Page 56 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

A sharp whistle cut through my thoughts. I turned to see her standing by the door, bag slung over her shoulder. “You driving me to work, or should I go find a husband who will?”

The walk to the car passed in a haze. I couldn’t remember starting the engine, backing out of the driveway, or even pulling onto the road. My mind didn’t fully catch up until I was already halfway down the main street, my hands steady on the wheel while my thoughts remained somewhere back at the house.

I had to get it together. I’d made more mistakes than I cared to count, but I couldn’t fix a single one if we couldn’t even have a conversation without everything falling apart.

“I was thinking—” I started, turning toward the passenger seat, only to stop dead.

It was empty.

My stomach dropped.

I slammed on the brakes. The car lurched to a stop, and my hands tightened around the steering wheel.

Did I leave her at the house?

I was already reaching for the gearshift, preparing to make a U-turn, when a voice came from behind me.

“What are you doing?”

I looked in the rearview mirror. Alessia was in the back seat, a tablet in one hand, an open file beside her, her gaze leveled at me. She raised a single, unimpressed eyebrow.

I stared at her, my mouth falling open. “I thought I left you at the house.”

She offered a mocking smile. “Clearly, you failed. Now, can you please drive?”

I nodded, started the car, and tried again, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter this time. “So, I was thinking—”

“What are you mumbling about?” she cut in, her eyes never leaving the tablet in her hands. “Speak up. I can’t hear you from all the way up here.”

I cleared my throat and raised my voice, feeling nervous about asking my own wife on a date. “I drove past our café yesterday. They were setting up for some kind of event.”

Her stylus stopped.

For half a second, I thought I had her attention.

“It’s the café where we first met,” I added, softer this time, letting the memory sit between us. “The first place we ever—”

“Okay?” She finally looked up, her brows pinching together in confusion. “What am I supposed to do with that information?”

My shoulders sagged. “I thought…” The words caught for a moment before I pushed them out. “Maybe we could go there tonight. After work.”

Maybe you’ll remember something.

Maybe you’ll remember the way you laughed that day, the way your eyes lit up when you talked to me, the way I walked away already knowing I wanted to see you again.

Maybe you’ll finally see that what we had wasn’t some story I invented to make myself feel better. It was real. We were real.

She dropped her gaze back to the tablet. “I don’t have time for a silly little date.”

A silly little—

My jaw tightened. “It’s not a silly little date,” I muttered, staring at the road before glancing at her reflection again. “You said you’d give me a chance to show you what you mean to me.”

That finally earned me her full attention. She lowered the tablet onto her lap and met my gaze through the mirror. “And I am. But don’t expect me to neglect my work for it.” Her eyes gleamed with sharp amusement. “You’ll have to make a compromise, your highness.”

She had no idea what she did to me when she looked at me with those sharp eyes and that lethal wit, every word delivered with just enough sarcasm to leave me completely defenseless. That mouth of hers had always been one of my greatest weaknesses, especially when she used it to dismantle an argument I’d spent hours constructing.

I’d walk into a conversation convinced I had every point covered, only to watch her tilt her head, raise one perfectly arched eyebrow, and pick apart my reasoning piece by piece until I was left wondering why I’d ever thought I could win against her.