Page 76 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

His shoulders slumped, the fight draining out of him.

“And the other part… the other part was just a coward. If you’d truly forgotten me, I couldn’t bear the thought of you knowing how badly I’d failed you. I couldn’t stand there and tell you that I was the reason you’d walked away from me. I couldn’t put that truth in your hands and give you one more reason to leave me.”

He let out a hollow, humorless laugh. “The joke’s on me, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter what I did. You’re leaving anyway.”

“You know what I heard in that little speech?” I asked, holding his gaze. “I heard how this is all about you.” I took a step forward. “You thought I was punishing you. You wanted that to be true for you. You couldn’t stand the reality where you were forgotten.” Another step. “You didn’t want me to know I was leaving. You didn’t want to be left.” I was standing right in front of him now, close enough to see the flinch in his eyes with every emphasized word. “You. You. You.”

I spoke softly, every word laced with venom. “You are a profoundly selfish man, Cassian Sterling.”

He looked down at me, his gaze holding mine. “I’m selfish when it comes to you. You’re the one person I can’t bring myself to be selfless about. I can give up anything else. I can walk away from anything else. But I can’t let you go.”

I scoffed. “Don’t pretend this is some grand romance. You’re not the tragic lover you’re pretending to be. You are a selfish, lying, pathetic man who only cares about his own comfort.” I tilted my head, my eyes narrowing. “So, let’s try this again. What else are you hiding?”

He let out a strained breath. “I’m not hiding anything else. You have to believe me, Alessia.”

I offered him a thin, cold smile. “That’s the thing, Cassian. I don’t. I don’t believe a single word that comes out of your mouth anymore.”

His eyes screwed shut against the pain of the blow.

“I’ll still give you one chance,” I continued. “Tell me what happened on the night of the accident. Everything. Don’t you dare leave out a single detail.”

He opened his eyes, the shadows in them deepening. “Alessia… I don’t like to talk about that night.”

My smile widened. “Too bad I don’t care.” It vanished as quickly as it came, replaced by an unyielding coldness. “Now talk.”

I needed to know. I needed to know what final straw broke the back of a marriage that had endured so much neglect.

I hadn’t left him when he forgot me.

I hadn’t left when he didn’t have time for me.

I hadn’t left when he didn’t share parts of him with me.

So what happened that night? What was the final, unforgivable thing that reminded the woman I used to be of her own worth?

Was it really just a missed party? If it were me now, I’d believe that in a heartbeat. The current me would have left a man for far less.

But I had a hard time believing the Alessia who married him, the one who had forgiven him so much, would draw the line at a single missed event.

Something else happened.

Something worse.

And I was going to make him tell me what it was.

His eyes grew distant, pulled back into the memory. “I was at the office. We had a—”

“I said the night of the accident,” I cut in, impatience sharp in my tone. “Not your entire daily itinerary. I know you weren’t at the party. I want to know what happened after. What happened when you came home? Actually, let’s start with this. When did you decide to finally grace me with your presence?”

He looked toward the floor, every muscle drawn taut with reluctance, dread written across his face. “I came home… around 2 a.m.”

A low, mocking whistle escaped me. “Two in the morning? You stayed out that late for an obligation you supposedly didn’t even want? If that’s how you treat people you don’t want to spend time with, how do you treat the people you actually want to be with?”

He opened his mouth, a weak protest forming, but I sliced through it.

“No, wait,” I said, my eyes widening in feigned epiphany. “You keep begging me to stay. So this is it. This is your blueprint for how you treat someone you desperately want. You lie to them, you forget them, you dismiss them until 2 a.m.” I tilted my head. “It’s a rather flawed concept of ‘wanting’ someone, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Alessia, I—”