Chapter Nine: The Truth He Almost Said

The silence stretched too long.

Cameras hovered in the air, microphones angled toward Lucas like weapons waiting to strike. Vanessa stood a few feet away, her expression calm, victorious like she already knew how this would end.

I watched Lucas’s face it was expressionless.

This was the moment.

The moment that would decide whether staying had been worth it.

“Lucas?” a reporter prompted. “Is your wife telling the truth?”

He opened his mouth.

But nothing came out.

That pause was everything.

Vanessa smiled.

“Yes,” Lucas said finally. “There was a contract.”

The world exploded.

Shouts overlapped. Flashes blinded me. My ears rang as voices shouted paid wife, sham marriage, fraud.

I felt like I was falling.

Lucas raised his hand, trying to regain control. “But……..”

“But what?” Vanessa cut in smoothly. “You’re going to pretend it meant something?”

I turned to him, my heart pounding. “Finish it,” I whispered. “Please.”

He looked at me.

And for a second, I thought he would.

“There was a contract,” he repeated. “But that’s not the whole story.”

Vanessa’s smile wavered.

I held my breath.

“Because somewhere between obligation and appearances,” Lucas continued slowly, “it stopped being business.”

The reporters leaned closer.

“And started becoming a marriage,” he said.

My chest tightened painfully.

“Do you love her?” someone shouted.

The question hit him like a punch.

Lucas didn’t answer immediately.

That hesitation small, human, terrified cut deeper than his earlier silence.

“I’m still learning what love means,” he said carefully.

Not yes.

Not no.

Vanessa laughed. “How poetic.”

I felt something inside me crack.

“This isn’t enough,” I said quietly.

The microphones caught it.

Lucas turned sharply. “Amara…….”

“You admitted the contract,” I said, stepping back. “But you still couldn’t choose me clearly.”

“Not like this,” he said. “Not under pressure.”

“Love doesn’t wait for privacy,” I replied.

Vanessa stepped closer, lowering her voice. “You see now, don’t you? He’ll never risk everything for you.”

I ignored her and faced the cameras.

“I’m leaving,” I said.

Gasps rippled through the crowd.

“I entered this marriage with nothing,” I continued, my voice steady despite the tears burning my eyes. “And I will leave it the same way with my dignity.”

Lucas grabbed my wrist. “Don’t do this.”

I looked at his hand on me.

Then at his face.

“Let me go,” I said.

Slowly, he did.

I walked away as cameras flashed and voices shouted questions I would never answer.

Behind me, chaos erupted.

Inside the car, my hands trembled as I closed the door.

The driver looked at me through the rearview mirror. “Where to, ma’am?”

I swallowed.

“Anywhere but here.”

As the car pulled away, my phone buzzed.

A message from an unknown number.

You finally chose yourself. I respect that.

Vanessa.

I turned off my phone and leaned my head against the window, tears sliding silently down my cheeks.

I didn’t know what came next.

All I knew was that love shouldn’t feel like begging someone to speak.

And if Lucas Blackwood ever found his voice

It would be without me there to hear it.