He kissed me like I was his last breath. Like I was the air he was stealing from my lungs. And I realized: I was never his wife. I was his drug.
Elara stood in front of the bathroom mirror at three in the morning, her fingers pressed against lips that still felt swollen, branded, claimed. The woman staring back at her was a stranger—eyes too wide, skin flushed, hair wild from his hands.
She was shaking. Had been shaking since he left her room hours ago.
That kiss was everything she shouldn't want and couldn't stop thinking about. Violent and passionate, confusing and intoxicating, wrong in every possible way and somehow devastatingly right.
Her body had responded like it knew him. Like three years of amnesia meant nothing to muscles and nerves that remembered his touch, his taste, his possession.
She hated herself for it.
He lied to you, she reminded her reflection. He bought you. Used you. Threw you away.
But her traitorous lips still tingled where his mouth had been.
Footsteps in the hallway made her freeze. Slow, deliberate steps that stopped just outside her door. She held her breath, caught between hope and horror.
Is he coming back?
Part of her desperately wanted him to. Wanted him to push through that door and finish what he'd started, to kiss her until she couldn't remember why she should hate him.
Part of her was horrified by that want.
The footsteps moved away eventually, and Elara released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
She didn't sleep for the rest of the night.
THE MORNING AFTER
Breakfast was excruciating.
Kairos sat across from her at the kitchen island, perfectly composed in dark slacks and a crisp white shirt, acting like he hadn't pressed her against a wall and kissed her senseless eight hours ago. Like he hadn't growled that she was his with a possession that bordered on violence.
Elara couldn't look at him. Every time she tried, her eyes caught on his mouth and her stomach clenched with remembered heat.
Leo sat between them, the only easy thing in the room, happily destroying a bowl of cereal. Milk splashed. Cheerios scattered. He hummed tunelessly, utterly oblivious to the electric tension crackling between his parents.
Not parents, Elara corrected herself viciously. Biological father and paid incubator.
"I apologize for last night," Kairos said suddenly, his voice carefully neutral. "I was out of line."
Elara's head snapped up. Had he really just—
"You just attacked me," she said, her voice low so Leo wouldn't hear. "You pushed into my room and—"
"I did." His jaw clenched. "And I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
She stared at him, trying to reconcile the man offering a calm apology with the feral creature who'd pinned her to the wall. "Why did you—what was that?"
He was quiet for a long moment, his coffee mug suspended halfway to his mouth. When he finally spoke, the words came out carefully measured. "You said you weren't his mother. That hurt me. More than I expected. I reacted badly."
"That's not an explanation."
"It's the one you're getting."
The dismissal made anger flare in her chest. She stood abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor. Leo looked up, startled.
Kairos caught her wrist—gently this time, not demanding, just... asking. "Please. Give me time. Let me show you that what we had was real. Let me show you that I'm not the monster my mother made me sound like."
His eyes were sincere. Desperate. Broken in a way that made her chest ache despite everything.
Don't fall for it, she warned herself. This is manipulation. This is—
But his thumb was moving in small circles on the inside of her wrist, and her traitorous body was responding, her pulse jumping beneath his touch.
She sat back down.
Kairos's relief was palpable.
They finished breakfast in loaded silence.
Elara waited until Kairos left for his office and Leo was absorbed in cartoons before she started searching.
The mansion was full of evidence of a life she couldn't remember. In the hall closet, she found storage boxes labeled with her name. Medical records from the pregnancy—vitamins prescribed, doctor's appointments scheduled, ultrasound images carefully preserved.
Baby clothes in impossibly tiny sizes, all carefully folded and saved. A hospital bracelet with her name and Leo's birthdate.
Everything pointed to the truth Kairos had finally admitted: she'd been his surrogate, not his wife.
But there were other things too. Personal things that didn't quite fit the clinical transaction he'd described.
A photo of her laughing, candid and unposed, tacked to the inside of a kitchen cabinet where only someone who spent time there would see it.
A worn copy of Wuthering Heights with marginalia in two different handwritings—hers and his—arguing about character motivations in the margins.
A drawer full of takeout menus, several with notes like E's favorite and extra spicy for her.
Evidence of intimacy. Of knowing someone. Of caring.
She found the safe deposit box key exactly where her instincts said it would be—hidden inside a hollowed-out book on the study shelf. Jane Eyre, naturally. The irony wasn't lost on her.
She pocketed the key but didn't pursue it yet. Not until she knew more.
At dinner, she started asking questions. Careful, casual questions designed to fill in the gaps.
"Tell me about my accident," she said, passing Leo a piece of bread. "How exactly did it happen?"
Kairos went very still, his fork suspended over his plate. "You were in a car crash. Single vehicle. You hit your head on the steering wheel. The impact caused severe trauma."
"Where was it?"
"Highway 101. About twenty miles from here."
"Was anyone with me?"
"No. You were alone." He set down his fork carefully. "We'd had a fight. You were leaving."
Leo was watching them now, his small face troubled. Elara softened her voice. "What were we fighting about?"
"Different views on things." Kairos's voice had gone flat, emotionless. "You wanted to leave after Leo was born. I wanted you to stay."
"So we fought, and I got in my car and crashed."
"You were angry. Driving too fast. The roads were wet. It was—" He stopped, jaw working. "It wasn't my fault."
But his voice suggested he didn't believe that any more than she did.
He's protecting something, Elara thought, watching him retreat behind his walls. Someone. Himself.
That night, the dream came with crystal clarity.
She was in a hospital bed, her body split open with pain. Contractions rolling through her like waves, each one stealing her breath.
Kairos was there, standing in the corner. Not holding her hand. Not offering comfort. Just watching with cold, analytical eyes.
"Push," the doctor commanded.
She pushed. Screamed. Broke.
And then—a baby's cry. High and thin and perfect.
"It's a boy," someone said.
Elara reached for him with trembling hands. "Let me—I need to hold him—"
But Kairos stepped forward and took the baby. His expression hadn't changed. Still cold. Still clinical.
"Wait," Elara gasped. "Please, I just want to—"
He walked out of the room with her son.
She tried to follow, but her body wouldn't obey. Paralyzed. Trapped.
A woman's voice drifted from the hallway—Victoria's voice, sharp and satisfied. "Don't worry about her, darling. She won't remember any of this soon. The amnesia was very generous of you to arrange."
The amnesia was very generous of you to arrange.
Elara woke up screaming.
Kairos was there instantly.
She didn't hear him enter, didn't see him cross the room. One moment she was alone, gasping in the dark, and the next his arms were around her.
"I'm here," he murmured, pulling her against his chest. "I'm here. It was just a dream."
But it wasn't. She knew it wasn't.
Her body was shaking violently, her breath coming in ragged sobs. And Kairos held her through it, his hand stroking her hair, his voice a low murmur of comfort.
For just a moment, she let herself lean into him. Let herself take the comfort he offered, even knowing it came from the source of her pain.
Then her dream replayed in her mind. The amnesia was very generous of you to arrange.
She pulled back, searching his face in the darkness. "Kairos... did you arrange my amnesia?"
He went completely still.
Not the stillness of calm. The stillness of prey caught in a predator's gaze.
"Did you arrange the accident?" Her voice was steady now, cold with dawning understanding.
The silence stretched. One second. Two. Five. Ten.
The silence became its own confession.
"No," he said finally, the word dragged from somewhere deep. "But I didn't stop it either. When you were trying to leave, I let you go. And that makes it my fault."
"What did you do?" Each word was carefully enunciated, sharp as broken glass.
Kairos released her, standing and moving to the window. His silhouette was outlined by moonlight, shoulders rigid with tension.
"Everything," he said quietly. "I did everything wrong."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only honest one I have." He turned to face her. "You want the full truth? The unvarnished, ugly truth that makes me a monster?"
"Yes."
He laughed—a bitter, broken sound. "When Leo was born, I panicked. What I felt for you terrified me. It was too much, too fast, too real. My family was pressuring me to cut ties, to marry Isabella, to eliminate the 'complication' you represented."
"So you threw me out."
"Yes. I told you that you'd served your purpose. That the transaction was complete. That if you tried to claim any connection to Leo, I would destroy you."
The words landed like blows.
"You were devastated," he continued, his voice hollow. "Broken. And instead of comfort, instead of admitting I was wrong, I doubled down. Made it worse. Told security to escort you from the property."
"And then I hired a lawyer," Elara said, the memory crystallizing. "I was going to fight for custody."
"Yes. And my mother—" His hands clenched into fists. "My mother decided you were a threat. She arranged the accident. Hired someone to run you off the road. Make it look random."
"And you knew."
"Not before. I swear I didn't know before." His voice cracked. "But after, when the investigator brought me the evidence, I had a choice. Turn her in and destroy my family. Or—"
"Or pay for your mother's crime with silence."
"I paid them off. The driver. The witnesses. Everyone who knew what really happened. I thought I was protecting you by making the problem go away. Instead, I made it so you disappeared completely."
Elara felt numb. Beyond anger, beyond pain, into some strange territory where nothing felt real anymore.
"You let your mother try to kill me. And then you covered it up."
"Yes."
The simple confirmation was worse than elaborate justifications would have been.
"Get out," she whispered.
"Elara—"
"GET OUT!" Her voice rose to a shout. "Get out of my room. Get away from me. I can't—I can't look at you right now."
Kairos moved toward the door, then paused. "For what it's worth, I've regretted it every day since. Burning myself alive with guilt wouldn't have been enough punishment for what I did to you."
"You're right," Elara said coldly. "It wouldn't be."
He left.
And Elara sat in the darkness, her hands pressed to her face, trying to process the magnitude of his betrayal.
He hadn't just lied to her. He'd covered up attempted murder. Had paid people to erase evidence of a crime that nearly killed her.
She should leave. Should grab Leo and run and never look back.
But Leo wasn't legally hers. And running would mean losing him.
Trapped, she thought bitterly. I'm trapped in a cage made of love and lies, and he built every bar himself.