His Wife (A Contract Marriage Story) by Heer Mangtani

Chapter 42

GABRIEL

I didn’t believe in love.

I wasn’t an arrogant man who thought love didn’t exist, because had seen it firsthand, how love brings the most powerf

men to their knees.

I just

didn’t believe love was made for me.

Love was a weakness, a distraction, a responsibility, a chore.

I loved. I loved my parents and I loved my grandparents in the way every child loves their provider, because of a sense of mediocre comfort they provided. My brother, who was younger to me and didn’t provide me with anything, I loved him. too, by sense of familiarity and looked at him as someone I had to provide for.

That’s what love had always been to me- familiarity and a relationship of providing, either you’re provided for, or you provide for someone.

That’s why I never had any relationships growing up. I slept around, but neither did I make promises, nor did I believe in any girl’s false ones,

And then, Lily came. She was a girl like anyone else- pretty eyes blonde hair, and a body she worked hard to maintain. 1 didn’t intend to keep her around, she just never left. She clung around, letting me do my own thing, insisting all she wanted was friendship.

I didn’t do friendships. I had a group of boys 1 considered brothers, and once that disintegrated, my brother was really the only friend 1 had until he chose a path I couldn’t follow or stop him from. The sense of failing him led me to find comfort in Lily.

She was familiar by then.

Comfort and familiarity- the two things I associated love by.

She never tried making more of a relationship between us, because I didn’t know how. I didn’t know there could be a relationship built by connection,

a lone wolf

Lily. She was a nice girl, really, despite what Zach and Anna, my parents and grandparents think. Yes, we didn’t have any passionate and obsessive feelings between us, because those weren’t needed- for either of us. We had an arrangement that worked perfectly where she

she was sick, but if she was in danger somewhere or by someone, I would shield her. Like I said, I provided. Protection, safety, comfort, money, whatever might be the

company- not knowing Emerald was Her birthstone, really. I didn’t even know the green stone in the middle was an emerald. I was never an appreciator of art or jewellery or anything in between. I know I

I was calculative. Logical.

I saw it a hurdle in

1/3

of the society

12:33 Tue, Jun 4

Chapter 42

me marry

I had to marry

girl I didn’t know, I girl I had no

expensive

but only to those I wanted to provide for willingly. And she was a damsel; holding in tears under a facade of a miserable smile when I first saw her. Of course I wanted her as far away from me as possible, even at the end of

our marriage, standing out like the freckles on her face. Hence, her nickname. Freckles. They remind of stars mapped across her face,

everything to avoid her- business trips, late nights

The worst part? She didn’t look like she was trying to. It was effortless to her, forming a bond with my parents, my grandparents, playing the role of a doting

had ever stood up

mc.

frustrated how easy it was for my mind to forget thoughts of Lily, the girl I had promised to marry at the end of my contract, and

I cornered her in the kitchen

out- left for my trip: without letting her know, but when I came back and saw her smiling in that bar

his mind about my wife. I wanted to kill James if

do the most unspeakable, unholy things

revenge, to do exactly what I had done to him, I realised