His Wife (A Contract Marriage Story) by Heer Mangtani

Chapter 80
When Gabriel got back, it was as if a flip had switched in him. His eyes were distant, cold, angry,
“If I wouldn’t have come here today, I would have never known about my kids?” He demanded.
“Your kids?” I raise my eyebrows. “I carry them for eight months, and they’re suddenly your kids?!”
“You
know what I mean.”
Η
“No, actually, I don’t.” I scowl, “You chose to give me divorce papers. I left you a voicemail telling you I’m pregnant and that
you’re welcome to be a part of the kids’ life and I don’t want anything from you if you don’t want to be around for them.”
“What voicemail?” He asked, cutting off my little rant.
I tried ignoring his curled up fists. “The one I left you, about a month and a half after I left.”
“I didn’t get any voicemail, Sophia.”
I flinch at the coldness in his tone. I called you and you never picked up. I thought maybe it’s because I called from an unknown
number, so I left you a voicemail but I never heard back from you.”
“One voicemail! That’s how you wished to inform me, a voicema?”
I scowl. “You should be thankful I did that, because I didn’t owe it to you after you served me divorce papers and when I called
you, your f*cking ex picked up.”
He takes a deep breath as if he was exasperated, as if it took every ounce of his will power to lean on the wall across me and not
cross the distance between us. “I ran into Lily at a local cafeteria the day before you came home. We accidentally exchanged
phones, and I didn’t even realise it till I wat at my grandfather’s, who told me you were home. And when I rushed home, you were
gone!”

If I hadn’t been manipulated by him before, I would have actually believed him. “Why are you lying to me? What are you going to
get out of it?”
“Freckles... what?” His lips parted, and the way he called me Freckles in that little, surprised gasp hurt. “Why... Why would lie to
you?”
“I don’t know.” I raise my shoulders in a tiny, tired shrug. I saw her call. At my grandfather’s house, I saw the caller I her. You left
me there and had to return because she called. You lied to me about it being a work emergency, and you continued lying to me
all the days I was there. And you’re lying to me now giving me some bullshit story about how sh
you and you accidentally exchanged phones.
into
“Sophia...” he takes quick steps towards me, and stops in his way when I squeeze myself further aback into the chair, not
wanting to be close to him. He takes a deep breath. “I didn’t.. I wasn’t...” He stutters.
I shake my head.
He goes on, “You’re right, I did get a call from Lily. The only reason I didn’t tell you that was because you were grieving your
grandfather and I didn’t want to upset you more. But I didn’t he to you. I didn’t come back for her. It was my grandfather on the
other end, calling from Lily’s phone. He called me back. He was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. I spent the three days that you
weren’t there flying to the best oncologist in America, and then meeting Lily’s uncle Dr. Michael Grant at that cafe because if the
paparazzi would’ve snapped me at his clinic, it would’ve been a PR disaster. That’s why I met him at the cafeteria and that’s
where I met Lily. She just wanted to know if was leaving you and going back to her, and I told her no, She left. That’s all.
I blink, processing every word he said. Unable to find a proper response, I settle on, “Alister has cancer?”
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III
Chapter 80
“A contract marriage,” he corrects me. “A means to an end. But you because so much more than that to me, Freckles.” His
hands, shaking as they were, hold mine.

I ignore the way my hands burn under his touch, how a simple touch ignites a fire in me that I thought was long dead. “I will
never leave you,” He promises.
“It’s too little too late, Gabriel,” I raise my shoulders. “I spent the entire time of our marriage scared that I would fall for you and
you would leave me for Lily. I was always so terrified of you leaving me that I didn’t realise that me leaving you was an option
too.”
“You have lied to me from the start, Gabriel. You became everything I dreamt of in a man while there was a girl waiting for you.
You knew it, and you let me fall for you any way, the consequences be dam*ed. And I was so crazy for you by the time I found
out, I lived with any pieces you offered. You didn’t even tell Lily that you wanted to stay with me till our six months ended. I was
insecure all the time. I was left feeling foolish and rive at the end of it” Tears I was holding break free silently. “So, Gabriel, I don’t
care if you don’t want to leave me now; because I’m leaving you.”
I took my hands off him and got up and walked away, just like he had done to me six months ago in my grandfather’s house.
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