Bought For A Baby, Kept For A Lifetime-Chapter 233: Your Personal Possession?

In a single moment she was caged in warmth, his embrace felt like a safe place she never wanted to leave.

For a second, her hands moved to hold him back but they halted on their own as an immense fear suddenly rushed through her.

One would hurt in equal amounts as one had felt joy, she would break a hundred and thousand times equal to how much joy she was feeling from being in his arms. She would hurt a thousand times more.

Instead of wrapping her arms around him, Anne pushed against his chest pulling away from his embrace.

It was astonishing how rigid and harsh the man was, yet he never forced her to do anything she didn’t want to. He would touch her only with her consent, hold her with her consent and let her go when she wished.

"Haven’t you been crossing the line a lot lately Mr Sterling?" Anne’s expression had gone cold, there was neither a trace of anger or pain, it had all been hidden behind a mask she conjured to cover up how she really felt because she had come to realize that it was best to not build up memories that would hurt her if she thought back to it by the time she would leave this marriage.

He kissed her, touched her and all of those became special memories for her but perhaps not for him. She was the one who would be hurt not him, so it was up to her to protect her own feelings.

Anne raised her gaze to meet his eyes that now stared at her with a fierce light of bewilderment in their dark depths.

"Mr Sterling? Since when have I told you to address me by my name?"

"It doesn’t matter what I call you! And frankly nothing matters, you told me not to cross the line, so why are you the one constantly crossing that line? We got married but there are rules, you shouldn’t kiss me, touch me or even sleep with me but you do all that."

"What the hell are you talking about? I don’t give a fuck about some damn rules." He grounded out between gritted teeth, it was evident he was growing upset.

"But I do, you set those rules yourself and you used them to keep me at an arm’s length. Kissing me and touching me or even holding me is what happens in real marriages, and our marriage isn’t even real!"

"Who cares about what’s real or what’s fake? I want you and you’re right here, that’s all that fucking matters to me." If she hadn’t grown comfortable around him during this span of time, the tough, frightening tone of his voice would have scared her. She knew she had angered him in this moment, but she wasn’t willing to back down and stay quiet.

"You wanting me is not enough to make it okay for you to hold me whenever you want to."

Anne suddenly felt like she was having a pointless argument with him, but how else could she make him understand without blatantly telling him that she was in love with him and he wouldn’t accept that.

He scoffed lightly, frustratedly running his fingers through his hair while maintaining a single moment of silence. He looked worked up in a way Anne had never witnessed before. And she couldn’t help but think back to the moment he just said he wanted her and that was all that mattered to him.

He wanted her...

She hadn’t been surprised to hear that, perhaps because she could feel the ardent desire whenever he kissed her, whenever he touched her, but wanting her was the same as pure lust, it wasn’t love.

Him being close to her was acting based on the feeling of desire.

She suddenly felt that pain in her heart intensify.

"Then tell me, do you hate it when I come close to you?" His voice had lowered now as he broke the silence. He asked her this question with a strange amount of calmness she knew his usual temperamental nature didn’t possess.

Answering honestly to his question, Anne shook her head slowly.

She didn’t hate having him close, she wanted him near, but she couldn’t continue to want that, it was a very complicated feeling.

"Then what the hell is the problem with me wanting to hold you?" This time he seemed to have a hard time keeping the anger from leaking through his voice but he controlled it best as he could.

"The contract..." She had only just begun when he cut her off.

"To hell with the damn contract!" He seemed to have lost his temper at this point as he grabbed her by the shoulders controlling his rage from showing through as he gripped her with minimal force but his dark eyes were sparkling like two live wires touched against one another causing sparks of rage. "Do I have to destroy that damn contract before you stop talking about it every damn time?"

Anne wished destroying the contract would be all it took. But destroying the contract wouldn’t mean him loving her.

"It doesn’t matter if the contract is destroyed, it wouldn’t change that whatever we have is one big lie that will end someday."

"What if I don’t want it to end?" He muttered lowly, so low she almost thought it was an illusion that passed by her ears. It was hugely different from how rigid and angry his voice had sounded just a while ago and it almost melted her.

She stared up at him into his eyes silently for a while, it was almost as if she wished his words meant what her heart wanted them to mean. Their gazes were fixatedly locked in this moment, sharing a silent connection that words couldn’t speak.

I don’t want our paths crossing to just be a passing wind, an encounter that has a beginning and an end, I want it to be a work of fate, so intricately woven I was meant to be in your life and you were meant to be in mine. I want you to hold me because I mean something to you enough that you want my heart in exchange for yours, I want every second we spent together to be a memory in your mind just like it is in mine. But this is too much to ask for...

Those words were silent thoughts in her head, in reality...

Anne smiled bitterly, lowering her eyes breaking the silent connection in their short lived locked gazes.

"Then what happens after that, you keep me with you as what? Your personal possession?"

His fingers which held around her shoulders suddenly let her go, he released her so abruptly, his expression shifting in a single instance. The momentary look of warmth in his eyes suddenly faded away as if it had never been there in the first place. His dark eyes suddenly went rigid, looking so distant as if there had never been thawed of a millennial aged ice.

What she just said seemed to have hit a part of him she didn’t know existed, and his withdrawal brought up an ache in her chest, seeing his eyes lose a hint of light. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Suddenly seeing such a change in a man who had shown warmth around her, Anne felt pain harsher than any she’d ever felt in her heart. Regret suddenly rushed into her, and the reason for this argument faded into the back of her mind.

All she could see was him slowly pulling away from her, he was never hers, but she would much rather see his warmth everyday than this part of him that had once been. But it was already too late, before Anne could say anything to rectify her mistake he had already turned, striding out of her room and letting the door shut with a loud bang.

That sound echoed in Anne’s mind over and over again a long time after he’d left.