Chapter 12
Serena
Kieran picked up the envelope.
He didn’t tear it open. He slid his thumb under the seal and pulled the papers free.
His eyes moved across the first page. Then the second. Then back to the first.
When he finally looked at me, the expression on his face
wasn’t anger.
It was one of curiosity.
“You actually went through with it.” He set the papers on the table, squaring the edges. “I’m surprised. You’ve grown up.” he chuckled.
I could not help but wonder what he meant by the word grown up. He must have been so convinced that I loved him so much and would not even attempt something like this. Either out of said love or out of gratitude.
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With a blank look. I rose to my foot
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“I want to thank you,” I said. “For everything you’ve done for my family. For taking us in after the attack, for my parents’ stability, the medical care — all of it.” My voice held. I was proud of that. “In return, I won’t take anything from this marriage. Not the house, not the accounts. Nothing. And I’ll tell everyone this was my decision. Your reputation stays clean.”
He leaned forward. “Go ahead.”
Two words.
No fight.
“I’ve already signed,” I told him. “Whenever you’re free, we can finalize the certificate together.”
I looked down at my left hand and started twisting the ring off. The ring was halfway off when, his hand shot out and closed around my wrist.
“Things between me and Sophie are not what you think.” he said calmly.
Still, he was denying it, not providing a good explanation, but denying the truth that was obvious to everyone.
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This made my anger boil.
“Then what is it?” I yanked my wrist, but he held on. “When you picked her up from the airport, did you sleep with her? Yes or no.”
His jaw locked.
“You claim to love me,” he said, “but you can’t even trust me?”
Trust? I could not believe he dared to ask me for trust. I shoved him away..
“Trust you?” The laugh that tore out of me was ugly. “You left me alone on our anniversary to be with her. You spent the night at her house while I waited in lingerie. I bought for you, eating dinner I cooked for you. And you’re asking me for trust?”
His expression shifted, showing the faintest trace of
realization.
He hadn’t seen this coming. Did he not know I knew about that?
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My voice broke, and my eyes were flooded with tears..
“I married you and I changed everything about myself. I learned to cook. I kept this house the way you wanted it. I stayed up past midnight so you wouldn’t come home to a dark room.” I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “I asked you once to make me something. You never did. But you baked a cake from scratch – flour on your shirt, laughing – with them.”
“What did I do to you?” The question ripped out so loud it burned my throat. “What did I ever do to deserve this?”
His calm was the worst part. The steadier he remained, the more I unraveled.
“You never stayed out late. Not once in five years. Then she came back and you were gone every other night.” I took a ragged breath. “And the bracelet – you gave her the same one. The exact design as our anniversary gift. How could you do such a thing?”
I pressed my palms against my eyes.
“I went missing for days, Kieran. Days. And you didn’t come. You didn’t call. You didn’t notice because you weren’t living in this house.”
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He grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward him.
“It’s my fault,” he said, voice low. “I wasn’t careful enough.”
I went rigid.
Not careful enough. Not I’m sorry I hurt you. He wasn’t sorry he’d betrayed me. He was sorry he’d been sloppy
about it.
I shoved him backward. “Don’t touch me.”
He hooked his arm around my waist before I reached the door, pulling me against his chest.
“Let go!”
“Listen to me-”
But all I could see was Sophie’s face buried against this same chest. These same arms wrapped around her. His voice whispering that everything would be fine while I lay on a cold floor, calling a number that never answered.
drove my elbow back and broke free.
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“I’m not a bad person,” he said. “Serena-”
“Do not touch me with those hands.” I held my palm up between us. “I can’t stomach the idea of you touching me with those hands. You disgust me.”
He looked like I’d struck him, but his hands never dropped, he still held me.
The single thought of his hands on me, made my stomach churn. I could not take it anymore. I doubled over and vomited onto the hardwood floor.
Kieran watched me the whole time and when I finished, he carried me upstairs, straight to our room. He laid me on the bed then pulled out his phone.
“I need a pregnancy test kit delivered to this address. Ten minutes.”
My blood went cold. “I’m not pregnant.”
He did not look at me. “The test will confirm that.”
“It’s stress. I haven’t been eating-”
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“Ten minutes.” he interrupted.
I stopped talking.
If Kieran found out I was actually pregnant, I’d never be free. A baby would become his leash – his reason to deny the divorce, to drag me back, to keep me tethered to a marriage that existed on paper and nowhere else.
When the test kit arrived, he held the box out to me.
I took the test kit from him and just stared at it.
He was standing there, watching me, waiting for me to take the kit to the bathroom and do the test.
I hurled them across the room. “I am not pregnant!”
Kieran took a step back, his eyes widened, staring at me with slightly parted lips.
He was quick to collect himself, he bent down and picked up what was necessary and handed it back to me. “Take the test.”
Isnatched both strips, marched to the toilet, and dropped
18 them in.
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“There.” I faced him, chest heaving. “Happy?”
His expression didn’t change.
“And if I did have your baby?” I stepped closer, my voice dropping to something low and terrible. “I would get rid of it. I would walk into a clinic tomorrow and end it without thinking twice. Even if it killed me. Even if I bled. out on the table. I would rather die than bring your child into this marriage.”
The room went airless.
Kieran stood perfectly still. No breath, no mask of control. Just a man hearing words that had punched
clean through every wall he’d ever built.
When he spoke, his voice was so quiet I almost missed it.
“You don’t want to have my baby?”
I gritted my teeth. “Never.”
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