Page 57 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

And God, I loved it.

But her mouth was only the beginning.

It was the way her mind worked that truly undid me.

She saw connections I missed, questioned things everyone else accepted without a second thought, and approached every problem from an angle I would never have considered. She was endlessly curious, relentlessly observant, and frighteningly quick. Nothing ever seemed to pass through her without being examined, turned over, and understood.

And I could have spent hours watching that brilliant mind of hers work, hopelessly fascinated by every place it took her.

I loved her softness. I loved the warmth in her smile, the way she curled into me when she was tired, the affection she gave so freely when it was just us.

But those sharp edges?

That sarcasm?

That brilliant, merciless mind that refused to let me get away with anything?

Those were the things that brought me to my knees.

We pulled up to her office, and I was out of the car before the engine had barely stopped. I rounded the vehicle, reaching for her door out of habit, only to find her already standing on the curb.

She gave me a pointed look. “I’m still hungry. Go get me something.”

Then she turned on her heel and walked away, leaving me standing there with a smile tugging at my mouth.

I drove straight to her favorite café and ordered her usual breakfast and coffee. I knew perfectly well she was messing with me, but that didn’t stop me from doing exactly what she’d asked. If she wanted to order me around, I was more than happy to play along.

When I returned, I headed straight for her office.

I paused at the doorway when I saw Naija standing beside the sofa, her posture rigid with nerves. Alessia sat beside her, coffee cradled in one hand, her brows drawn tightly together as she listened to someone across from her with unmistakable displeasure.

My steps slowed.

Who the hell had pissed her off before she’d even finished her coffee?

I stepped further into the room, and the identity of the culprit sent a jolt through me.

What was my mother doing here?

Chapter 9

She looked nothing like Cassian.

She had bright blue eyes, was a good foot shorter than me, and wore a smile. A chilling, condescending smile, but a smile nonetheless.

My plan had been simple enough. Get to my office, sit down with Naija, go through the day’s schedule, and start clawing my way across the three-year gap in my memory. I had already built a mental list of everything I needed to learn, and it was long enough to make my head ache before I’d even reached the building.

The industry had changed. PR was no longer just press releases, media coverage, and brand partnerships. Social media, creators, short-form content, crisis response, and real-time audience analytics had become central to almost every campaign. Clients expected faster turnarounds, campaigns were built across multiple platforms, and a story could become a crisis before a traditional news outlet had even picked it up.

And my agency had changed with it.

We had expanded into digital strategy, content production, creator campaigns, and crisis communications—departments I didn’t remember building. There were new A-list clients, new department heads, and entire systems I had never seen before. Our project management software, client dashboards, reporting systems, even the way teams communicated internally were unfamiliar.

I had to relearn everything. Our campaigns. Our pitching strategy. How we measured results. How the agency functioned.

Even the junior employees were strangers to me.

Some of them, Naija had told me, were people I had personally hired and mentored.