Amara continued.
“I haven’t forgotten the way you treated me,” she said quietly. “I haven’t forgotten the way you acted like I didn’t even exist.”
Her eyes hardened as she looked straight into his.
“Every bit of distance between us was your choice.”
Elias swallowed hard.
“Youhurtme, Elias.”
A bitter laugh escaped her, hollow and painful.
“For so long, I thought marriage would make us happy.” Her eyes shimmered with tears she stubbornly refused to let fall. “But what did I get in return?”
She looked at him with open heartbreak.
“A husband who didn’t care about me. A husband who stood there silently while everyone talked badly about me.”
Her voice cracked slightly before she forced it steady again.
“When people said you married me only because Grandpa forced you to… when they mocked me and pitied me…” She shook herhead slowly, pain flashing across her face. “Do you even know how much that hurt?”
Elias’s face lost color.
“You thought you were protecting me,” she whispered. “But it was my life too. It should’ve been my choice.”
The last words broke despite her efforts to stay composed.
“You can never understand how much I cried because of you.”
Tears burned in her eyes, but she lifted her chin stubbornly, refusing to let them fall.
Then she looked at him with cold determination.
“I’ll never forget any of it,” she said firmly. “Every single thing that happened between us is still stuck in my head.”
Her voice turned colder.
“And I don’t want to go through that pain again.”
She took another step back.
“Our marriage is over.”
The moment the words left her mouth, Elias moved instantly.
“No.”
Panic flashed across his face as he stepped toward her again. His hand shot out instinctively, gripping her arm before sliding up to cradle her cheek carefully, almost desperately, like he was terrified she would disappear if he let go.
“I can fix it,” he said quickly, his voice rough and uneven. “I’ll make up for everything that went wrong.”
His eyes searched hers frantically, filled with desperation she had never seen from him before.
“You have to understand…”
She cut him off before he could continue.
