Mr. Gabriel Bought Me

A pair of papers lay between them like a grave marker—unassuming, cold, final.

Divorce papers.

Isla Merrick’s fingers hovered over the place where Callum Braxton had already signed. The ink was dry. So was his expression.

Across the table, her soon-to-be ex-husband leaned back in his chair with all the interest of a man finalizing a transaction. No grief. No apology. Just silence.

She lifted her gaze to him, searching for something—remorse, hesitation, anything human—but his face was carved in stone.

“Is there truly no chance for us?” Isla asked softly.

Her voice, stripped bare of pretense, cracked slightly. Her thick black glasses caught the dim light of the chandelier above, but they couldn’t hide the faint tremble in her eyes. She looked tired—yes—but more than that, she looked… ready.

She had woken at dawn that morning, moved by one last surge of hope. She’d cooked Callum’s favorite meal from scratch. She’d cleaned the apartment until the wood floors gleamed. Ironed his shirts. Lit his favorite candle.

She had offered him everything.

And he had come home, sat down, and slid the papers across the table.

“Our marriage,” he said now, flicking ash into the crystal tray beside him, “was always a business arrangement, Isla.”

There it was. The knife.

But she didn’t flinch. Not anymore.

Callum’s eyes drifted toward the window where the evening light poured in golden and indifferent. “Besides,” he added, voice flat, “Eliana’s back.”

Eliana Sinclair. Of course. The one he’d never stopped waiting for.

Isla said nothing.

But in the silence that followed, something unspoken cracked between them. Callum’s fingers—usually so precise and controlled—tapped the ashtray a beat too long. He glanced at her again, for the briefest second, as if unsure what he was looking at.

Something in her posture had shifted.

Her spine straighter. Her gaze… not pleading, but unreadable.

And something else—an energy under her skin, coiled and calm.

“Given your... history,” he said, as if choosing his words carefully, “you may struggle to find work after this. The press can be relentless.”

Her lips curved—barely. Not quite a smile. Not quite mockery.

“Do you mean my criminal record?” she asked, voice too smooth.

His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t say that.”

“No. But your sister did. Loudly. Often.”

Callum cleared his throat, irritated, but she continued before he could respond.

“Funny thing about rumors,” she said, sliding the signed papers across the table, “they hide the truth better than lies.”

He looked at her then, really looked—at the quiet confidence in her movements, the calm beneath the hurt. It unnerved him.

“You’re different,” he muttered.

Isla stood slowly. “No,” she said, gathering her bag. “I’m just no longer pretending to be the woman you wanted.”

She turned to leave, but paused at the door.

“Oh—and next time your sister insults someone she thinks is weak, remind her I’m not the girl she remembers.”

Callum blinked. “Isla, what does that mean?”

She looked back once, over her shoulder, and this time her smile was real—but razor sharp.

“Let’s just say prison wasn’t the only thing people were wrong about.”

Then she walked out.

Callum stared at the empty space she left behind, jaw tight. He reached for his cigarette—but missed the lighter on the first try.

Something about that last look had unsettled him. It wasn’t heartbreak. It wasn’t pain.

It was warning.