She's No Beauty Queen

Everyone always told Lily Bennett not to go check out the tide pools by herself. Her professors did. Her overprotective family members did. Her friends did. But she hated being held back by her illness so that particular day she threw caution to the wind.Being a highly independent person was difficult when you had epilepsy. For about a year and a half, her seizures had been too active so her driver’s license was suspended until she did a whole lot of paperwork and proved her doctor said she was okay to drive again. That had been awful. She only got it back six months ago.But there hadn’t been a single seizure since then. Her medication kept things stable. That was why she felt confident enough to go out to the tide pools alone today.The people in her life were concerned that if Lily ever went to the beach by herself and had a seizure she might drown. She was a marine biology student! Sometimes she had to go to the beach when she couldn’t get anyone to go with her.Assigning a repor

Her head was fuzzy but she could feel someone holding her hand and hear someone trying to talk to her. Where was she? What happened? She couldn’t remember anything.Opening her eyes took tremendous effort and a very handsome, very blurry man appeared in front of her. She squinted trying to get a better look. He had chiseled features and dark hair with hazel eyes that were filled with worry despite his blank expression.“Angel? Are you alright?” the man asked in as casual a manner as possible considering he was gripping her hand rather tightly.“Who…who are you?” she asked.His face fell. “You’re messing with me, right? This isn’t funny. You know me…you have to know me. I’m Eddie, though you’re the only one that has ever called me that. Your fiancé.”Her fiancé? She had a fiancé? So he knew who she was then, right. “If you’re my fiancé then who am I? What happened to me?”“You’re scaring me. You’re Angel—Angelina Dawson. How hard did you hit your head? They found you at the beach; what

Aria continued happily babbling about something Angel couldn’t quite decipher as she snuggled up against her and Eddie watched the two of them with a slight smile on his face. This was so strange. So foreign. Shouldn’t being home have triggered some of her memories by now?She didn’t recognize this adorable little girl or the man fondly watching over them. Now that she had her glasses on and could look around the room, none of this opulence looked familiar either.Her bedroom was huge. There were beauty products scattered all over the vanity and the bed could fit four people easily but there was still tons of space in the room itself.It was decorated in a rather feminine manner and she couldn’t help but wonder if Eddie stayed in this room too or somewhere else. There was only one dresser. Once again she found herself questioning the sort of relationship they had.A knock sounded on the door and Angel looked up to see a man with light brown hair, blue eyes, and more delicate features

Edward Todd was getting more and more confused. The DNA report that he got Dr. Anderson to put a rush on had been emailed over to him and the evidence was conclusive.The amnesiac currently on Angel’s bed shared 50% of Aria’s DNA. Only he and her mother were capable of showing such a result on this kind of test. Yet he remained uneasy. The amnesia was bad enough but acting like a completely different person when confronted with the ocean was even worse.With amnesia alone, she would come back to him eventually. All it would take was patience and constant reminders of the familiar. But if her personality had changed, he was dealing with a wild card.A terrible part of him wondered if he could take advantage of her amnesia and personality changes to improve their relationship. He knew Angel didn’t love him. He had ruined her life, after all, even if it was an accident.They met when he was twenty-six and disillusioned about the world. His parents had never cared about him beyond what he

The two of them did end up going back into the party separately but that didn’t stop the manager from catching on. He reached out to Edward a few days later about having dinner with his client to try and nail him for a sponsorship. He had no intention of sponsoring Angel but did want to see her again so he agreed.When she met up with him, the first thing she did was raise an eyebrow at him and speak wryly. “Edward Todd, huh? My manager says you’re a pretty big deal.”He shrugged. “Doesn’t prevent me from getting taken advantage of. In fact, it’s the primary reason people do. By all means, don’t get all formal with me now. You’re the only person who has ever called me Eddie and I kind of like it.”Angel relaxed slightly at his words. “Fair enough. I’m the one that got all informal on you last time anyway. Sorry about that…I’d never had alcohol before and my tolerance is low. Guess that’s another reason to stay away from it. I didn’t do anything too weird, did I?”“Aside from asking a