Chapter 7
GAbrIELLA
The past month had been brutal, my emotional state snapping back and forth to the point of giving me whiplash.
I hadn’t seen Nico despite his numerous contact attempts. I didn’t see the point.
There was betrayal, and then there was betrayal.
No excuse or justification could ever measure up to the turmoil he had put me through. It was surreal when the extent of his dreadful secrets were revealed with the help of a private investigator.
Who is this man I once considered my husband?
It was time to concentrate on me. To get to a place that I could heal and move on—hence why I resigned from my role as head paediatrician.
I walked out of the children’s hospital, leaving my farewell party with a bouquet of flowers in one arm and a gigantic box of chocolates in the other.
I was saddened to leave the kids behind, however, it was a necessity. I couldn’t stay in that hospital, in that city, in any place that reminded me of him.
A memory was stitched into every facet of my surroundings, tethering me to the places where we shared our love and lived our marriage.
What once brought me joy suddenly carried forth a deep-seated sense of melancholy.
Nearly four weeks later, I still woke in the night, a silent scream caught in my throat as reality managed to penetrate my dreams, converting them into nightmares that I couldn’t escape even while unconscious.
I was ruined. He ruined me.
Except there was one who was always ready to pull me back from the brink, offering to hold those shattered pieces together with his bare hands, only if temporarily.
Leonardo. My best friend and guiding light.
He refused to leave my side, even in the early hours, when I jolted myself awake. Leo would take me in his arms and simply hold me.
No promises were exchanged, no empty words. Just the subtle calm of knowing I had someone in my corner, someone who truly cared about me.
He couldn’t know that, in those silent moments, his soothing presence helped barricade against the harsh severing of my heart, making that ache less severe each time I opened my eyes.
Nico had betrayed and hurt him, too. I liked to think that we were healing each other.
As I turned the corner into the staff car park, a lone figure leaning against my vehicle snapped ramrod straight. I scrambled backwards, and my spine hit the wall.
Nico rushed forward, and my beautiful goodbye gifts crashed to the ground as I raised both hands to stop his approach. “Don’t touch me,” I said, my voice shaky.
His eyes were black, almost deranged as they drank me in. He looked how I felt—haggard and stripped raw—except he had more of an unhinged quality peeking through.
“Gabs, you can’t mean this!” he yelled, waving some papers between us.
Ah, that’s right. He got served today.
“How could you think this would end any other way?” I asked.
His eyes popped as he took a menacing step closer, which had me flattening my back against the hard surface.
“You don’t mean that. I know you’re angry, babe, but I’m going to make it up to you.”
“I’m more than angry, Nico. You destroyed us.”
“B-but I have good news. Why didn’t you answer your phone? I’ve been trying to tell you. I got the paternity test done. That bitch was lying. She was just trying to rip us apart, babe.”
I blinked, utterly frozen as his comments cut through me like vicious barbs. His ramblings didn’t make sense. The statement was outrageous, but said in such a casual tone that he played it off as something normal, like his serial cheating and possibly knocking someone up was a regular occurrence.
When will he stop hurting me? When I stop letting him.
I was shaking, my fingers digging into the cool concrete behind me. “Sign the papers, Nico. Let me go.”
That was when he abruptly pushed forward, tenderly running a hand over my head.
For the first time ever in Nico’s presence, I felt fear, warning signals flashing so fast that my muscles seized with innate caution.
Don’t alarm. Don’t engage. Don’t react.
“Let you go?” he asked, his head tilting as if the notion itself was preposterous.
“What nonsense. You chose me, Gabriella. Me. I have a special surprise for you that I was saving for when you got home. But you didn’t return, so I came to you.
” He paused for dramatic effect, then dropped his spectacular news at my feet, alongside my ruined flowers.
“I got a vasectomy reversal, Gabs. We can have a baby. Like you always wanted.”
My eyes lapsed shut so as not to portray my terror.
“No, Nico.” I barely managed to croak.
“Babe,” he said, his slimy palms rising to cup my face. I’m going to be sick. “I thought having a baby would take you away from me. That you wouldn’t be mine anymore. But I was wrong. I want to give you what you want now. I know I fucked up, but let me do this for you. I can never lose you.”
How could hands that once lovingly held me feel so cold and detached? How could he believe that they would ever bring comfort again?
A thick wave of rage crashed forth as I whacked his hands away with bruising force. “You already lost me!” I shook my head, stunned by his delusional reasoning. “What you’ve done is irredeemable, Nico!”
His expression darkened with each remark, his fingers digging into my hair. “You are coming home with me, Gabs. You’re going to let me explain.”
“Everything okay here?” called a rough voice from afar.
My head snapped to the security guard pacing towards us as Nico’s grip pulled at my roots. The pain barely registered as my face crumbled from the immediate relief of not being on my own anymore.
“I’m talking to my wife,” Nico snapped.
“We’re separated. Please, I don’t want him near me.”
Nico flinched away like I’d scorched him to the bone as the security guard settled beside me, eyes drilling into my ex-husband-to-be. “You heard her. It’s time to leave.”
Nico’s gaze flicked to me in disbelief. “Gabriella, pleas—”
“Leave,” I interrupted, infusing as much force into those five letters as I could muster. “Please, Nico. Leave.”
His features morphed in hurt and embarrassment as he took me in, realising I was dead serious. Backing away, he spoke directly to me.
“Fine, I’ll leave…For now—”
“Forever, Nico. Sign the papers.”
That unbalanced gleam flashed behind his eyes once more before he threw the paperwork in the air, our legal separation raining down around us like he could void the process altogether.
“Fuck the papers!” he yelled, showing me his back and stomping away.
I wished that was the last time I ever saw him. But when did my wishes ever come true?