne quickly tried to push at his chest, someone was literally standing outside the elevator looking at them at this moment.

Why had he suddenly decided to kiss her right now?

Anne hadn’t seen who it was outside the elevator but Andrew had.

Gabriel.