The realization crept up on Amelia gradually, arriving fully one afternoon while she was reviewing calendar dates for an upcoming literacy program fundraiser the anniversary of her wedding to Damian, the original one-year mark of their contracted marriage, was only weeks away. She sat with the date for a long moment, memories flooding back with startling clarity the rushed ceremony, the pale gray dress, the careful, distant stranger she'd married that day compared to the man she now shared her life with so completely. It felt almost impossible that only a year had passed, given everything they'd endured together. "Did you realize," she said to Damian that evening, setting the calendar between them at dinner, "that our anniversary is coming up? The actual one-year mark of the contract?" Damian went still for a moment, something complicated crossing his features as he processed the significance. "I hadn't tracked it precisely, but you're right. A year, almost exactly, since that da
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