Hate Me Like You Love Me (Serena and Caleb) novel Chapter 92

Serena’s POV

There is a particular cruelty in watching a man use a pregnant woman as a shield.

Simon stands in our living room like he belongs here, one arm around the shoulders of a girl who can't be older than twenty-five. She has dark circles under her eyes and the rigid posture that comes from being told to stand up straight and smile.

Her belly stretches the fabric of a floral dress that looks brand-new. She keeps her hands clasped over the bump, fingers laced like a prayer she doesn't believe in anymore.

"This is Amber," Simon announces, his voice warm with a pride that doesn't reach his eyes. "We've been together almost a year now. Baby's due in June."

Nobody speaks. William stands near the fireplace with his arms crossed, jaw working through a silence that has weight.

Caleb is a wall of tension beside me, every muscle coiled so tight I can feel the vibration through the air between us.

But it's Catherine I watch.

Her face doesn't move. Not a flinch, not a twitch, not a crack in the porcelain expression she wears like armor.

She stands in the kitchen doorway, hands at her sides, and I recognize that stillness because I've practiced it myself. ‘The careful architecture of a woman who learned long ago that showing pain gives the person who caused it exactly what they want.’

"I thought it was important for everyone to see that I'm building a real future." Simon rubs Amber's shoulder like a car salesman polishing his best model. "I'm not the person Catherine's lawyers are trying to make me out to be."

"You brought your pregnant girlfriend to the house where your ex-wife lives." William's voice is dangerously even.

"I brought the mother of my future child to meet my son's family." Simon tilts his head with that infuriating reasonableness. "Caleb, don't you want to meet the woman who's going to give you a sibling?"

"Get out." Caleb's voice comes out low, scraped raw.

"Come on, son. Amber wanted to meet everyone, and I thought it would show good faith—"

"You thought it would look good for the judge." The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. Every head turns. Simon's smile falters, then reassembles itself.

"Excuse me?"

"A man contesting his ex-wife's marriage while starting a new family." I keep my tone measured, the way my pre-law professors taught me to dismantle an argument.

"It undercuts your entire petition. You can't claim reconciliation with one hand and wave around a baby announcement with the other."

Simon's eyes narrow, the charm dissolving into the flat, calculating gaze of a man who doesn't appreciate being outmaneuvered by a twenty-year-old.

"You've got quite the mouth on you," he says quietly. "I can see why my son likes you."

Caleb takes a step forward, and I catch his wrist. He stops, but the tendons beneath my fingers feel like steel cables about to snap.

"I think you should leave," William says, and his tone makes it clear this isn't a suggestion.

"We just got here. Amber hasn't even sat down."

"I'm fine," Amber says, the first words she's spoken since entering the house. Her voice is small and careful. "Simon, maybe we should go."

"See, baby, they just need a minute to warm up." He squeezes her shoulder again, too hard. She doesn't wince, but her eyes tighten at the corners, and my stomach drops.

‘She's afraid of him. She's standing in this living room, pregnant with his child, and she's afraid of him.’

"Simon." William moves toward the door and opens it. "Now."

Simon sighs, kisses Amber's temple with exaggerated tenderness, and guides her toward the door.

‘I know that tremble. I know what it costs to hold yourself together when every nerve in your body is screaming.’

Her eyes are dry, but the effort it takes to keep them that way shows in the way her chin lifts, the way her throat works around the words she's swallowing.

"That girl is younger than you are," Catherine says finally, her voice barely holding. "And she had the same look on her face that I used to see in my bathroom mirror every morning."

"I noticed."

She presses her lips together and looks at the ceiling. "You shouldn't have to notice things like that, Serena."

"I noticed it because I recognized it." I hold her gaze when she looks back at me. "You taught me what composure looks like when it's covering up hurt. I've been watching you do it since I was fourteen."

The words land between us, honest and awkward and imperfect. Catherine lowers herself into the chair across from me, and her composure fractures just enough to let the exhaustion through.

"I stayed with him for seven years." Her voice drops to a whisper. "Everyone always asks why. My therapist asked. William asked. Caleb has never asked out loud, but I can see the question in his eyes every time Simon's name comes up."

"You don't have to explain anything to me."

"I want to. Because you deserve to know what kind of man is trying to tear this family apart."

She folds her hands on the table, knuckles white. "I didn't stay because I was weak, Serena. I didn't stay because I loved him or because I thought things would get better."

She pauses, and the breath she draws sounds like it's passing over broken glass.

"I stayed because he told me that if I ever tried to leave, he would take Caleb. He had connections, money back then, and he swore he'd fight for full custody and win. He said no judge would give a child to a mother with no income and no family."

Her eyes meet mine, and the pain in them is so old, so deeply embedded, that it has become part of her.

"He used my son as a chain."