Chapter 3: A Kiss from the Past

The hotel room smelled like lavender and sin.

Amara was seventeen. Liam, twenty-two. She had borrowed her cousin’s ID and a black dress that fit like temptation. Her hair had been straightened into soft waves. Her lipstick stolen from a friend. Her courage held together by adrenaline.

She hadn’t come to the bar looking for a man.

But Liam Blackwood had looked at her like she was the only light in the room.

She remembered the way he leaned in, the way he spoke softly so only she could hear. He hadn’t asked invasive questions. Just listened. Laughed. Bought her one drink and asked if she wanted to talk somewhere quieter.

She should have said no.

Instead, she’d followed him.

And now here she was, in a room where the walls had watched too many regrets.

Liam’s hands had been gentle. Careful. As if he knew her body was memorizing every inch of him. He kissed her like they had forever and whispered her name like he’d earned it. Not rushed. Not rehearsed.

He didn’t touch her like a man who just wanted something. He touched her like she mattered.

And afterward, they laid tangled in a silence so comfortable it scared her. She’d never known what it felt like to be wanted without question. He didn’t treat her like she was young or stupid or temporary.

He treated her like she was real.

She didn’t sleep that night. She just watched him.

He lay there, shirtless, one arm tucked under the pillow, the other draped lazily across her waist like it belonged there. His face was relaxed, free from the calculated coolness he wore in public.

It was the first time she’d seen Liam Blackwood unguarded.

When she shifted under the sheets, he stirred. Eyes barely open, he reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Then he smiled and said, “You have the most unforgettable smile.”

She smiled wider, foolishly hopeful.

That was the moment she gave him her whole heart—quietly, completely.

And then he fell asleep.

When she woke up, the sheets were cold. The room was empty. And Liam was gone.

No note. No number. No explanation.

Just a memory carved into her ribs.

---

Five years later, she sat in a sterile exam room, staring at a positive beta-hCG result and trying not to scream.

Amara folded the paper twice, then once more, until the creases blurred the print. She slipped it into her purse with shaking fingers.

It was official now. She was pregnant.

With his child.

He still didn’t know. Still looked at her like she was a stranger. Still hadn’t noticed the way she flinched when he walked too close or how she couldn’t meet his eyes.

She had thought maybe—just maybe—there would be a flicker of something. A pause. A glance. A moment where he tilted his head and said, “Have we met before?”

But Liam Blackwood had perfected the art of forgetting.

He forgot the motel room.

The soft music.

The kiss against her collarbone.

The way she cried after, not out of sadness, but because she had felt safe.

And now, she had to carry that memory alone.

---

After the appointment, she walked two blocks in silence before sitting on a bench outside a quiet bookstore. The air smelled like spring—warm and new. People passed without looking at her, and she was grateful.

She pulled out her phone. Her brother had texted:

"Any luck today? Please say yes. I don't think I can do another round without you."

Her eyes burned. She typed back:

“Yes. It’s done.”

And it was. The embryo transfer had taken. The pregnancy had begun. She was growing a life that wasn’t hers to keep.

Amara pressed a hand to her stomach, flat and unremarkable. But inside, something had shifted. A flutter. A thread tied to something much bigger than her.

She closed her eyes.

---

Later that night, she dreamed of the motel room again.

But this time, when she turned to speak to him, he didn’t look at her. He walked past her to a woman in a red dress and said, “You have the most unforgettable smile.”

She jolted awake with a cry lodged in her throat.

The ache was deep. Familiar. And it came with a clarity she hated:

This would only get harder.

Not just the pregnancy. Not just the appointments or the lies. But seeing him. Hearing his voice. Pretending her body didn’t remember him in ways her mind tried so hard to suppress.

Because Amara hadn’t just lost her virginity that night.

She had lost the fantasy that someone like Liam Blackwood could love someone like her.

Now she was in his orbit again, but only as a name on a contract.

And one day, when the baby was born, she’d hand it over and disappear.

Again.