When the searchlight from the rescue boat finally swept across the water, Amaris was already completely exhausted.
She clung tightly to a buoy, her vision blurred as she scanned the surface.
Nothing met her eyes but rolling waves and empty darkness.
Elsewhere, Stellan stood beside a window in the hospital corridor, holding a paternity test report in his hand.
It felt as though a heavy stone rested on his chest, every breath brought with it a sharp, stabbing pain.
The words printed clearly on the page burned into his sight: Following DNA analysis, Stellan Blackwood is excluded as the biological father of the fetus.
A hollow, bitter laugh escaped him.
He had let Amaris fall from the cliff, all for a child that was not even his.
Rain streaked against the windowpanes, blurring the ligh
