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.

her out to fancy restaurants she liked, posed with her for pictures when she wanted, sent her gifts I knew she’d appreciate. She never tried making

a lone

obsessive feelings between us, because those weren’t needed- for either of us. We had an

would probably not lose sleep if she was sick, but if she was in danger somewhere or by someone, I would shield her. Like

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 was

I was calculative. Logical.

saw it a

1/3

fit into the norms of the society when my grandfather told me he wouldn’t

12:33 Tue, Jun 4

Chapter 42

me marry

had

didn’t know, I

was ordinary, a misfit standing in the expensive wedding gown and loads of make up and dark

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 the hallway on the other side wasn’t far enough until I walked to her room and

realised that day. She wasn’t a damsel She was determined to shine through the darkness of our marriage, standing out like the freckles on her face. Hence, her nickname. Freckles. They

everything to avoid her- business

crept her way into my life so easily, it baffled me. 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 wife in public, and standing

had ever stood up to

mc.

of Lily, the girl I had promised to marry at the end of my contract,

till I cornered her in the kitchen and kissed

the want for more never left. So I took the coward’s way out- left for my trip: without letting her know, but

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

sit on my lap and do

an opportunity for a revenge, to do exactly what I had done