Masuk“I don’t remember losing you.”His fingers tighten around mine, warm, familiar, like they’ve always belonged there. But I remember everything. The silence. The distance. The night I found him in bed with someone I trusted more than him. So I pull my hand away. “You already did,” I say quietly. ******************************* Elena Hart spent three years married to billionaire Alexander Cross, three years of cold indifference, quiet humiliation, and a love that only existed on paper until the night it shattered completely, she walked away without looking back. Divorce papers signed and her freedom within reach, but two weeks later, everything changed. An accident leaves Alexander with no memory of the last five years, no memory of their broken marriage, no memory of the divorce, no memory of the woman he became. To him, Elena is still his wife. And somehow… the only person he wants. Pulled back into the Cross empire under a carefully constructed arrangement, Elena agrees to stay temporarily for her sister’s safety, for her own future, and for a deal she cannot afford to refuse. But the man waiting for her is not the one she left behind, this Alexander is attentive, gentle and devastatingly aware of her in ways he never was before, he remembers how she takes her coffee. Not the nights she cried alone. And the more he gets closer… The more dangerous it becomes, because Elena knows the truth: This version of him isn’t real and when his memory returns, the man who broke her will come back with it. But what she doesn’t know— Is that the memory loss was never real to begin with. And this time, the man she’s learning to trust again… Might be the one rewriting everything.
Lihat lebih banyakElena's Pov
The front door clicks shut behind me. I shift the paper bag higher against my hip, careful not to crush it, and nudge my heels off with the edge of my foot. The apartment is quiet. Too quiet for this time of night. I barely notice. My attention is on the bag, on the warmth still clinging to the paper, on the ridiculous fact that I stood in line for twenty minutes just to get it right. Alexander hates when the bread gets soggy. I listen for footsteps. There are none. No voice. No sign that he even knows I'm home. "That's fine," I murmur, more to myself than anyone else. "It's not like he waits." My bare feet press against the marble floor as I move further in. The house is dim except for the low glow spilling from the hallway lights, clean and untouched, like a showroom instead of a home. Three years, and I still haven't figured out how to make it feel like anything else. I climb the stairs anyway. The paper bag rustles faintly with each step. There's a strange, quiet anticipation sitting in my chest.. not excitement, not really, but something close enough that I don't question it. Maybe tonight he'll notice. I almost laugh at myself halfway up. "Don't start," I whisper. By the time I reach the hallway, the house feels even quieter. The door to the master bedroom is slightly ajar, a thin strip of warm light cutting across the dark floor. I pause, shifting the bag in my hands. "Alexander?" I call lightly. No answer. I push the door open. The bag slips from my hands before I fully process what I'm seeing. The soft thud of it hitting the floor barely registers. For a moment nothing moves, not even me. I stop breathing. Alexander is in the bed. And he isn't alone. Leo turns first. His expression changes too quickly… surprise, then something sharper, something almost guilty. I don't react to it. I don't react to anything. My gaze drifts over the sheets twisted around bare skin, the disheveled pillows, the familiarity of this space warped into something I don't recognize. My best friend. My husband. In our bed. "E-Elena—" Leo starts, pushing himself up, his voice cracking in a way I've never heard from him before. I don't answer. For a suspended second, everything feels distant, like I'm watching it from somewhere outside my own body. My mind doesn't shatter. It simply aligns. The late nights. The unread messages. The way Alexander never looked at me but never quite let me go either. The quiet, creeping sense that I was the only one still pretending this marriage meant anything. It settles into place with a clarity that almost feels like relief. "Say something," Leo says, sharper now, more desperate. "Elena, this isn't—" I turn before he can finish. I don't cry. I don't shake. I just make a clean, quiet movement toward the door. "Elena," he calls again, louder. "Wait—" I don't. I step into the hallway, pull the door shut behind me, and walk. I keep my pace steady all the way to the front door, put my heels on without thinking. The paper bag is still on the bedroom floor. I leave it there. Outside, the night air hits my skin, cool and sharp. I breathe it in, exhale just as slowly, and walk to my car. Nobody follows me. No one calls again. I start the engine and drive. ********* The sun is starting to come up by the time I reach my lawyer's building. I don't remember most of the drive, the city passed in blurred lights and empty streets, my hands steady on the wheel, my thoughts quiet. Not blank. Just settled, like something that had been trying to break for years had finally given up. He answers the door in a wrinkled shirt, blinking at me. "Elena? Do you know what time it is?" "Yes," I say. "I need you to draft divorce papers." That wakes him up fully. He studies my face like he's searching for cracks. "Are you sure you don't want to—" "I'm sure." Something in my tone convinces him. He steps aside. "Come in." The hours that follow move with a strange, deliberate rhythm. Paperwork spreads across the table. Pens click open and closed. Questions asked, answered, clarified. "Assets will need to be carefully outlined," he says, flipping through a document. "Given the scale of Cross Enterprises—" "I don't want anything I didn't bring into the marriage," I cut in. "Elena—" "I mean it." I don't shift my gaze. "I don't want his money. I don't want the house. I don't want the company. I just want out." A brief silence. Then he nods slowly. "Alright." I sign the final page just as the first real light of morning filters through the windows. My signature is clean, practiced. I set the pen down and align it with the edge of the document. "There," I say quietly. He exhales. "I'll have everything filed immediately." "Thank you." I stand, smoothing my hands over my dress out of habit more than necessity. For a second I just look at the stack of papers on the table. Three years, reduced to ink and signatures. "Are you okay?" he asks. I consider the question. Then I nod once. "I will be." ******* Outside, the morning air feels lighter. I step onto the sidewalk, my heels clicking softly against the pavement as I draw a slow breath. The city is waking up around me quiet movements building into something louder, something alive. For the first time in a long time, I don't feel like I'm moving through it alone. My phone vibrates in my hand. I glance down, expecting nothing important. *Unknown Number.* I open the message. *Alexander Cross in critical condition. You are still listed as his emergency contact.* I stop walking. There's no sudden rush of sound or motion. Just a stillness that settles around me, heavy and precise. My fingers tighten around the phone. I read the message again. Then once more. A strange, quiet laugh almost escapes me, but I catch it before it fully forms. "Of course," I murmur. Of course. I just walked away. Just signed the papers. Just closed the door on the past. And somehow…somehow… I'm still being pulled back in. I lift my gaze to the street ahead of me, the early sunlight stretching across the pavement. For a moment I don't move. Then my grip on the phone steadies. And I exhale.Grant calls again three days later, and this time I meet him somewhere new, a bookstore café on the other side of the city, far enough from anywhere Cross Enterprises has offices that I let myself relax by a fraction I didn't realize I was holding onto until I felt it ease."I traced the South Corridor's administrative access," he says, sliding a tablet across the small table between us instead of a paper folder this time. "Whoever's been managing the day-to-day routing isn't Doyle. He's a beneficiary, like I said, but the actual logistics...the person quietly making sure each shipment stays just under the review threshold, month after month, for years that takes someone with much closer access to Cross Enterprises' internal systems than a security director would normally have.""Who.""Look at the login timestamps." He taps the screen, pulling up a spreadsheet dense with dates and access codes. "Every adjustment to the South Corridor's routing parameters over the last three years wa
We end up working late together three nights in a row, not by design, at least not at first. Victoria's demanding a full audit of every vendor relationship before the next board cycle, and between my own investigation and the legitimate workload that's landed on me since the equity terms went through, midnight has quietly become the only hour where the house is finally quiet enough to actually think.The first night, I barely register him at all... he slips into the study around eleven with a stack of his own paperwork, murmurs something about the Ashford acquisition, and settles into the chair across the room without asking permission. I keep my head down, my pen moving steadily through figures, and if I notice the particular quality of his silence... focused, unhurried, nothing like the restless energy he used to carry through every room in this house before the accident, I don't let myself dwell on it.The second night, he brings me coffee without being asked, sets it down at the c
The private dining room Victoria's assistant booked for the quarterly investor lunch is smaller than I expect, all dark wood and hushed lighting, the kind of space designed to make people feel important enough to lower their guard. I arrive early, deliberately, wanting a few quiet minutes before the room fills with people who'll spend the next two hours watching me for any sign of weakness they can carry back to their own boardrooms.I don't get the quiet minutes."Elena Cross. Or is it Hart again? I can never keep up with which version of your name is currently accurate."Marcus Hale's voice arrives before he does, smooth and unbothered, carrying the particular confidence of a man who's never once had to consider whether a room wanted him in it. He steps in from a side door I hadn't noticed, already holding a drink he clearly poured himself, and settles into the chair directly across from mine without waiting for an invitation."It's still Cross," I say evenly. "For now.""For now."
[Victoria]The ledger has lived in the same drawer for three years, beneath a false bottom I had installed myself, by a locksmith I paid enough to guarantee his silence and then quietly stopped using afterward, just to be certain.I take it out only at night, when the house is finally still, when I can sit at my desk without the risk of Elena's sharp, unforgiving eyes catching something in my expression I haven't yet learned to fully hide from her. She's good. Better than I expected, if I'm honest with myself, which I try to be at least once a day, usually here, alone, with this book open in front of me like a confession I've never had the courage to actually make.I knew about the policy revision the day it happened. I told myself, at the time, that it didn't matter — that Jonathan was gone, that Alexander was young and grieving and surrounded by advisors who should have known better than to let him sign something that complex without proper scrutiny. I told myself a great many conve






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