The Contract Wife Chapter 09
Nathan found me the day I was preparing to fly back to Zurich.
He hadn’t called ahead. He was simply there, in the lobby of my apartment building, his suit as crisp as ever, though the shadows under his eyes were deep and dark. God knows how long he’d been waiting.
“Evelyn.” He stepped forward. His voice was ragged. “I saw your journal. Ten years. I didn’t know. I really didn’t know.”
I said nothing. I just stood and looked at him.
“Those three years… I told myself it was just fulfilling a contract. Stabilizing the market. Placating the board. But I realize now that wasn’t true.” He took another step. “Since you left, I think about you every day. I stacked my schedule so I couldn’t stop, because the moment I did, all I could see was you. And I finally understood—somewhere in those years, I got used to having you in my life.”
He paused, swallowed.
“I just… didn’t see my own heart clearly. Evelyn. Give me one more chance. Please.”
I looked at him.
This man. I had loved him for ten years.
From eighteen to twenty-eight.
I had spied on him from outside the library window. Spent whole afternoons in coffee shops pretending to write papers, waiting for him to appear. I had signed a contract that all but stripped me of my own interests, just so I could stand beside him with a name to back it up.
And now, looking at him, all I felt was a level, unshakable calm.
“Nathan, if a love takes you ten years to figure out, then it means you never really loved at all.”
I looked him in the eye.
“I loved you in secret for seven years. Then I tied myself to you for three more with a contract. That’s long enough. You used to be the ache I couldn’t put down. But now, I’ve taken my love back.”
He stood rooted where he was, staring at me.
I stepped around him and walked toward the door.
I had almost reached it when he caught up and gripped my wrist. His grip was tight. “Evelyn, don’t go—”
I paused. Then I gently pried his hand off, without turning around.
“Let it end here, Nathan.”