Chapter 114 Clear-Cut Rejection
The fatality of his gaze stole her breaths away, the piercing eyes staring into her soul left her numb.
Lifting her infuriated gaze upward, she glared back with disappointment.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Holding his wrist to rip it from her throat, she pushed him back.
“You can’t lock me in the room like these… things. No, I won’t let you. This is wrong!”
Enunciating strictly, she pushed her hair back as an indication of her distress and turned to leave.
William’s jaw clenched when her back faced him, crumbling his barely existence composure.
Growling at the way she dismissed the matter, his steps hastened.
“I can and that is what I want.”
Snaking his one muscular arm around her midsection, lifting her up from the ground slightly to roughly yank her in his body.
Her body shivered at the unforeseen action, sensing his hard, frantic pulse along with heavy hot breaths on her neck.
“Be grateful, I am not strictly complying with it.”
Securing their locked bodies on the wall, ensuring she would etch this sight of being imprisoned in his proximity into her soul.
“Else caging you in the room not a problem for me as long as I have imprisoned this body and soul,”
Shutting her eyes, she whimpered, struggling to leave but he pressed himself harder, implanting a wet kiss on her neck while resting his head against hers.
One hand in the middle to lock their bodies, other harshly holding her jaw, forcing her head to maintain the keen eye-contact.
“William, I am your wife, a human. I am not a collection, I am not a thing. Don’t treat me like this, please,”
Desperately shrinking her eyes, Arabella struggled to free herself while pleading in a whisper that failed to evoke a single reaction.
“Oh, yes, you are. My chattel and won’t ever be beyond that,”
To his hissing, she used a quick movement, ripping his hands off and faced him sorrowfully. Held-back tears spilled as she grabbed the collar of his shirt agonizingly.
“Stop it! Why don’t you try to understand?! I am your WIFE!”
He also held his wrists, placing her firmly against the cold wall.
“Give me one reason to consider you beyond a thing, dammit!”
Holding the ability to carry the pain of silence anymore.
Of being unheard, unseen, and especially ‘unloved’ by him, she decided to pour her emotions into her confession.
She broke.
“I LOVE YOU, DAMMIT!”
“NO, YOU DON’T!”
He punched the wall right beside her head, the impact bruising his knuckles instantly. Recoiled, as if struck. The visible veins on his face pulsed as he panted heavily.
Three words.
Three clear-cut, harsh words were enough to destroy her heart. She flinched, stepping back, hugging herself in utter disbelief.
‘Did he really… just straight up rejected me?’ She thought with tears silently rolling down her cheek.
The pain stabbed her soul, purloining life from her core, consuming a few moments to register the depth of his wrath.
With tears, she looked at William in expectation: ‘Please spare me some mercy, William,’
He simply took a deep breath in order to grasp his slipping composure that he covered up with another heartbreaking statement.
“You just don’t have anyone to call yours. You are a love-deprieved and desperate woman who will jump to any option available.”
Curling his hand on the wall in a rigid fist that turned his knuckles white, he sharply looked away, responding in a softer tone.
“You don’t love me…. You never did nor will,”
All her devotion, for a moment, felt meaningless, “W- What?”
“You were never loyal to either Luke or me! I am sure if anyone will shower you with more affection than me, you will leave me too!” He yelled.
His voice cracking as a tear powerlessly rolled down his cheek when recalling the day his world shattered.
She panicked, “No, I won’t-”
“YES, YOU WILL! You did the same with Luke too!” He yelled, covering his mouth with his hand instantly to not emit an anguish-filled wail.
“Wh-What did I do?” She trembled, failing to comprehend what he meant.
Holding her elbows harshly, William brought her dangerously closer. After endless attempts, a cry liberated, breaking into a miserable cry.
“The time he started treated your right, you neglected my companionship, you forgot how ‘I’ was there for you always AND YET YOU BECAME HIS FUCKING GIRLFRIEND!”
Her eyes widened with incredulity. It was not a perspective she expected him to have. Her heart hammered, as if it would burst.
“CAN YOU UNDERSTAND MY HEARTBREAK?! TO FIND THE WOMAN I WAS ABOUT TO PROPOSE SAYING YES TO MY FUCKING BROTHER!?”
A tear simultaneously rolled down their cheeks, mixing their breaths to fill the dead muteness of the room.
Overwhelmed by disappointment, William broke the link and sobbed a little.
Arabella could feel her heart bursting from anguish and reacted instinctively.
“Pro-propose…? Wh-when? Why- why didn’t you talk to me?”
“Leave it, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
She tried to hold him but he wiped his tears roughly with his sleeves, regaining his piercing composure, and tightened his grip on her elbow, she shrieked in pain.
“And that is exactly why, when you can jump into Luke’s arms, then mine, then you can never wholeheartedly be sincere to anyone,” He hissed.
“So accept what I give you as a privilege and be grateful I am not being rougher, crueler than I want myself to be,”
Pushing her back, he exhaled sharply when he spoke probably more than he intended to, expressing the heartache he carried silently and went to the bathroom to fix his devastated state.
Standing all alone, a shivering, teary mess, Arabella’s nail dug deeper onto her side, making a highly miserable face.
‘He... was about to propose… that day? When I said yes to Luke? Why didn’t he tell me!?’ She thought, heart thumping madly against her ribcage at the slightest imagination of it.
She missed her chance of a lifetime.
‘I would have abandoned my world right then and there! I would have… given up on myself, on all my bonds, just to have the privilege of being his.’
Covering her face with her shaky hands, she leaned against the window sill, shutting her eyes desperately when being suffocated for air.
How could she have… missed this miraculous chance?
Sobbing silently, she sniffed, an emptiness emerging in her heart until William came out of the bathroom in his loose shirt and trousers.
Their eyes met. She got desperate and stepped closer, holding her hand out to him.
“Will-”
He pointed his finger at her with a sharp exhale, “Enough, Arabella. I am exhausted. I don’t want to talk anymore,”
Curling her hand into a powerless fist, she looked down in dejection, left with no other choice but to wretchedly obey.
With bitterness in their hearts, they lay down on the same bed, facing opposite directions, a colossal wall built between them.
She glanced over her shoulder at him, helpless and forlorn. Hugging the sheets, desperately crushed by his one, brutal statement.
Her world was crashing, demolished by her own past actions.
‘What have I done?’