Contract Marriage: I Will Never Love You
Chapter 174: Ghost from the Past

Chapter 174: Ghost from the Past

Marcus

Damn Natalie...

Why does she have to keep calling?

Why does she feel the need to wedge a crack in my meticulously crafted life? I am finally beginning to understand what a true family feels like, the warmth, the connection, and now...

I thought cutting ties would mean peace, but the past has a way of bleeding through the cracks no matter how tightly you try to seal them. Every ring of her phone call is like a reminder of old wounds, things I’ve buried deep but never truly escaped.

She doesn’t get it. She never did.

I walk to the studio, still fuming.

The only way to shake these thoughts is work, so I lose myself in the monotony—charging batteries, stacking props, rearranging the gels. I check the lighting on the latest setup and snap a series of pointless test shots just to hear the camera shutter break the silence.

But every time the phone in my pocket vibrates, I see that name again.

NATALIE (4)

Eventually I give in. I open the thread and read, expecting an emergency.

Her first message is sharp and surgical: "We have to talk. It’s about Dad. Call me."

The others are more or less variations on the theme.

"I’m not kidding, Marcus."

A gnawing, ancient guilt stirs in my gut.

Fuck.

I shove the phone deep in my pocket and stalk back to the set.

But the phone keeps buzzing.

I grit my teeth, snatch up the phone, and answer the seventh call.

"Marcus," Natalie says, her voice clipped and dense with unmet expectations. "It’s about time you called back. Please just hear me out."

"Cut to the chase," I say. "Is he dead yet?"

There’s a pause, long enough for me to pick up the faint sound of traffic and keyboard clicks in the background. "No," she says, but her tone already says the opposite. "He’s not dead. Yet."

I breathe out.

"So why the urgency?" I ask.

"Don’t be cruel, Marcus."

I lose it then.

I slam the phone against my palm, my voice low and cold.

"Cruel? You want to talk about cruelty?" I roar, not caring there are other people in the studio who are now looking at me with wide eyes.

Natalie’s silence stretches, but I can hear the tension breathing through the line.

"I’m not asking for forgiveness," she finally says, voice breaking. "But Dad is dying, and he’s asking for you. We need to decide what happens next. Family, whether you like it or not...it’s pulling us back together."

"He hurt us, Nat. Did you forget all about it just because he is sick?" I demand.

Her voice cracks, soft but sharp like glass breaking.

"Marcus, I haven’t forgotten. But we are still hurting and nothing is going to heal if we don’t face him one last time. Together."

I run a hand down my face, feeling the weight of years pressing into every word. The anger, the betrayal—they’re still raw, but beneath it all, something else stirs. A thread of responsibility I thought I’d buried.

"What does he want?" I ask, voice rougher than I intend.

"To see us. And I don’t want to go alone, Marcus. Please. You have to come with me. Don’t make me face him alone."

I want to tell her no. To shut the door on that part of my life for good. But beneath the anger, beneath the resentment, something else — a flicker of something I’d almost forgotten stirs.

"Alright," I say, my voice low and steady. "I’ll come with you."

There’s a pause on the other end, then a quiet, shaky relief. "Thank you, Marcus."

I press the end call button and slip the phone back into my pocket, the weight of the choice settling deep in my chest.

The studio feels colder now, the shadows stretching longer. I shake my head, trying to clear the fog, and set about packing up my gear.

"Um...everything okay? You are kind of needed at the set," a woman’s voice breaks through the silence.

Tammy.

I look at her. "Yeah. Everything is peachy. Is the new model here?"

Tammy hesitates, her brow knitting with concern. "Yeah, she just arrived. But you seem to be in a bad mood. Are you sure you’re up for this today?"

I force a grin, but it’s brittle. "Just had some family drama. Nothing I can’t handle."

She gives me a skeptical look but doesn’t press further. "Alright, if you say so. We’ll need your eye for this shoot."

I nod and turn back to my gear, trying to shake the heaviness settling in my chest. Natalie’s call had cracked open a door I’d slammed shut years ago. Now, it’s swinging wide open again.

I pull my jacket tighter, feeling the chill of the studio wrap around me like a warning. This isn’t just about Dad. It’s about everything I’ve been running from.

It’s not until I reach the make-up bay that I realize this day will just get worse.

The girl in the chair isn’t just another model.

"Hello, Marcus," she says. She tucks her phone into the pocket of a white silk robe and stands, poised even when barefoot on a linoleum floor. "Good to see you again."

I cover my surprise by not blinking. "Annika."

She laughs, head tilted, making her earrings swing. "I begged my agent to get me this gig because I really wanted to come back here."

I check the board. "We’ve got you in three looks. Try not to break anything today."

She grins, all teeth. "That was one time. Besides, you never minded a broken lamp."

We move to the set.

"I have missed you," she whispers.

I don’t look at her. "Please try to keep things professional, Annika. No more mixing business with pleasure."

She cocks her hip on the stool, gold shimmer catching the studio lights. "Since when did you care about professionalism?"

I waive at Hailey to proceed with the shoot. "Since today."

Annika’s eyes flash with mischief. She steps onto the set like she owns the place.

I introduce her to Hailey. "Annika and I worked together before," I tell Hailey.

"Oh. Nice to meet you, Annika. I will be your photographer today," she says lightly.

Annika looks at me for a moment before smiling. "See you after the shoot, Marcus," she says and winks at me before taking her place on the stage."

Hailey gives me a side-eyed glance. "What was that about?"

I shrug. "Nothing. Annika and I have a history."

"Good god. Was she one of your...conquests?" Hailey whispers.

I clear my throat and try to steer the conversation back to work.

"Let’s just focus on the shoot," I say, pulling out my light meter. "No distractions."

Hailey raises an eyebrow but lets it go. Annika starts warming up with some poses, the studio lights flickering to life around her. She moves like she’s home here, confident and in control.

Once in a while, I find her looking at me and smiling flirtatiously. I decide to go back to my office. Hailey can handle this by herself.

I sit down behind my desk and wipe a hand over my face. The silence in here is cathedral-grade, the kind of hush that could make even my internal monologue kneel down and whisper. I stare at nothing for several minutes.

I think about Rebecca. I wonder if she is having a good time with Megan by herself.

After several minutes, or maybe an hour, there is a soft knock on my door. I don’t answer, just keep my head down, and after a pause the knob twists anyway.

Annika glides in, wearing a white silk robe. Her hair is up now, and her face is scrubbed to a moon-pale shine. She closes the door behind her and flicks the lock shut.

"Hey, Marcus." She perches one hip on the corner of my desk. The fabric of her robe hikes up, flashing thigh, an echo of a hundred such moments from another life.

I stare at her, not feeling amused by this sudden intrusion.

"So... you busy?"

I don’t break eye contact. "Don’t you have three more looks to get through?"

She shrugs. "They’re prepping the next set. I wanted to see you."

My mouth is a line, thin and unsmiling.

Annika pouts and then says, "You wouldn’t answer my messages."

"So what?" I ask.

Her smile doesn’t falter. "You haven’t changed, Marcus. Still the ice king I found so attractive before."

I don’t break eye contact, my gaze as cold and glassy as the paperweight I toy with on my desk. "You don’t have a full day’s worth of outfits to wear and lights to stand under?" I ask, keeping my tone flat, unyielding, careful to give her nothing. "Thought you were a professional, Annika."

She swings one bare leg, languid and feline, then shrugs—a gesture that is all insouciance and artifice. "They’re prepping the next set. Hailey’s got them in a tizzy over backgrounds. We have plenty of time to do what we need to do."

She leans closer. "Come on. Don’t act like a stranger to me."

Before I can react, she straddles me.

She does it neatly, like the memory of being on top of me is muscle-deep. The hem of the robe slips up her thigh, and she folds her legs around my hips, her slender hands framing either side of my face.

"I want you to fuck me again," she says, gaze fixed on my lips and then flicking up to my eyes, searching for the old heat that used to be there.

I feel the shift in my jaw but not the urge. I keep both hands at my sides, knuckles pressed white against the desk’s black walnut.

"Get off of me," I say as evenly as I can.

She grinds against me, searching for resistance to break and finding nothing but my patience. "You can’t do this," she whispers, now with a trace less confidence. "You can’t just be...done. You never used to say no to sex."

"That’s enough," I say. My voice is very quiet. "I’m seeing someone."

Annika laughs, brittle and sharp, like glass hitting tile. "You said you don’t do relationships."

"I was wrong."

"Who is it?" She pouts.

"Me."

My heart stops dead, and my eyes fly to the door where Rebecca is standing, her face flushed.