Chapter 163 You Didn't Hear Wrong, I Fell in Love with You...
Arabella's beautiful, expressive eyes went wide with shock, fixed on Gabriel's earnest, serious expression, his pleading words still echoing in her ears.
The arrogant, imperious Gabriel had just spoken to her in what could only be described as a pleading tone—asking her to make their marriage work, to not get divorced.
Arabella's mind went blank, her heart racing.
Faced with someone of Gabriel's exceptional qualities, honestly, few women wouldn't be tempted.
She had been tempted too, long ago, but reality had delivered a stinging slap, shattering her fantasies and dragging her back to earth.
If Emily hadn't just visited, hadn't just said those things, she might have fallen for it all over again.
But Emily's timing had been perfect—she'd saved Arabella from her own weakness.
"Gabriel, are you deliberately using me to provoke Emily? To get back at her?" After the brief mental fog cleared, rationality returned, and she asked the question with perfect calm.
She couldn't think of any other explanation.
Ordinary families might consider the impact of divorce on children—and she herself had wavered back and forth about the divorce precisely because she couldn't bear to leave her babies.
But for the wealthy elite, a mother from the wrong social class, one they neither valued nor respected, was essentially worthless.
They hardly cared about the negative effects of a missing mother on children.
In the eyes of the wealthy, every problem in the world could be solved with money.
She refused to believe Gabriel would continue this sham of a marriage for the sake of two children.
If he said it was for a clean, steady, free, and completely controllable legal bed partner—that would be more believable.
Hearing her reasoning, Gabriel's brow furrowed deeply, his jaw clenching.
"Arabella, do you use your brain just for height? I already told you Emily and I are over—I don't love her anymore! How could I possibly use you to get back at her—"
He couldn't even finish the sentence!
Such juvenile, idiotic behavior was beneath Gabriel Sterling!
Arabella frowned. "Your feelings for her might have wavered, but now she's had a change of heart, actively wanting to be with you. I don't believe you don't feel anything about that."
After all, she was his first love, the woman he'd pined for obsessively for over a decade!
Everyone had their obsessions, especially a man of Gabriel's status and position. "Not getting what you want" was a form of humiliation for someone like him.
Following normal male psychology, even if the love was gone, faced with a woman's advances, he wouldn't refuse—at least not until he'd had his fill and the novelty wore off. That would be more in line with men's inherent nature.
Seeing her confident expression, Gabriel felt a stab of regret.
He shouldn't have come here again, shouldn't have lowered himself, hoping this woman would change her mind.
A mocking smile played at the corners of his mouth, though the coldness in his eyes was frightening. "You know me so well?"
Arabella turned her head away, pressing her lips together in silence.
Gabriel took a moment to compose himself, his gaze drifting away to focus on a corner of the garden, his voice flat and cold, "This is the last time I'll try to win you back. If you're still determined..."
He wanted to voice a threat but was afraid he might not follow through, which would be even more humiliating.
So he left the sentence unfinished.
Arabella caught the threatening undertone in his words and turned to look at him. "They say even a day of marriage creates a hundred days of affection. Given that I've been sleeping with you for free all this time and bore you two children, can't we just part amicably?"
"I know you look down on me, but the children are innocent. Please don't deprive me of my love for them."
The only threat she could imagine from him involved using the children as leverage.
So Arabella humbled herself and pleaded.
Gabriel's eyes narrowed to slits, his breathing deepening, but he gave no response.
Taking his silence as consent, Arabella looked away and continued walking.
Just as they were about to pass each other, the man whose expression had darkened to its limit suddenly said in a low, heavy voice, "Even if I said I'd fallen in love with you, you wouldn't believe it, would you?"
Arabella's mind buzzed, her entire being shaken and disoriented.
Her heart jolted like it had been electrified, and she whirled around to stare at the man, her bright almond-shaped eyes going perfectly round.
He... what had he just said?
Fallen in love with her?!
Gabriel's heart was pounding wildly.
He knew he shouldn't have said that, should have let her go cleanly and never see each other again, but something inside him was screaming—he wasn't willing to give up, wasn't convinced, couldn't let go...
The confession had spilled out in a rush of intense, complicated emotions, and rather than give himself time to regret it, he turned around, grabbed her, and pressed her against the garden door.
"Arabella, you heard right—I've fallen in love with you... Even though you're ungrateful, stubborn, of humble origins, and you've even cheated on me now—I've still fallen for you. I don't agree to this divorce, do you hear me! Don't think you can abandon me and the children to go fool around with Manuel!"
His strong, powerful hands gripped her shoulders as his tall, imposing frame bent down, his devastatingly handsome face level with hers, his eyes wild and brooding.
Yet his mouth was declaring his possessive love!
This utterly incongruous scene left Arabella's brain completely frozen, unable to function properly.
Her body went rigid as a board, pressed against the glass door by him, offering no resistance whatsoever.
She stared at him in bewildered confusion, her eyes darting around helplessly, not knowing how to respond.
Seeing her dazed, stunned expression, Gabriel's mind filled again with images of her being intimate with another man. His brow furrowed, and suddenly he lifted her chin and kissed her forcefully.
God knew how much he'd missed this woman's taste during their separation.
Never mind that Arabella didn't believe it—even he couldn't believe how he'd become addicted to her, bewitched by her, and not just physically obsessed with her body, but actually craving her contrary, stubborn, difficult personality.
Gabriel's thoughts spiraled as he held her tight and kissed her fiercely, until their lips were swollen and distorted.
Arabella only came to her senses when his bite made her mouth hurt, and she began pushing against him.
But the man was currently out of control, and this was his own home—he had no concerns about restraint and refused to let go.
When she hit and pushed at him, he simply caught her wrists and pinned them behind her back, giving her no room to refuse.
His bruised male pride left him unable to face her properly, so he could only use this rough, domineering kiss to mask his embarrassment.
How long did this kiss last?
Five minutes, maybe ten—Arabella had no idea. All she knew was that the man wouldn't release her even when she was on the verge of suffocation.
She felt like the last breath of air was being sucked from her lungs, and the back of her head ached from being pressed and rubbed against the door. It was unbearable.
Seeing that pushing him away was useless, she changed tactics and temporarily surrendered, "Gabriel... please... don't do this... you're hurting me... I can't breathe..."