Chapter 2

DAMIEN'S POV 

The impact felt like the world exploding.

One second I was checking my phone, confirming my London flight details, the next there was screaming metal and shattering glass and my body was being thrown in directions bodies weren't meant to go. The airbag punched my face. Something cracked in my chest. Then everything went dark.

I woke up to beeping machines and white walls.

"Damien? Can you hear me?"

A doctor's face swam into focus above me. Middle-aged woman, kind eyes, concern written across her features. I tried to speak but my throat was raw, like I'd swallowed broken glass.

"Don't try to talk yet. You've been in a serious accident. You're at Mercy General Hospital. You've been unconscious for two weeks."

Two weeks?

I tried to sit up but pain exploded through my ribs. The doctor gently pressed my shoulder back down.

"Easy. You have three broken ribs, a fractured collarbone, and severe head trauma. You're lucky to be alive."

Lucky. I didn't feel lucky. I felt like I'd been hit by a train.

"There's someone here to see you. Your friend James has been here every day."

James appeared beside the bed, looking exhausted. His normally crisp appearance was rumpled, dark circles under his eyes. He gripped my hand hard.

"Thank God. We thought we'd lost you."

"What happened?" My voice came out as a croak.

"Car accident. On the highway to the airport. A truck clipped your car and you hit the barrier. Your car flipped three times." James's voice cracked. "Damien, the paramedics said if you'd been going any faster..."

He didn't finish. He didn't need to.

The doctor cleared her throat. "Mr. Cross, I need to run some tests. Can you tell me what year it is?"

"2023."

She exchanged a glance with James. Something cold settled in my stomach.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Damien," James said carefully. "It's 2028. Five years have passed since you think it's 2023."

I stared at him. "That's not funny."

"I'm not joking." He pulled out his phone, showed me the date. May 15, 2028. "You have retrograde amnesia. The head trauma affected your memory."

The room spun. Five years? Gone?

"The last thing I remember is... I was working on the Henderson merger. I'd just made junior executive." I looked at James, panic rising in my chest. "What happened? Where have I been? What did I do?"

"You've been here. Working. Running the company, actually. Your father retired three years ago. You're CEO now."

CEO. I was twenty-seven in my memories. How could I be CEO?

"What else?" Something in James's expression told me there was more. "Tell me everything."

James sat down heavily in the chair beside my bed. "You got married four years ago. To a woman named Elara Bennett. You divorced her two weeks ago, right before the accident."

The words didn't make sense. Married? Divorced? I had no memory of any woman named Elara.

"I don't understand. Why would I marry someone and then divorce them?"

"I don't know, man. You didn't talk about it much. You kept your personal life separate from work." James rubbed his face. "Look, I only met her a handful of times. She seemed nice. Quiet. You brought her to company events but you two never looked particularly happy together."

"Do you have a picture?"

James hesitated, then pulled up a photo on his phone. A wedding photo. Me in a tuxedo, looking stiff and formal, standing beside a woman with dark hair and sad eyes. She was beautiful, delicate, wearing a white dress that probably cost a fortune. She was smiling but there was something hollow about it.

I stared at the stranger I'd apparently married. I felt nothing. No recognition, no memory, nothing.

"Tell me about her."

"I don't know much. She worked at some gallery when you met. You seemed intense about her at first, then after the wedding you barely mentioned her. She stopped coming to events after the first year. Your mother made some comments about her not fitting in, but Victoria makes comments about everyone."

My mother. Of course she did.

"Why did we divorce?"

"You didn't say. You just announced one day that you were handling it. That was two weeks ago. Then the accident happened the same day."

Two weeks ago. The day I couldn't remember.

Over the next few days, James filled in the gaps. I'd transformed Cross Industries, made it twice as profitable, earned a reputation as ruthless and brilliant. I'd cut ties with old friends, worked eighteen-hour days, became someone I didn't recognize in the stories he told.

"Was I happy?" I asked one evening.

James was quiet for a long time. "I don't think you let yourself feel anything. You were driven, successful, respected. But happy? No, Damien. You weren't happy."

They released me from the hospital after a week. James drove me back to a penthouse I didn't remember buying. Everything was expensive and cold, like a hotel room rather than a home. I walked through empty rooms, touching furniture that meant nothing, looking at art I didn't remember choosing.

In my office, I found files, contracts, emails written in my own hand but sounding like a stranger. Cold, efficient, merciless. Was this really who I'd become?

Then I found it. In the bottom drawer of my desk, underneath old contracts, a sealed envelope with "DON'T SEND" written in my handwriting.

Inside was a letter dated two years ago. Addressed to Elara.

My hands shook as I read it. I'd written about falling in love with her, about being terrified of vulnerability, about pushing her away because caring about someone felt like weakness. I'd promised to try harder, to be better, to let her in.

But I'd never sent it. I'd sealed it away and apparently continued destroying whatever we had.

I read it three times, trying to feel something, to remember. Nothing came.

"James," I called out. He appeared in the doorway. "I need you to find her. Elara. I need to know what happened. I need to understand."

"Damien, maybe you should let it go. The doctors said forcing memories could—"

"I don't care what the doctors said. Find her."

It took him three days. When he came back, his expression was grim.

"She's in Seattle. Running a small gallery. She changed her name back to Bennett." He paused. "She's moved on, Damien. Maybe you should too."

But I couldn't. I booked a flight that night.

I found her at a gallery opening, laughing with a client, vibrant and alive in a way she'd never looked in our wedding photos. When she saw me, everything about her shut down.

She walked out the back exit. I followed into the rain.

"Elara, wait. Please."

She turned, her face unreadable. "What are you doing here?"

"I had an accident. I have amnesia. I don't remember the last five years. I don't remember you, or us, or what happened. I just need to understand—"

"You don't remember me?"

Something in her voice made my chest ache. I shook my head.

She laughed, but it sounded like breaking glass. "Of course you don't. That's perfect, actually. Poetic."

"Please. Tell me what I did. Help me understand."

"What you did?" She stepped closer, rain streaming down her face. "You married me, Damien. You made me fall in love with you, and then you spent three years making me wish I'd never met you.”