บททั้งหมดของ The Vows We Fake : บทที่ 81 - บทที่ 90

The words wouldn’t stop circling in my head. A feast like it was at dinner five years ago with Ms. Ibe. Just as you instructed. I had to grip the edge of the table, because the ground felt like it tilted beneath me. My lungs refused to fill. The room blurred at the edges, as if the walls themselves were mocking me with their pristine calm. “Amara…” Zane’s voice was low, urgent, like he already knew what storm he had unleashed. My head snapped toward him, my voice shaking as the words clawed out. “You remembered,” I whispered. “You remembered everything.” His hand shifted on the table, fingers curling into a fist. He didn’t deny it. He didn’t dare. “When? When did you regain your memory?” Zane didn’t answer. I slammed a fist on the table. “When, Zane?!” Realization hit me. “You—” My throat caught. “You never forgot, did you?” He flinched, the smallest flicker of guilt in those fathomless eyes. And that was all the confirmation I needed. Heat seared my veins, rage lashing again

After sending the email, I grabbed my stuff and left the suite. I thought of changing my contact and disappearing again, but I’d done that previously and it didn’t help matters. So I decided to go to a small town to clear my head for a while. I didn’t remember much of the journey from the city to this small town. My body had gone through the motions while booking the room, packing my suitcase, hailing a cab, while my mind hovered elsewhere, locked in that final, humiliating moment with Zane. The way his hand had closed over my wrist when I tried to leave. The look in his eyes, not the cold indifference he had worn so well these past weeks, but something rawer, something unguarded. And then the shock of hearing my own name fall from the waiter’s lips, the casual betrayal of truth in his refined voice. It had been enough to slice through the illusion. Enough to shatter me. I just couldn’t understand why. No matter what excuse he gave. I was angry, I was mad, I was raging, I was hurt.

I stood frozen in the doorway, my hand still gripping the knob. Sera looked radiant. She was glowing in bliss and innocence, the way a bride was supposed to look. She wore a soft cream dress that draped elegantly over her frame, cinched just enough to hint at her growing bump. A delicate pearl necklace sat at her collarbone, catching the weak afternoon light spilling into the guesthouse. Her hair was in a straight bob, her makeup perfectly polished. All I could think of was, how did she know I was here? “Amara,” she said softly, her smile stretching like silk. “It’s been so long.” I swallowed. My body screamed to slam the door shut, to put a wall between myself and the woman standing at the threshold of my fragile sanctuary. But my feet refused to move. “Sera,” I managed, my voice dry. “May I come in?” she asked, tilting her head just slightly, as though we were old friends reconnecting, not fractured pieces of a past I’d rather forget. Against every instinct, I stepped aside. S

87: Warnings “Don’t come to the wedding.” The words hung between us, suffocating and bitter. My chest clenched so tightly it was hard to breathe. I stared at him, stunned, as if he’d slapped me. Of all the things he could have said, apologies, explanations, even lies, that was what he chose? My throat burned, and anger flared hot in my veins. I let out a bitter laugh, shaking my head. “Is that supposed to be funny? First your fiancée comes here to invite me, and now you sneak around in the middle of the night to tell me not to?” For a second, shock showed in his expression. “Sera came here?” I didn’t answer his question. “What’s the real reason behind this visit, Zane?” “I mean it, Amara,” he said, his voice steadier now. “Don’t be there.” I took a step toward him, my fury sharpening. “Why? So you can pretend I never existed? So you can erase me the way you erased every trace of our past?” My voice cracked. “That’s why you sent me the anonymous text, right? To scare me into st

The world tilted. My lips parted, but no sound came. Only the hammering of my heart, only the raw, jagged silence that had lived inside me since the night my body betrayed me. I thought I had buried the motel forever. I still remembered the smell of cheap detergent on the sheets, the hollow hum of the ceiling fan that spun endlessly above me, indifferent to my agony. I remembered curling into myself, clutching my stomach as if I could hold the life inside me with sheer will. But the blood kept coming, hot and merciless, staining the mattress, seeping into my soul. I told no one, not even Zane. How could I have told him? He hated me for ruining his father’s company and everything they had built over the years. He publicly condemned me in front of the press. And I ran away and severed all bonds with him. So I convinced myself it was better that way. Our love was already a fragile thing. Why would I hand him another reason to hate me? Another reason to walk away? So I buried it deep