Page 75 of Vow to Claim You

Ingrid disappears toward the kitchen, and then it’s just us. For a moment, his eyes flick between mine as if he’s contemplating something before he takes two steps closer.

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

My heart lurches. Those words rarely come before good news.

“I didn’t bring it up before. Given… everything.” A hesitation I’ve rarely heard from him. “And I hate putting it on you this soon. But Hyun-seok called while we were in Monsera. He’s invited us to the wedding.”

The wedding.

Chiara’s wedding.

The woman I replaced, marrying the man Aric handed her to in order to save her life. A celebration built entirely out of other people’s wreckage—and I’m expected to stand in the middle of it, smile, play the wife.

“When?” My voice comes out steadier than I feel.

“This weekend.”

Of course. Because grief in this world doesn’t come with a recovery period. You bury one ghost on Monday and dress for someone else’s wedding by Saturday.

I nod. There’s nothing else to do. “Okay.”

He studies me a moment longer, like there’s something else behind his teeth, but Tassilo’s voice cuts in from the doorway.

“Boss. We need to move.”

Aric gives me one last unreadable look, then vanishes behind his office door.

Whatever softened between us in Monsera, it doesn’t live here.

Ingrid returns and presses a steaming cup into my hands. I thank her and carry the tea upstairs.

I enter the bedroom and before I realize what I’m doing, I’m opening the tracker on my phone. Lately, it’s become a habit.

The dates stare back at me like a sentence.

Fertile. Now. This window, and maybe one more.

Twelve months from the day I signed the contract means I should conceive this month, or next, if I want any hope of delivering before the clock runs out. And that’s assuming everything goes perfectly.

Which, in my experience, nothing ever does.

So that leaves me with two months to get pregnant by a man who barely touches me. In a marriage built not out of love but to produce something—someone—as though my body is a factory floor and Vidar is the quality-control manager pacing the line, waiting for output.

I set the phone face down. As if not seeing the dates makes them any less true.

The bath helps to drown the steady tick-tick-tick of a deadline I never agreed to but signed anyway, because what choice was I ever given?

I sink until the water reaches my chin and let the heat swallow me. I close my eyes, hoping to quiet my thoughts, but they refuse to settle. They keep drifting back to the only man who could keep me alive… and I have no idea how to ask him.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Aric

Idrag my collar open as I walk through the hallway, working the top button loose, the cold of the house a relief against my throat after hours of holding a room together by sheer will.

All I want is silence. A few hours where no one needs anything from me.

I open the door to our bedroom and stop in my tracks.