The Man I Used to Forget Love CHAPTER 4

She returned to Whitestone Capital at 8:47 a.m. on the second day. Derrick’s door was closed. She worked through the morning with the same precision she had maintained for eleven days, answering emails, coordinating the Chen diligence calls, ensuring his schedule remained airtight. At 12:10 he summoned her.

She entered without knocking. He was standing at the windows again, hands in his pockets, the city laid out beneath him like a board he had already mastered.

“I’ve decided,” she said.

He turned. The winter-water eyes found hers and held. “And?”

Rica set the folder on his desk, signed on the final page. The pen felt heavier than it should have. “I’ll do it. On one condition.”

A single eyebrow lifted. “Name it.”

“When this ends, I walk away clean. No lingering claims. No quiet attempts to keep leverage. You destroy Hartley. I take the settlement. We never speak of each other again unless the terms of the contract require it.”

Something that might have been respect moved across his face. “Agreed.”

She did not smile. “Then we have a deal.”

He took three careful steps across the room until he stood close enough for her to feel his warmth from the small distance between them. For the first time since she walked into his circle, he touched her with his two fingers under her chin, raising her face with such tenderness that it seemed more dangerous than violence.

“Welcome to the game, Ms. Bloom,” he said, in a low voice. “Don’t lose.”

Rica held his gaze without hesitation. The girl, who once believed in forever, disappeared. The new woman knew the importance of holding the weapon in her own hands.

“I won’t,” she replied.

Outside, the river continued its flow – unconcerned and luminous. Inside the office with glass walls, something irreparable had started an alliance, built in betrayal, strengthened in necessity, and honed by the dangerous awareness that none of them would ever look away again.

The marriage ceremony was a small affair, quick and conducted with the help of just three carefully chosen photographers, who valued privacy over payment.

Rica found herself standing in the brightened room that offered a view of Central Park, the trees down below now donning colors similar to that of old copper. Rica wore an ivory column dress that gave her an impression of height and elegance that she actually wasn’t, with the fabric embracing her body without leaving anything to be desired. There was no veil adorning her head; there was no bouquet in her hand, but there was a large emerald-cut diamond placed by Derrick on her finger earlier that morning and was worth more than anything that Liam had given her before and yet seemed to be an even bigger lie. Derrick was dressed in all black and a well-cut suit.

There was no father to give her away. There was no mother to cry. The absence felt less like loss than like clarity. When the judge asked if she took this man, Rica’s voice did not shake. “I do.” Derrick’s answer was quieter, almost private, as if the words were meant for her alone and the rest of the room was merely scenery.

The documents were signed. There were pictures of how he placed his hand on the curve of her back, how she raised her head to meet his eyes, how he kissed her lips deliberately enough for what happened that evening to look in the newspapers the next morning like the first steps in an inevitable process.

Liam Hartley was not invited. Rica knew that he would see the pictures at breakfast time.

In the suite that Derrick had booked under a false name high above the city, the marriage took place in every sense the contract implied.

The whole suite consisted of sharp lines and soft lighting, with the windows open to see the twinkling lights of Midtown from afar. Derrick closed the door behind him with the same firmness he had for boardrooms. First, he did not say anything, but just crossed the room and stopped right in front of her, looking at her like he would examine all aspects of the documents of Chen’s acquisition carefully and mercilessly until he could know everything about them.

“You’re trembling.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.” His hand reached her chin and stroked it; although she felt a bit of pressure in his touch, there was much more intimacy coming from him. “If you ask me to stop, then I will do so. However, the contract does not require that. It only requires that I act accordingly.”

She held his gaze; although there was an expression of coldness in her eyes during this winter, there was something warm concealed by it. “I don’t want you to stop.”

And then he kissed her, and what it didn’t become was any sort of imitation of that televised show. He wasn’t being careful like the other guy tried once or twice. No, he was being precise, intense, near devastating in his attention. He learned all the noises that she made when she stopped thinking about anything but him. He learned how much pressure she needed in order to forget the name of the man who had hurt her. He watched as her dress fell from her shoulders and held her still until her trembling hands could unbutton his shirt.They moved around the suite like people who had already decided what would happen and were merely charting territory. Later, lying in bed together, with the cool sheets under her and his weight over her, Rica felt the remnants of the old armor fall away. She did not cry out for Liam. She did not even consider the apartment in the Upper West Side or the gleam of the diamond bracelet. All that was on her mind was the man above her – the strength and mastery, the tenderness with which his hand caressed her head and the sound that escaped him as she arched against him.

In that moment, he did not hold her as a loving husband would have done. With just one hand on her waist and his warm breath at her neck, he whispered, “You are safe here. Until this ends.”

There was no answer to that. For she could not utter any word without giving away her secret. The indifferent city went on around her. But inside, all was irretrievably lost.

In the days that followed, they practiced their deception.

Galas. Fundraising dinners. The deliberate release of photographs showing Derrick’s hand at the small of her back as they walked into a restaurant where Liam and Jessica just happened to be dining. Rica watched Liam look up. There was such horror on his face she almost regretted it. Almost. She smiled for the cameras. She laughed at Derrick’s dry humor as if it was some private joke that only lovers share over years. She wore the emerald diamond like a badge. Jessica glanced once at the ring and Rica felt nothing or told herself she felt nothing.

When the doors were closed and the curtain pulled shut the lines blurred faster than either wanted to admit.