RECLAIMING ME

Amber POV Liam was furious. I could see it in his eyes. In the way they darkened and in the way his hands strangled the steering wheel as we drove home from the hospital. He was always like this after every fertility appointment—angry at the world, wounded, withdrawn. And every time, I sat there helpless, watching the man I loved crumble because of something I couldn’t give him. “Dr. Carl is a fraud,” he snapped after a long silence. “We’ll find another doctor. One who actually knows what he’s doing.” I wasn’t surprised by his words. He said the same thing after every appointment. He always starts with blaming the doctor. Then he would blame me. And then he would schedule another appointment as if a different office would magically change the fact that I was infertile. “He said the same thing the others said,” I murmured. “Don’t you think—” “No!” He slammed his palm against the wheel, making me jolt in my seat. “I don’t want to hear anything about alternative options. You are going to give me a child the right way. Like my mother did. Do you hear me?” I nodded, afraid that if I spoke again, he would explode. “This is your fault,” he muttered. I didn’t wait to hear the rest of his words so I tuned him out, retreating into my own mind as the city blurred past the window. His voice faded into a distant echo. I had gotten so used to his outburst that I could predict what he was saying. He was probably asking me why I was so different from other women. Blaming my lack of fertility on my weight. He was probably telling me to go on a diet, the one his friend’s wife Laura did that made her lose a ton of fat. I couldn’t hear a thing any honestly. I was glad, disassociating had saved me from losing my mind in this marriage. “Amber!” His sudden shout shattered the little bubble I had built for myself. I turned to him slowly. “What?” “Were you even listening to what I was saying?” “Of course,” I lied. “I’ll do whatever you want, Liam. You don’t have to worry.” He returned his eyes to the road, satisfied with my surrender. The man beside me wasn’t the man I had married. In the beginning, he was kind. Gentle, even. Our marriage had been arranged, but we had tried to make it work. We had learned each other—habits, likes, dreams. And for a while, it had almost felt like love. Then his parents began asking questions. Where is the heir? Why does she not conceive? And everything went downhill from there. Despite Liam’s sudden change my love for him never died. Call me stupid but I didn’t see myself being with any other person apart from him. A sudden stop made me lift my head. We had arrived home. But my eyes weren’t drawn to the gates of the mansion. They locked onto the figure standing just outside them. A woman. Her back was turned as she spoke to the security guard. The sound of the horn filled the air, and she turned around. The world seemed to tilt. My lips parted in shock as recognition hit me like a wave. Agatha. Liam was already stepping out of the car. The anger that had consumed him minutes earlier was gone, replaced with a smile I hadn’t seen in years. He rushed toward her and wrapped his arms around her slender frame. A body I wished I had. I saw him pull back seconds later, his eyes scanning her face, her body, as if he needed to memorize her again. They spoke quietly. Intimately. For several minutes, I simply sat there and watched. Finally, he returned to the car, starting the engine again. “What is she doing here?” I asked in a shallow tone. “She needs my help,” he replied. “And I promised her I will do everything to help her,” Those words so simple, so calmly spoken shattered something so deep inside me.