Page 62 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

He flinched.

It was the first time I’d said his name since I woke up, and hearing it from my lips seemed to strike a place in him my other words hadn’t reached.

Then I asked, almost contemplatively, “What do I do with you?”

Chapter 10

“Whatever you want,” he pleaded. “Just don’t leave me.”

I clicked my tongue, unimpressed. “That’s not the compelling offer you seem to think it is.” I crossed the room and returned to my desk.

“Please.” He came toward me before stopping himself, his entire body taut with the effort not to reach for me. “You have to believe me. I had no idea. If I had known—”

“Why are you telling me this?” I lowered myself into my chair, exhaustion weighing heavily on every word.

His throat worked before he forced the words out. “Because I don’t want you to think even less of me than you already do.”

A short, bitter laugh escaped me. “No.” I leaned back, watching him with a coldness I didn’t bother to hide. “You’re telling me this because you need to prove you’re different from your mother.”

He blinked, completely thrown off balance by my words. “What?”

I leaned forward, planting my elbows on the desk as I pinned him with my stare. “You want to prove that in the hierarchy of people who’ve been cruel to me, you at least rank lower than her. You’re asking for points for basic human decency. You’re saying you didn’t know what she was doing, that you would’ve stopped her, just so you can prove you’re better than her. That I should be grateful that at least you’re not that.”

Hurt and sheer devastation ripped through the last of his defenses. His mouth opened, but the words refused to come. He blinked hard, once, twice, trying to gather himself, but all he managed was a fractured whisper. “No, Alessia… is that really what you think of me?” He shook his head, almost pleading with me to take it back. “I don’t want points. I don’t want you to praise me for being better than her. I just…” He dragged a hand over his face, his breath catching painfully. “I just want you to know the truth. That’s all I’m asking for.”

I scoffed, a bitter laugh catching in my throat. “The truth? Fine. Let’s lay it all out, then.” Anger tightened my voice as I held his gaze. “The truth is that I have a husband whose mother has been using me as her unpaid event planner while treating me with enough condescension to make my blood boil. I spent ten minutes with that woman today, and I was ready to scream.” My fingers curled against the edge of the desk, nails biting into the wood. “And you expect me to believe you had no idea I’d been dealing with that for an entire year? I was busting my ass for her, right under your nose, for a year, and you were completely oblivious?”

I leaned back, my voice dropping to a lethal calm. “The truth is I have a husband who was so profoundly uninvolved in my life that he didn’t even know what was causing me stress in my own home. So, please, enlighten me. How is this ‘truth’ any better?”

He flinched at every accusation, each one striking another crack through the man who had walked into the room believing an explanation might save him. His gaze dropped to the floor, shoulders folding beneath the weight of my words.

The silence grew heavy between us. When he finally raised his head, there was no defense left in his face, no attempt to justify himself. Only anguish.

“It’s not better,” he whispered, his face tightening beneath the weight of his own words. “I was just a worse husband than I ever realized.”

A cold, triumphant smile touched my lips. “Yes. You were.”

He had finally admitted it. That was all I needed.

I had only meant to toy with him for a while before filing for divorce, to make him squirm a little before ending the marriage for good. But I had no interest in dragging this out any longer than necessary.

If he was willing to agree to the divorce, there was no reason to turn it into another battle. A mutual divorce would be cleaner, faster, and far less painful than forcing him through the process he had already warned me he would drag out if I filed for it.

“So, now that we’ve established the facts, can we stop this charade and get on with the divorce?” I reached for my phone, already opening my contacts. “I’ll call my lawyer now. We can have the papers drawn up and—”

“No.”

My hand stopped.

I closed my eyes for a brief second, suppressing the groan clawing its way up my throat.

Is “no” the only word he knows?

I looked at him again, utterly at a loss for how he could possibly be this infuriating.

He was staring back at me with a stubbornness that made my jaw tighten. Whatever shame had been weighing him down moments ago was gone, replaced by a resolve that was almost infuriating in its intensity.

“All this proves,” he said, his voice low and unwavering, “is that I have to become ten times the man I was. I have to do better. I have to become the husband you should have had from the beginning.” His jaw clenched, his eyes holding mine with stubborn resolve. “I failed you once. I will spend the rest of my life making sure I never do it again. But we are not getting a divorce.”