Chapter 712 Root
"You should tell your boyfriend about us, Amanda. And soon. There's no sense dragging this out. The longer it goes on, the more it's going to hurt him," Ross said, his voice low but firm.
He was sitting back against the sofa, legs slightly spread, watching her with that calm, unreadable look he always wore when they touched on something serious.
They were already a month into their secret relationship—if it could even be called that—and the line they were toeing had long since disappeared.
Amanda stood by the window, arms folded, her thoughts churning.
Her boyfriend, Chris, was due back in a few days.
She had told herself—lied to herself—that this was just a mistake, a moment of weakness.
But a month had passed. And here she was, not wanting it to end.
"I know," she whispered, barely loud enough to be heard. She exhaled slowly, the weight of her guilt sitting heavy in her chest. "I'll take care of it."
She turned away from the window, walked back toward Ross, and dropped onto the sofa beside him.
The silence between them was thick, not awkward but charged—like something unspoken was always hanging in the air.
Amanda leaned in and rested her head briefly against his shoulder. He didn't speak.
He just let her be. That was one of the things she liked about Ross—he never pushed. Not unless he had to.
After a moment, she tilted her head up and looked at him, her fingers already moving toward his belt, wordlessly.
Ross raised an eyebrow. "Right here?" he asked, a small smirk playing on his lips.
She nodded, her voice barely above a murmur. "No one's going to see. And right now… I don't want to think about anything else."
Her fingers worked quickly, unbuckling his belt, unzipping his pants.
She reached in and slowly pulled him out. Her breath hitched.
No matter how many times she saw it, the size of him still took her by surprise.
Amanda licked her lips, then lowered her head.
"God…" she murmured under her breath before taking him in.
Her mouth wrapped around him, her head bobbing gently at first, tongue swirling, eyes fluttering shut as she lost herself in the moment.
She couldn't take all of him—not even close—but what she could manage was more than enough.
She used her hands to work what her mouth couldn't reach, eager, hungry, as though this act was the only thing tethering her to sanity.
Ross leaned his head back, one hand drifting down to her hair. He didn't force her, just held her lightly, his breathing growing heavier.
"Mmm, just like that…" he muttered.
Amanda moaned softly around him, the sound vibrating through him.
It was messy, intimate, addicting—and for those minutes, everything else faded away. No boyfriend.
No guilt. Just the two of them and the tension crackling between their bodies.
It didn't take long. Ross tensed, and Amanda braced herself as the first warm spurt hit the back of her throat.
She swallowed without hesitation, keeping her mouth on him until he was done, until his fingers relaxed in her hair and he let out a long, satisfied breath.
She pulled back slowly, wiping the corner of her mouth with her thumb, then looked up at him.
"That should keep you quiet for a bit," she teased with a half-smile.
Ross chuckled, reaching down to cup her cheek. "You're dangerous, you know that?"
Amanda didn't answer. She leaned in again, resting her cheek on his thigh, eyes closed.
For now, she didn't want to think about consequences. She didn't want to feel guilty.
She just wanted to be here, in this quiet moment, with him.
The secret relationship between Amanda and Ross continued behind closed doors, unspoken but undeniably real.
Every kiss, every night spent tangled together on her couch, made the lie she was living grow heavier on her shoulders.
And somewhere far across the ocean, a man still believed in the promises they once made.
He held onto them like a lifeline, unaware that the ground beneath his world was already crumbling.
He had counted down the days on a calendar taped to the inside of his locker.
Each red mark brought him closer to home—closer to her. In his mind, Amanda was still waiting. Still smiling. Still his.
Until the moment everything changed.
Standing on the deck of his ship under the pale light of early morning, he casually unlocked his phone during a break, expecting a sweet message or maybe a photo.
What he got instead was a gut punch that knocked the air out of his lungs.
"It's over between us. I'm sorry. I've found someone new. Please forget me. You deserve someone better."
He read it once. Then again. And again.
"What?" he whispered, his voice hoarse with disbelief.
No greeting. No explanation. Just four lines that sliced through him like a blade.
He stared at the message for a full minute, fingers frozen above the screen.
Then he tried calling. Straight to voicemail. He opened their chat and typed:
Amanda? What is this? Please tell me this isn't real.
But the moment he hit send, the screen flashed. Message not delivered.
Her profile was gone. Her display picture—once a smiling photo of the two of them at the beach—was now just a gray silhouette.
She had blocked him.
He stood there in stunned silence, his breath shallow and shaky. Slowly, he lowered the phone.
"Fuck," he said under his breath, voice trembling.
Then louder: "Fuck!"
His fist slammed into the railing, knuckles scraping against cold metal, but he didn't feel the pain.
He could only feel the ringing in his ears, the suffocating pressure in his chest.
He had been out at sea for weeks, sleeping in cramped bunks, eating canned food, thinking of her every night.
He had planned everything.
The dinner. The ring. The words.
He had practiced the proposal in front of the mirror like an idiot, over and over again, imagining her face lighting up when he asked her to marry him.
He had even written the damn speech down in a notebook.
And now?
Now, she was in someone else's arms.
Someone she had clearly been seeing for a while.
His throat tightened as the realization sank in. She hadn't waited. She hadn't even hesitated.
She'd moved on.
While he was out here fighting storms and loneliness, Amanda was with someone else—laughing, kissing, moaning his name.
And just like that, everything they had meant nothing.
His hands gripped the railing as he stared blankly out at the sea.
The waves rolled gently, mocking his pain with their calm.
The ocean didn't care.
And neither, apparently, did she.