$2 million. That's what I was worth. Not as a person. As a womb.
The morning after waking in Kairos's arms, Elara had extracted herself carefully, returned to her room, and spent the day in careful avoidance. Not angry. Not scared. Just... processing. Her body had declared its truth in the night, and now her mind needed to catch up.
But the contract photos on her phone kept calling to her. Evidence. Documentation. The brutal reality beneath all the soft domesticity they'd been building.
She'd been purchased.
And she needed to hear him say it. Needed the honesty that cut, because pretty lies were more dangerous than ugly truths.
So at dinner that evening—Leo happily destroying spaghetti, Kairos asking about her day with careful neutrality—Elara pulled out her phone.
She scrolled to the contract photos. The official pages with their clinical language and devastating terms. And she slid the phone across the table to Kairos.
"Want to explain this?"
He looked down at the screen. Went absolutely pale. His fork clattered against his plate.
"Where did you get that?" His voice was carefully controlled, but she heard the tremor underneath.
"Does it matter?" She kept her tone neutral. Leo was right there, oblivious but present. This needed to stay civil. "Tell me about the money."
Kairos's eyes flicked to Leo, then back to her. Understanding passed between them—not here, not in front of him.
"Leo, why don't you take your plate to the living room?" Kairos suggested, his voice only slightly strained. "You can watch cartoons while you finish eating."
"Really?" Leo's eyes went wide. TV during dinner was a rare treat.
"Really. Go ahead."
Leo grabbed his plate with both hands and scurried off, already forgetting his parents' tension in favor of television privileges.
The moment he was out of earshot, Kairos's careful composure cracked.
"The safe deposit box," he said flatly. "You found the key."
"I found the truth." Elara leaned back in her chair, arms crossed. "Now tell me. The money. All of it."
Kairos ran a hand through his hair, the gesture so weary it almost made her feel guilty for pressing. Almost.
"$2 million," he said finally, each word deliberate. "Paid in two installments. One million upon confirmed pregnancy. One million upon delivery and signing away all parental rights."
The clinical recitation made her stomach turn. "Did I get the full amount?"
"Yes. It was transferred to your account the day after Leo was born. Both installments. You earned every cent."
Earned. Like she'd completed a job. Delivered a product.
"And then you threw me out."
"Yes."
No hesitation. No softening. Just brutal, honest confirmation.
Elara had expected anger to rise. Expected fury at his admission, at the transaction, at being reduced to a financial arrangement.
Instead, she felt something worse: a hollow ache. Grief for the woman she'd been who'd been desperate enough to accept this deal. Grief for the child who'd been treated like a commodity. Grief for all of them.
"Why that amount?" she asked. "Two million specifically."
"It was what you needed. Your mother's treatment would have cost $2.3 million. I rounded down slightly because you'd indicated you had some savings. The contract amount was designed to cover her medical expenses with a small cushion."
So he'd known. Had calculated exactly what would be enough to make her say yes without being so excessive it felt like exploitation.
Except it was exploitation. Just calculated, precise exploitation.
"And the terms?" She gestured to her phone, to the pages of legalese that reduced pregnancy to commerce. "Complete relinquishment. NDA. Non-compete clause."
"Standard surrogacy language," Kairos said, but his voice lacked conviction. "My lawyers drafted it to protect—"
"To protect you," Elara interrupted. "Not me. Protect your interests. Your heir. Your privacy."
"Yes."
Again, that devastating honesty. He could have made excuses, softened the blow. Instead, he gave her truth like a blade.
"The NDA was because you're a public figure," she said, working through it. "You didn't want this arrangement leaked to the press."
"Correct."
"And the non-compete? The clause that said I couldn't be a surrogate for anyone else for five years?"
His jaw tightened. "That was... personal."
"Explain."
"I didn't want you doing this for anyone else." The admission came out rough. "Didn't want you carrying another man's child. Didn't want—" He stopped, shook his head. "It was possessive. Controlling. Wrong. But I had it written in anyway."
Elara stared at him. "You were possessive of me even then. Before you admitted to falling in love."
"Yes."
"That's—" She struggled for words. "That's disturbing, Kairos."
"I know." He met her eyes. "I know. But you wanted truth. You wanted to know exactly what kind of man I am. This is it. I was possessive of you from the beginning. From the moment you walked into that lawyer's office and signed your name. Some part of me claimed you then, even though I had no right."
The confession should have repulsed her. Should have confirmed every fear about his controlling nature.
Instead, it just made her sad. For him. For her. For the twisted foundation of what might have been love if either of them had known how to build it properly.
"I spent it," she said quietly. "The money. Didn't I? On my mother."
"Most of the first million, yes. Medical expenses, hospital bills. The experimental treatment she underwent." He paused. "She died six months into your pregnancy. The treatment didn't work."
The information settled over her like a shroud. She'd sold herself for nothing. Her mother had died anyway. All that sacrifice, all that pain, and she'd still lost everything that mattered.
"The second million?" Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Still in your account. Untouched. When you woke up with amnesia, you didn't remember it was there. I made sure you had access to the account information, but you never checked. Never spent it."
"Because some part of me knew it was blood money."
"Or because you didn't need it. You've been living here. I've covered everything."
Elara laughed bitterly. "So I'm still dependent on you. Still trapped by money, just in a different way."
"You're not trapped. That money is yours. Do whatever you want with it. Keep it. Donate it. Burn it. I don't care." His voice dropped. "I'd give you ten times that amount to undo what I did to you. Twenty times. Whatever it would take."
"You can't undo it." She looked at him across the table, this broken man who'd broken her. "Money can't fix what you destroyed."
"I know." His eyes were devastated. "But I'll spend the rest of my life trying anyway."
They sat in heavy silence, the contract photos still glowing on her phone between them. Evidence of everything wrong between them. Everything that should make her run.
"I have more questions," Elara said finally.
"Ask them."
"All of them?"
"Every single one. No more secrets. No more lies. You want to know what kind of man I was? What I did? Ask."
It was an invitation to destruction. To excavate every painful detail and lay them out like autopsy findings.
Elara took a breath. Asked the question that had been haunting her since she'd woken in his arms that morning.
"Did you ever touch me? During the pregnancy. Intimately."
Kairos went absolutely still. His jaw clenched so hard she heard his teeth grind.
"Yes."
The single word detonated between them.
"How many times?"
"Twice. Both times I initiated. Both times you were hesitant, unsure. Both times I pushed past your hesitation because I wanted you and I convinced myself that wanting was enough."
Elara's heart hammered against her ribs. "Tell me. Specifically."
"Are you sure?" His voice was strained. "This won't—it won't make anything better."
"Tell me anyway."
Kairos closed his eyes briefly, then opened them to meet her gaze head-on. "The first time was month six. You were reading in the library. I came in to discuss a doctor's appointment and ended up staying. We talked for hours. About books, about childhood, about nothing important. And then—" He stopped, swallowed hard. "I kissed you. You pulled back, said it was a bad idea. I kissed you again anyway. Told you it didn't have to mean anything. That we could keep it separate from the arrangement."
"And I believed you."
"You wanted to believe me. You were lonely. Isolated. Living in my home with only me for company. I took advantage of that."
"What happened?"
"We slept together. It was—" His voice cracked. "It was gentle. Careful. You were six months pregnant and I was terrified of hurting you or the baby. Afterward, you asked if it meant something. If we were... something."
"What did you say?"
"I said no. That it was just physical. That the contract still stood and nothing had changed." His hands clenched into fists on the table. "You cried. I left you there crying and went to my room and told myself I'd done the right thing. Maintained boundaries. Kept it professional."
"And the second time?"
"Month eight. Two weeks before you gave birth. You were uncomfortable, in pain, couldn't sleep. I found you in the kitchen at three in the morning. We talked. I rubbed your feet, your back, trying to help with the pain. It escalated." He met her eyes. "I told myself it was comfort. That I was helping you. Really, I just wanted you again and convinced myself you wanted it too."
"Did I?"
"I don't know." His voice was raw. "You didn't say no. But you didn't exactly say yes either. You just... let it happen. Like you were too tired to fight. Too lonely to refuse. And I took that as consent because I needed to."
Elara felt sick. Not with him. With the situation. With the power imbalance that had made consent murky at best.
"Both times," Kairos continued, his voice barely audible, "I told myself it meant nothing. That it was just physical. That I could separate my body from my emotions." His laugh was bitter. "I was lying to myself. It meant everything. Every touch, every kiss, every moment—I was falling deeper and it terrified me. So I lied. To you. To myself. About what it meant. About what you meant to me."
"And then you threw me away anyway."
"And then I threw you away anyway," he confirmed. "Because loving you meant choosing you over everything else. And I wasn't brave enough."
The confession settled between them like ash. The remains of what might have been if either of them had made different choices.
Elara looked at this man—this honest, broken, self-aware man—and felt her anger crystallizing into something more complex. Not forgiveness. But understanding. Painful, devastating understanding.
"Thank you," she said finally.
He looked up, surprised. "For what?"
"For not lying. For telling me exactly how bad it was. How you used me." She stood, picking up her phone. "For letting me see the monster clearly instead of hiding him behind pretty words."
"Elara—"
"I'm not leaving," she interrupted. "I'm just... processing. I need time to reconcile the man who rubbed my feet with the man who took advantage of my loneliness. To figure out if the person you were then is the same as the person you are now."
"And if I am?"
She paused in the doorway, looking back at him. "Then I'll know exactly what I'm dealing with. And I can make my choice with open eyes."
She left him sitting at the table, surrounded by the evidence of his sins, and returned to her room.
That night, she lay in bed staring at the contract photos on her phone. At the margin notes that said "I'm in love with her" right next to the clause that stripped her of all parental rights.
Evidence of a man at war with himself. Capable of love and cruelty simultaneously.
And she realized: she was falling for him anyway.
Not despite knowing what he'd done. But because he'd told her the truth without flinching. Because he'd laid himself bare and let her judge him.
Because honesty—even brutal, painful honesty—was the only foundation that could possibly support anything real between them.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Kairos.
"I'm sorry isn't enough. But I'm sorry anyway. For all of it."
She typed back:
"I know."
A pause. Then:
"Does knowing change anything?"
Elara stared at the question. Did it? Did knowing he'd used her, touched her, claimed her even within the bounds of a contract change how she felt?
She typed slowly:
"I don't know yet. Ask me again when I'm ready to answer."
His response came immediately:
"I'll wait as long as it takes."
She believed him. And that, more than anything, terrified her.
Because believing him meant hoping. And hope was the most dangerous thing she could allow herself to feel.