Chapter 73: Chapter 73

“I am not running away.” She replied looking annoyed as hell. He was turning everything around her that should have been answered by him. He did not seem even a tiny bit embarrassed. She was a fool to think that he would be guilty or at least, apologize to her.

He was acting like a douchebag. He was arrogant and all, but she felt like he had changed n that one month. When before he accepted his mistakes most of the time, now he was not doing that. It was making her mad.

“Then stay.” He said simply. It was not a request. It, once again, sounded more like an order. She kept glaring at him without saying anything.

“Look, there are hardly eight months left for the contract. We have important events to attend and my grandpa had become suspicious about why I had been away for a long time. It is about time we took this contract seriously.” He said trying to make her see sense while she looked at him like he had lost all senses.

He was still leaning close to her face while he had both arms around her on the wall. He was trying for his stare not to leave her face and travel downward since he would lose all self-control. She was still in her lingerie. He realized that she was probably not even aware of her state at that moment. She was quite a shy type of person. She usually dressed modestly. That was why he was surprised to find her in lingerie.

But looking at her face did not preserve his self-control like he wanted to. Her eyes, lips, cheeks everything was tempting him to act, especially when she looked so feisty. He had truly missed her, everything about her.

And now, he had to try not to play with his self-control. It was so hard—so freaking hard with her standing there half-naked.

“Is that my problem? YOU left the house. YOUR grandpa is suspicious. What does it have to do with me?” She raised her hands in utter disbelief, “I am not some damage control card you could pull and play. Man up and own your shit yourself.” She was exasperated. Until now, she had believed that she might have been at fault for the whole situation. There he was! Putting everything on her when it was not her who had disappeared without a word for the whole month.

“Okay, this is going nowhere.” He said tiredly as he let out a sigh and stepped away from her space. He turned so he could not look at her gorgeous face or her delicious body. She let out a breath she did not know she was holding. Sharing a tiny space with him was never comfortable for her. His proximity made her feel things she did not want to, especially when his lips looked so soft and his eyes looked so deep and mesmerizing. But at that time, there were more pressing matters to solve than to give in to her indecent thoughts. She was proud of herself for not acting on impulse.

She folded her arms and looked at him with a glare.

“I am glad your thick head finally could get that I am not going to back away from my decision.” She said stubbornly rolling her eyes at him.

“I did not say you were allowed to decide by yourself. Now that I am back, I am the one who is going to decide what we should do.” He turned around and said persistently leaving her bewildered. What the hell did he want from her?

Why was he being so authoritative? He knew very well just how much she hated that about him. He had no right to act that way toward her after everything he did to her.

“I am not going to---” She was about to argue again when he glared at her with eyes so red that she was afraid they were going to pop out.

“Shut up!” He roared stopping her midway. She could not continue her sentence as she saw a side of him he had never, ever seen before.

Was it the same Thomas she had known before? Was it the same person who had been so nice to her on their honeymoon? Was it the same guy who took such great care of her mother’s surgery? Was it the same person she had started developing feelings for?

While he was never the perfect guy, he was not this disrespectful toward her.

She continued looking at him with a shocked expression. His expression did not change neither did his glare.

“I have done my part by taking care of your mother’s surgery. Now, it is your time to do yours. We had a contract for one year, didn’t we? I won’t let you back off of this right after my part had been performed. That is morally and legally unacceptable. I won’t let that happen.” He said with a sharp tone that could cut stone.

Her eyes were fixated on his face, and her feet were frozen in the same spot she had been standing beside the wall. She felt like she could not breathe.

What he said was right one way or another, but why did it hurt so bad?

She had never thought about backing off of her commitments. She never thought about putting a full stop to the contract when his part of the contract was done. She was not going to leave forever. She just thought to take a break from everything for a while as things have already taken a toll on her mental and physical health.

However, he put it in such a nasty way which shocked her to no end. And his tone… He was never that rude to her. She was not used to that tone. It hurt.

He kept standing there and looking at her waiting for her reply which he never got. It was as if she had seen a ghost.

He waited and waited, his expressions changing with each second. It got softer with each passing second. It was too late though. He had already caused the damage.

Her chest was rising and falling quickly as she tried to control her breathing.

“Olivia, I—” He tried to say when she put a hand in front of him to stop him. She was not in the mood to hear anything else after what he said. She did not think she could ever forget his words and his tone. Right then, she hated his voice. She detested his presence.

He got quiet after that. He remained unmoving when she quietly went out of the room and closed the door behind her.

She leaned against the door as she tried to even her breathing. A tear rolled down her cheek on its own accord. She did not want to appear weak, but there she was shedding tears because of the tone he used on her.

And his words…they sounded so offensive. They played in her head like a broken record. She never thought a few hurtful words out of his mouth could have such a big effect on her. but they did.

She stabled her thoughts and made herself walk toward the other room beside Thomas’s room which was a guest room.

Sometimes life became so stuck. She did not know what choices she had at that moment if she had a choice at all. He had told her clearly what he thought of her.

She was a fool for having a tiny bit of hope that things would be alright once he returned. Rather, everything had gotten more complicated. She did not have any hope or optimism left for their situation.

She could take anything, not disrespect. Her self-respect was very important to her and he had time and again targeted the same thing she had always treasured the most.

She lay on the bed after locking the door. She did not want him to come and do damage control after what he did and said to her.

‘He would not come, don’t worry. He doesn’t care.’ Her subconscious reminded her of the bitter truth.

She was not expecting him to do that nor did she want that. There was nothing he could say or do that would make everything better again. She closed her eyes as a painful headache engulfed her head. She was not going to get any sleep.

Thomas’s P.O.V:

“Fuck! I fucked up once again.” He chanted the sentence again and again after she left. He had never hated himself more than he did at that moment.

When he came back, he expected her not to talk to him at all, but she did. He expected her to call him names or insult him for leaving her, but she did not.

What he did not expect was her plan to leave the house. She was so unpredictable.

When he saw how calm she was, he tried to softly make her understand that she could not leave like that. She was being so stubborn though. He hated arguing with someone, and she pushed him to do the same thing.

He was tired. He had not been sleeping properly or taking care of himself for the whole month he was away from her. He never thought he could be capable of being so miserable when he was always the rough-and-tough guy everybody knew. He was a completely changed person when it came to her.

However, she did not see that. She was just focused on how much she had suffered when he had suffered just as much.

But he should not have behaved in such a dick way. He should not have told her to shut up or use that stupid harsh tone on her. He should not have reminded her about her duties in such a harsh way when he had been sulking just as much.

Now, she was once again hurt and he was the reason.

To be honest, he had thought of freeing her from the contract multiple times when he was living alone for the past month. He could see how her life had been affected after getting into the contracted marriage with him. Nevertheless, he could not bring himself to do that.

He had become so much used to her being part of his life that he could not do that. He could not even think of doing that as much as she knew that she was suffering.

And now, he had added more suffering for her on top of everything. He remembered clearly how hurt she looked.

“Fuck everything. Fuck me.” He yelled out loud as he grabbed his head. He had come to make everything better after the lesson he had learned the other night, but what happened?