When his mother walked into that mansion, Elara finally understood: the man she was starting to trust was someone's greatest fear. And that terrified her in ways she couldn't articulate.
She heard Victoria Vance before she saw her.
The woman's voice carried up the stairs with the precision of a weapon—sharp, cultured, dripping with contempt. "Don't you dare tell me I can't see my own grandson. Get out of my way."
Footsteps. Multiple sets. Security trying to contain the situation. Failing.
Elara stood frozen in the kitchen doorway, Leo still clinging to her leg. Every instinct screamed at her to hide, to take the child and disappear into one of the mansion's many rooms. But she couldn't move. Could barely breathe.
And then Victoria Vance swept into view.
Elegant didn't begin to cover it. The woman was a force of nature wrapped in Chanel and diamonds. Mid-sixties but immaculately preserved, her silver hair styled in a severe bob that emphasized razor-sharp cheekbones. Her eyes—ice blue and utterly merciless—swept the entryway like a general surveying a battlefield.
Those eyes landed on Elara and stopped.
Recognition flickered across Victoria's face, followed immediately by something that looked almost like triumph. Her perfectly painted lips curved into a smile that had nothing to do with warmth.
"So," she said, her voice carrying easily across the space. "The little surrogate managed to crawl back from whatever gutter she was hiding in."
The word hit Elara like a physical blow. Surrogate.
"What?" The word barely made it past her lips.
Kairos appeared at the top of the stairs, moving with predatory speed. He descended three steps at a time, positioning himself between Elara and his mother with the precision of someone who'd done this before. Many times.
"Don't speak to her," he said, his voice deadly quiet.
Victoria laughed—a sound like breaking glass. "Oh, darling. Does she still not remember? How absolutely delicious." She craned her neck to look around her son, addressing Elara directly. "Does he tell you that you were his wife? That you were in love? That it was all some great romantic tragedy?"
"Mother—" Kairos's warning carried the promise of violence.
But Victoria was just getting started. "Did he mention the $2 million he paid you to carry his bastard? Did he tell you how he threw you out the moment you'd served your purpose? How he let me—"
Kairos moved.
His hand clenched into a fist, his entire body coiling with barely restrained fury. For one heart-stopping moment, Elara thought he would actually strike his own mother.
Two security guards materialized, grabbing his arms. Holding him back even as he strained against them.
Victoria didn't flinch. She smiled wider, vindicated. "And there he is. The real Kairos. The one who solves all his problems with threats and control."
"Get out," Kairos growled. "Get out of my house before I—"
"Before you what? Have me removed? Call the police?" Victoria's laugh was vicious. "We both know you won't. Not when I can tell your little amnesiac the truth about what you really are."
Elara's voice cut through the chaos, surprisingly steady despite the way her entire world was crumbling. "What is she talking about?"
They both spoke at once, words overlapping and clashing.
Kairos: "She's lying. She's trying to manipulate you—"
Victoria: "He hired you for $2 million to have his baby because he's too emotionally damaged to actually love someone—"
"ENOUGH!" Elara's shout silenced them both.
She looked at Kairos, really looked at him. Saw the guilt written across every line of his face. Saw the way he couldn't meet her eyes.
"Surrogate," she said quietly. "She said surrogate. Not wife. Not partner. Surrogate."
Kairos's jaw clenched. "My mother says many things. Most of them designed to hurt."
"Did you hire me to have your baby?" Each word felt like pulling teeth. Like excavating truth from a mountain of lies. "Yes or no."
The silence stretched. One second. Two. Three.
That silence told her everything.
"Answer me," Elara demanded, her voice breaking.
Kairos finally met her gaze, and what she saw there made her stomach drop. Guilt. Shame. And underneath it all, desperate, clawing need.
"Not like she made it sound," he said carefully.
"But yes." It wasn't a question anymore. "Yes, you did."
His throat worked as he swallowed. "Yes. But after you gave birth, I fell in love with you. I realized what you meant to me. It wasn't just a transaction anymore. It became—"
"Stop." Elara's head was spinning. "Stop talking."
Memories slammed into her with the force of a tsunami. Not the gentle, fragmented dreams from before. Full, visceral, devastating memories.
A lawyer's office. Her hands shaking as she signed document after document.
"The compensation will be transferred in installments. First million upon confirmed pregnancy. Second million upon successful delivery and relinquishment of all parental rights."
Hospital gowns. Stirrups. Clinical procedures that stripped away every shred of dignity.
Kairos's cold, assessing gaze as her belly grew. Not love. Never love. Just... evaluation. Like she was livestock being monitored.
And then labor. Screaming. Pain. The overwhelming, primal need to hold her baby.
Only to have him taken away. Literally taken from her arms while she was still bleeding, still crying, still begging—
"No," Elara whispered, pressing her hands to her temples. "No, no, no."
"Elara—" Kairos reached for her.
She jerked away like his touch would burn. "Don't. Don't touch me."
Victoria watched the scene with barely concealed satisfaction. "Now she remembers. Or she's starting to. Tell me, dear—do you remember what my son said to you the last time he saw you? Before the accident?"
Kairos went white. "Mother, if you say another word—"
"He told you that you were nothing," Victoria continued, ignoring her son's warning. "That you'd served your purpose and were no longer needed. That if you tried to claim any connection to his child, he would destroy you so thoroughly that no one would ever believe a word you said."
"I was protecting her!" Kairos roared. "You gave me no choice. You said if I didn't cut ties completely, you'd—"
He cut himself off, but Elara heard what he didn't say.
You'd kill her.
"I came here because I was broke and desperate," Elara said, the words coming out flat and dead. She was looking at Kairos, seeing him clearly for the first time. "My mother needed surgery. I had nothing. No money, no options, no future. And you—" Her laugh was bitter. "You took advantage of that."
"I did," Kairos admitted, and the raw honesty in his voice almost broke through her rage. "I did, and I paid the price. I lost you. The accident took you from me. And I've spent three years alone, raising our son—"
"He's not OUR son." The words came out sharp enough to draw blood. "He's YOUR son. I was just his incubator. That's what you paid for, isn't it? A womb. Not a wife. Not a partner. Just a biological function."
The word hung in the air between them. Incubator.
Kairos flinched like she'd struck him. "Don't say that. You're more than—"
"Than what? Than the woman you bought? Than the surrogate you discarded?" Elara's voice was rising now, three years of suppressed trauma bleeding through her amnesia. "What exactly am I to you, Kairos? Because I'm pretty sure I'm not your wife."
A small sound from the doorway stopped her cold.
Leo stood there, tears streaming silently down his face, his small body shaking with sobs he couldn't quite voice. He'd heard everything. Seen everything. And the devastation on his young face was unbearable.
Elara's anger evaporated in an instant.
She dropped to her knees, opening her arms. "Oh, sweetheart. Come here."
Leo ran to her, nearly knocking her over with the force of his need. He buried his face in her neck, his small hands fisting in her sweater like she might disappear if he let go.
"It's okay, baby," she murmured, the words automatic and utterly insufficient. "It's okay."
But it wasn't okay. Nothing about this was okay.
And yet—her body knew what to do. How to hold him. How to soothe him. Her hands moved in patterns she didn't consciously remember, rubbing his back in small circles, pressing kisses to his hair.
This child is mine, something primal whispered inside her. Contract or no contract, money or no money, this child is MINE.
Kairos watched them, and Elara saw the calculation in his eyes even through his grief. He knew. He understood that she couldn't leave now. Not with Leo's small body trembling in her arms. Not with the evidence of her bond with him so undeniable.
She was trapped. Not by lies this time, but by love she couldn't remember choosing.
Victoria's voice cut through the moment like a blade. "How touching. The incubator has maternal instincts after all." She gathered her purse, preparing to leave. "I'll see myself out. But Kairos, darling—do remember that truth has a way of surfacing. You can't keep her in the dark forever."
She paused at the door, looking back at Elara with something that might have been pity if it came from anyone else. "Run, girl. Before he decides you're inconvenient again."
Then she was gone, leaving destruction in her wake.
The silence after Victoria left was suffocating.
Elara held Leo until his tears subsided, until his breathing evened out, until he finally fell asleep in her arms from sheer emotional exhaustion. She carried him upstairs to his room—knew where it was without thinking, muscle memory guiding her—and tucked him into bed.
Kairos followed at a distance, not speaking, giving her space.
Only when Leo was settled did she turn to face him.
"Tell me everything," she said quietly. "The truth this time. All of it."
They stood in Leo's doorway, the child sleeping peacefully behind them, while Kairos finally, finally began to talk.
"You answered an ad," he said, his voice low. "I needed a surrogate. My family was pressuring me to produce an heir. Traditional surrogacy agencies asked too many questions, had too many regulations. I wanted complete control."
"So you posted an ad." Elara's voice was hollow.
"Yes. You responded. You were desperate—your mother was dying, you had no insurance, no savings. The medical bills were crushing you."
"And you saw an opportunity."
"I saw a solution." He ran a hand through his hair. "We signed the contract. You moved into the mansion for the duration of the pregnancy. It was supposed to be purely transactional."
"What changed?"
Kairos's expression twisted with something that looked like genuine pain. "You did. You were—you weren't what I expected. You were kind. Intelligent. You challenged me. Made me laugh. Made me feel things I'd spent my entire life avoiding."
"So you fell in love with your surrogate." The words tasted like ash.
"Yes. And it terrified me. Because my family would never accept it. My mother especially. She had Isabella lined up—the perfect match, wealthy family, all the right connections."
"But you chose me anyway."
"No." His voice broke. "That's the thing. I didn't choose you. When Leo was born, I did exactly what my mother wanted. I cut you off. Told you that you'd served your purpose. Had security escort you out of the mansion."
The memory of that night was coming back now, sharp and clear and agonizing. His cold face. The security guards. Her desperate pleas falling on deaf ears.
"I was going to fight you," Elara said, the memory crystallizing. "I hired a lawyer. I was going to sue for custody."
"I know. And my mother—" He stopped, his jaw clenching so hard she could hear his teeth grind. "She took care of it. The accident. The hit-and-run that put you in the hospital. That wasn't random."
The world tilted again. "Your mother tried to kill me."
"Yes."
The simple confirmation was somehow worse than elaborate explanations would have been.
"And you?"
"I didn't know. Not until after. And by then you were gone—disappeared from the hospital, no records, nothing. I've spent three years searching. And when you walked into my office yesterday—" His voice cracked completely. "I couldn't lose you again. So I lied. I created a fantasy where we were married, where you were here by choice, where everything was perfect."
"None of it was real."
"No. But my feelings were. Are." He stepped closer, and she let him, too exhausted to maintain distance. "I love you, Elara. I know I have no right to. I know I destroyed any chance we had. But it's the truth."
She wanted to believe him. God, she wanted to believe him so badly it hurt.
But trust, once shattered, couldn't be rebuilt with words alone.
"I need time," she said finally. "I need—I can't process this right now."
"Stay," Kairos said, and it was a plea, not a command. "Please. For Leo if not for me. He needs you."
And I'm trapped, Elara thought. Because he's right. That child needs me. And I—God help me—I need him too.
"I'll stay," she agreed. "But in my own room. With a lock on the door. And you tell me everything from now on. No more lies."
"No more lies," he promised.
She didn't believe him. But she nodded anyway.
THAT NIGHT
Elara was sitting on her bed, still fully dressed, when she heard the knock.
Soft. Tentative. Not demanding entry, just... asking.
She should ignore it. Should pretend to be asleep. Should maintain the boundaries she'd just established.
Instead, she opened the door.
Kairos stood there, and the expression on his face stole her breath. Raw need. Desperate hunger. The careful control he'd maintained all day finally cracking.
"I can't—" he started, then stopped. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come. But I needed to see you. To make sure you're real. That you're here."
"I'm here," Elara confirmed, even as every self-preservation instinct screamed at her to close the door.
And then Kairos moved.
One second he was in the hallway, the next he was pushing into her room, his hands framing her face, his body backing her against the wall with the inevitability of gravity.
"You're mine," he growled, and there was nothing civilized in his voice now. Just primal, possessive need. "Whether you remember it or not, whether you believe it or not, you are MINE. And I will destroy anyone who tries to take you from me."
His mouth crashed down on hers.
Not gentle. Not asking permission. Just claiming her with a ferocity that should have terrified her.
It didn't.
Her traitorous body responded instantly, her lips parting, her hands fisting in his shirt, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away. Three years of missing this—even though she couldn't consciously remember it—poured into the kiss.
His hand tangled in her hair, angling her head exactly where he wanted it. His other hand gripped her waist, holding her against him like he was trying to merge their bodies into one.
And Elara kissed him back with a desperation that matched his own, hating herself even as she did it.
When he finally pulled away, they were both gasping.
Kairos rested his forehead against hers, his breath coming in ragged pants. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry for everything. But I'm not sorry for loving you."
Then he was gone, the door closing softly behind him, leaving her alone in the dark.
Elara slid down the wall, her fingers touching her swollen lips, her body still humming with need and confusion and self-loathing.
What am I doing? she thought desperately. He lied to me. Used me. Destroyed me.
But that kiss—
That kiss felt like coming home.
And that, more than anything, terrified her completely.