Page 32 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

“No.” His answer came immediately, his jaw tightening as he held my gaze. “It wasn’t a contract.”

I frowned, trying to force the pieces into some sort of coherent picture, but the more answers I got, the less anything seemed to make sense.

“Okay, now you’re just fucking with me. No blackmail, no love, no contract. Then why the hell are we married?” A different possibility surfaced, and a flicker of unease ran through me. I studied his face, suddenly wary of the answer. “This fight you mentioned…” I hesitated before asking, “Was I leaving you?”

His expression tightened for a fleeting second, a shadow of emotion crossing his features before he smoothed it away. He hesitated, then gave a small shake of his head. “No. You weren’t leaving. You were upset. You went for a drive to clear your head.”

The humor drained out of me.

My fingers froze around the slice of mango, halfway to my mouth. I lowered it slowly, staring at him as his words replayed in my head.

We’d had a fight.

I’d been upset.

And I hadn’t been leaving him.

My mind worked through the pieces, one by one, until they formed an answer I desperately wished I could take back.

I set the mango down.

Oh, shit.

I loved him.

And he didn’t love me.

What. The. Fuck.

Felicity stepped back into the room, immediately picking up on the strange tension. Her eyes moved from me to him and back again, her brows knitting together. “You two good?”

“Yup,” I answered far too quickly, keeping my gaze fixed on the wall opposite me. The paintwork had become strangely fascinating, every tiny imperfection demanding my full attention. I could probably spend the next hour studying cracks and uneven patches if it meant avoiding his eyes.

Anything was better than looking at him.

Not after what I’d just figured out.

Felicity’s eyes narrowed. “Okay…” She drew the word out, clearly unconvinced. “Well, I have to head out—”

“What?” I cut her off, my voice sharp with panic. “You can’t leave me here with a stranger.”

He straightened from where he’d been leaning against the window, his expression tightening. “I’m your husband.”

I finally flicked my eyes to him. “And? Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Before he could answer, I turned back to Felicity, my voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “He could be a wife beater.”

His head snapped toward me. “What?” He pushed away from the window frame, whatever composure he’d been clinging to finally cracking. “Why would you even say that? We just cleared this up. I have never, ever laid a hand on you, Alessia.”

I gave him a skeptical once-over before looking back at Felicity. “That’s exactly what a wife beater would say.”

His jaw dropped, his expression twisting into a mixture of shock and sheer offense. “I—” He faltered, seemingly unable to find the right words. “I am not a wife beater.”

“How would I know?” I demanded, throwing up my hands. “I have amnesia. For all I know, you could be lying.”

Felicity immediately wedged herself between us, throwing her hands up like a referee who had just been called in to stop a fight before it reached the second round.

“Okayyy. Can we all just breathe for a second?” Her gaze moved from my stubborn glare to his tense posture before returning to me. “Sia, I just need to run home and feed my cat. I’ll be right back, okay?”

“You have a cat?” I latched onto the first remotely normal subject she had given me, grateful for the distraction.