Bought For A Baby, Kept For A Lifetime-Chapter 254: There Is No Pain

She couldn’t stop her face from heating up, unable to take the tension from being pinned under such a sinfully hot gaze, Anne pulled back, clearing her throat as she pretended to stare at the view instead.

"I came here because I wanted to thank you." Anne started in a soft voice, she wasn’t looking at him at the moment so she didn’t know what his expression looked like.

"I used to be so scared, I used to wonder if...if he’ll ever wake up and if he never did, I wouldn’t have anything else to keep living for..."

He frowned as she said this, though she couldn’t see it.

"I was ready to lay down my life for his. You gave him back to me." As she said this, she turned back to him. "I want to thank you for giving my life back to me."

He was quiet for a long time, staring into her eyes with an unfathomable emotion in his gaze, "Why would you give your life to someone else?" He suddenly asked, "Love, or stupidity?"

She heard curiosity in his question, and knowing Andrew to be who he was, he probably didn’t understand emotions that could go that deeply. That was what she thought, but in reality he looked into his future, envisioned going forward and if she was no longer in his life...

Just thinking about it, what he saw was bitter, lonely and painful, it was as if he had gotten accustomed to his heart feeling this way for her and he wanted to have a right to be in her life just like this brother of hers did.

There were mixed feelings inside him, there was this feeling of elation that he had given her back the most important person in her life, but then there was bitterness that someone else held a very important place in her heart and he didn’t.

Jealousy, that was how he felt. He felt jealous and he had never wanted to have what someone else had in his life until now.

"Some people call it stupidity, but only people who don’t have someone they deeply care about. Some people say it’s giving your life and happiness to someone else, but there’s no essence in life if it’s in solitude, our instincts taught us to love, and love means everything. If you deeply care for someone, giving your life for them wouldn’t feel stupid, it’s just what love is. You feel pain at the thought of your loved one’s pain, you want to take their pain for yourself, if you put love into logic it’ll always sound stupid but there’s no choice, loving someone makes life have more meaning. Family, friends, and a special person." Anne explained these words patiently. She honestly didn’t know if her words would make sense to him or if he would understand them at all.

She just told him her opinion and what she felt translated that feeling the most.

"Have you..." A question came to Anne’s mind and she hesitated to ask it, but then she forcefully pushed away the hesitation and asked anyway,

"Have you ever loved someone before?"

He took one step, then two, moving closer to her until there was barely any distance left between them. Her heart became chaotic and her breathing became heavy.

"What do you think Annelise?" He breathed in a lowered tone, patiently searching her eyes for how she would reply.

The way he was looking at her in this moment was making her heart forget how to function. She felt a sudden rush of warmth inside her and she couldn’t escape his gaze which entrapped her.

"Tell me Annelise, do you think I’ve loved someone or not?"

"I..."

"Yes? Tell me." He urged softly leaning even closer until she could feel the warmth of his breath against the harsh cold.

"I know that years ago, someone you loved deeply walked away from your life."

The story of how he was abandoned by his mother in the past still made her heart ache if she thought about it. It was a kind of pain one would never forget for the rest of their life.

At Anne’s answer, he suddenly stiffened. Anne saw how his eyes suddenly clouded as if her answer was something completely different from what he expected. He suddenly pulled away, turning his back to Anne’s direction as if hiding something on his face he didn’t want her to see.

"So you know about that." He said unfeelingly, there was that usual nonchalance and a hint of anger in his tone that Anne used to be afraid of, but somehow she wasn’t scared anymore.

"I know. And I also know that it’s a wound no one can heal from easily."

"It’s in my past. What makes you think it still bothers me? If there was a wound I’ve healed from it so don’t look at me like you feel sorry for me because some damn woman left me."

His words caused her heart to ache for him even more. He wasn’t trying to push her away, he was just hiding his pain from her.

In Andrew’s heart, she was the person he cared about. The part of him that led that woman to despise him enough to reject him and discard him from her life, if Anne saw that, would she hate him too?

"If it doesn’t hurt why aren’t you looking at me right now? Isn’t that because you want to hide your pain?" Anne asked even as he had turned his back to her.

She saw his hands clench and unclench at his sides before he suddenly whirled around to face her. His jaw was rigid and he looked straight into her eyes like a man who couldn’t be hurt or affected.

"I already told you Annelise, there is no pain."

Her eyes reflected a subtle ache she felt deep inside. Maybe this was what loving someone did, it made his agony unbearable even to her, but what made it hurt more was the fact that this hardened man she was seeing had been born out of that sheer agony. Slowly she raised her hand towards him and touched his face, resting her palm against his cheek.

Andrew went taut at the sudden contact, a look of confusion in his dark eyes.

The kind of gentle touch felt extremely foreign to him, no one had touched him with such warmth, such sympathy. Her hand was like a soothing balm against his face. There was a thorn currently prickling deep in his heart, the thorn felt like it was wrapped in burning fire, hot and scalding it burned.

It had been so many years since he allowed himself feel the pain whenever the past was brought up, he would suppress it, push it back and toss it far away, but the look in her eyes just now had made that pain win against his rigid will.

But her touch assuaged the pain, like a balm reaching straight to his heart.

"Annelise." He muttered her name huskily, a deep longing in his voice.