9. AMAI #3
I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t process. My brother had been right there. In her life. In her space. Playing a role I should have been in.
Truth was still talking, her voice softer now.
“I should hate him for what he did,” she said. “And part of me does. But the Kaisen I met wouldn’t do this.” She looked out at the water. “I believe he deceived me. But he wasn’t all bad.”
The jealousy was a living thing now, coiling in my chest, squeezing my lungs.
I forced myself to ask the question I didn’t want the answer to.
“Do you like him?”
Truth turned back to me, and for a long moment, she just looked at me. Really looked at me.
“I don’t know how I feel right now,” she said finally.
It wasn’t a no.
It wasn’t a yes.
It was honest.
And somehow that made it worse.
I leaned back in my chair, one hand coming up to rub at my jaw. I needed to think. Needed to strategize. Needed to figure out how to compete with a ghost—because that’s what Kaisen was now. A memory. An ideal. The man who’d brought homemade soup and met her mama.
But I wasn’t a ghost.
I was here. Real. Solid. Dangerous, yes—but present.
I dropped my hand and looked at Truth again. At the exhaustion in her face. At the strength underneath it. At the woman who’d survived a shit marriage, a violated body, and a revelation that would have broken someone weaker.
“Can we get to know each other?” I asked.
My voice came out rougher than I intended. More vulnerable.
“If I’m going to be in competition for your heart,” I continued, holding her gaze, “I at least want a fighting chance.”
Truth’s expression shifted—something between disbelief and exhaustion crossing her face.
“That’s the last thing on my mind right now,” she said, her voice tight. “After everything that happened today, I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it all.”
She looked away from me, out at the water, and I watched her jaw work as she tried to hold herself together.
“I may look composed,” she continued, and her voice cracked slightly, “but I’m devastated, Amai.
I was supposed to be a surrogate. That’s it.
” She turned back to me, and I saw the tears gathering in her eyes.
“Now I’m caught in some power struggle between you and your brother. I didn’t ask for any of this.”
Her hands were shaking now, gripping the robe tighter.
“This was supposed to be a contract,” she said, and the tears started falling. “Clean. Not messy and a damn war.”
The sight of her breaking undid something in me.
I stood before I realized I was moving, closed the space between us, and pulled her into my arms. Her body was rigid at first, resistant—but I didn’t give her space to retreat.
I kissed her.
Not gently. Not asking permission. I kissed her like I was claiming something that had always belonged to me. Like I could pour every unspoken truth into her mouth and make her understand what I couldn’t say out loud.
For a heartbeat, she was still.
And then she kissed me back.
Her hands came up to my chest, fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt, and I felt the exact moment she surrendered.
Not to me—to us. To whatever this was that had been building since the moment I’d seen her file, since I’d watched her walk into my shop, since I realized she was carrying my child, and I’d never be the same.
I knew exactly how to pull her in. How to angle my head so my lips fit against hers like we’d done this a thousand times.
How to let my hand slide up the back of her neck, fingers threading through her hair, holding her steady while I deepened the kiss.
How to make her feel like she was the only thing in the world that mattered—because right now, she was.
When I finally pulled back, her eyes were still closed, her lips parted, her breathing uneven.
I didn’t give her time to think.
I bent and picked her up, lifting her as easily as a feather. Her weight was nothing—less than nothing. She gasped, her arms instinctively wrapping around my neck, and I carried her inside.
The lakehouse was quiet except for the crackle of the fireplace I’d lit earlier. The flames cast dancing shadows across the walls, warm and golden, and I laid her on the bear rug in front of the hearth.
She looked up at me, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her eyes wide, uncertain, and wanting all at once.
I knelt beside her and reached for the belt of the robe.
“Amai—”
“Shh.” My voice was low, steady. “Let me see you.”
I loosened the belt slowly, deliberately, and the robe fell open.
Her body was spread before me like an offering. Every curve, every line, every imperfection that made her her. I let my gaze travel over her slowly, taking in every detail.
The stretchmarks that silvered across her hips and stomach, the strength of her body.
The soft dents and rolls that spoke to her humanity, her realness.
The fullness of her breasts, heavy and perfect, nipples dark and peaked in the firelight.
The way her thighs pressed together slightly, like she was still deciding whether to let me in.
And her eyes.
God, her eyes.
There was wanting there. Fear, yes. Uncertainty. But underneath it all—wanting.
“You’re beautiful,” I said.
She shook her head slightly, like she didn’t believe me.
I leaned down, bracing myself on one hand beside her head, and let my other hand trail down her body. Over her collarbone. Between her breasts. Across her stomach, tracing the lines of her stretchmarks with reverence.