Bought For A Baby, Kept For A Lifetime-Chapter 282: Starting All Over Again

"I shouldn’t love you." Anne said in a soft tone,

"The contract said that I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you."

Andrew went rigid, and Anne noticed how he immediately remembered that there had been something like that in the contract.

Back then, the second surrogate that had been brought to him had fallen in love with him, and he had emphasized that clause because he hadn’t known what love was at the time.

Right now things were different.

Andrew felt like a man who had shot himself in the leg.

Why the hell had he added that as a term in Anne’s contract?

Anne was different, she was the one person he had fallen in love with, and right now what he wanted more than anything was her heart, but...had he ruined his own chances of having her heart even back the at the very beginning?

"Andrew, I wanted to follow the terms of the contract, I really did but...I couldn’t stop my heart from falling for you." Anne completed the words she had been saying.

His eyes widened as he froze in that moment, something seemed to have detonated inside his mind and it looked like he had stopped breathing.

For a long second, he just stared at her, like he wasn’t sure he had heard her correctly, like the world might collapse if he believed too quickly that she truly just said that she had fallen for him too.

Anne knew that something destined could never be fought. Just like she hadn’t meant to fall in love with him, he hadn’t meant to fall in love with her either, but if their hearts were destined to be one, neither of them could have successfully fought against it.

"But what I feel for you doesn’t matter, because something unthinkable still exists between us." Anne looked down at the iPad she clutched in her hand and moved back from him creating distance between them then handed him the iPad. No matter what she did, even if she now knew how he felt about her, this part of their relationship couldn’t be erased.

There was a light furrow to his brows as he took the iPad from her.

One moment his heart had soared with a kind of joy he couldn’t quickly accept, he feared the words she said about having feelings for him too would have been his own illusion and wants, he might just be dreaming it.

He took the iPad she held out and looked down into the screen, realization of what it was quickly dawned onto him.

After he glanced up at her with a puzzled look, she passed him the notebook she was holding as well.

He read the detailed calculations she made on the notebook and saw that it held a hand written contract at the end which stated that over the next six months, she would pay a certain amount back into the bank account in order to clear the surrogacy contract.

Butler Jones had given Anne this ipad which contained a special bank account where her income for being the surrogate would be received, though she hadn’t touched a dime of it after paying for Kristen’s surgery, Anne wanted to nullify the contract by paying it all back, only then could she peacefully accept her love for him, and his for her.

No matter what, she didn’t want to stain her child’s future with such a dark past, she didn’t want to remember her conceiving this child as a transaction, she wanted to remember it with beauty and soft memories, and nullyfing the past contract would make her feel that peace.

"I won’t be able to fully give you my heart until the contract is nullified." Anne said to him.

She wasn’t rejecting him, nor did she want him to feel disappointed, she just wanted to start the new phase with him on a positive note, without the dark parts of what had brought them together, without the weight of guilt that she had once sold herself and her child to him.

After reading through everything she wrote on the note, she saw a smile of amusement raise his lips.

Anne was taken aback. She had expected that he would actually feel bad for her postponing whatever feelings they had for each other, but he was smiling?

"Why do you sell yourself short this much, Mrs Sterling?" He queried raising his head to look at her. When he noticed the confused look in her eyes he sighed softly then held her hand leading her towards the curtained canopy, behind which there was a beautifully romantic dinner arrangement.

"I was going to give these to you later tonight but..." Andrew was saying as he picked up an open document on the dinner table, which wasn’t the only one kept there.

He handed the document to her.

"Your rights as my wife." He said simply and waited.

When she curiously looked down into the papers, Anne read it’s contents with a trace of confusion in her eyes.

"As the first daughter in law of the Sterling family, all of these belong to you."

The documents contained ownership of two villas which were properties under the Sterling family name, eight point five percent shares of SE stocks worth millions in income, and a few other properties whose names and locations were written down in a row along with their worths, she read several zeros behind the digits and was too stunned to speak for a moment.

"But...I don’t need all these things."

"They’re yours regardless, and if you don’t want to have all these things, you’d have to divorce me. Do you want to divorce me Annelise?" He asked the final part with a low murmur that sounded almost pitiful making her quickly shake her head.

He smiled satisfactorily hearing that she didn’t want to divorce him.

There was so much more that she could have being the first Sterling wife, these benefits were the very reasons many vied to marry into the Sterling family. It was quite funny he had to mention divorcing him before she accepted to take what others were rushing to possess.

"You could nullify the contract any second if you wanted to, but there’s no need to try to pay it off. It’s not a debt you owe me Annelise, it’s a burden I placed on your shoulder so it’s up to me to destroy it." As Andrew said this he picked up the remaining two documents on the table.

"This is the contract I drafted for our marriage, this is the surrogacy contract. From this moment on, these will cease to exist. Do you know what that means?"

Quietly, she shook her head.

"It means from now on, you are my wife with no clause binding you down, it means from now on, I am yours and you are mine. From now on, the contract of our child only being a transaction disappears." He looked straight into her eyes with a tender warmth.

"It means we get to start all over again. We get to start with me loving you until my dying breath."

A warm tear slid down her face. His words sealed in her heart that she really would be his from this moment going forward.

Andrew took the documents, tossed them into a trash can at the far end of the rooftop then set it all ablaze.

As Anne watched the fire burn every piece of the papers she had signed with a heavy heart back then, now becoming nothing but ash, slowly a heavy weight lodged in her heart began to disappear.

Andrew had cleared away the obstacle chipping at her heart.

When the documents holding her back were all fully burned, he walked back to her.

"This should be a perfect moment to hear you call me your husband for the very first time." He said circling his hand over her waist to pull her towards him till their noses were brushing, 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

"And there’s something else I’m dying to hear you say to me. I want to hear you say that you love me." His arms fully wrapped around her waist and she was pulled flush against his chest now, his mouth hovering over her own, urging her to say the words he couldn’t wait to hear.

"Say it Annelise..." He breathed with a burning need in his voice.

"I love you, Andrew."

He exhaled softly, a soft ragged sound as his mouth tilted upwards, his smile captivating enough to melt stone as he tilted his head instantly locking her soft, petal like lips that had just uttered the words he wanted to hear in a tantalizing kiss.

His mouth sweetly brushed apart her lips, kissing her with the desperate relief of a man who had been holding his breath his whole life.

His sole reason for existing... perhaps it was this moment. Hearing her say these words, it gave his heart a full sense of belonging.

She was his paradise, she was his home.

The sudden loud booming of something in the sky broke their kiss apart.

Immediately Anne tilted her head upwards, it looked like the sky itself had burst open with sparks of colors.

The explosion of fireworks was so beautiful, she gasped looking at them as more and more colored the night sky.

"It’s very beautiful." She breathed in awe with her eyes fixated on the sky, but the deep voice close to her ears replied softly with a thick sweetness overflowing in his voice,

"Not half as beautiful as my wife."

She tilted her head up to smile at him and he pulled her against his chest, hugging her into him.

She closed her eyes, laying her head against his chest peacefully.

From now on she would be his wife, truly be his wife...