Faking Amnesia: Rejecting My Toxic Ex

I lost my memory. Except I didn't. Elias Thorne slept with me for seven years. What I got at the end of it was one sentence: "You're a fling, Ro. Not a wife." It was humiliating.

So when I walked down the aisle on another man's arm, Elias finally understood what he'd thrown away. He took me from my own wedding. Eyes red, hands shaking, he begged me: "Ro.

Play with me. For the rest of my life. Please." Chapter 1 "Excuse me. Do I know you?" I said that to the man who'd been sleeping with me for seven years.

It had been one month since the night we ended things. One.

I hadn't expected to run into Elias Thorne this soon, and definitely not here, wedged between the champagne tower and the last table in the corner.

I'd just come off the floor with a very handsome dance partner. Cheek to cheek. I blinked up at Elias, wide and lost. I could sell this. He didn't say anything.

He just looked at me, and there was nothing in the look at all, and his eyes went to my bare back, and then to the men behind me who were also looking at my bare back.

Then he took off his jacket. Draped it over my shoulders. Drew me in against him, gently, like I was still his to arrange. Imagination.

His cologne, warmed by his skin, curling up under my nose. Seven years of my life, in one breath. He turned his shoulders to block the room out.

His mouth came to my ear, low and coaxing. "Look at you, Ro. A whole month without calling me. You're really that mad?" "Be good.

My place or a hotel?" "Sir." I hunched away from him and got my arms out of his jacket sleeves, eyes darting. "Please. Have some respect." His eyebrows pulled together.

He stared at me like I'd broken a rule. "Rowan Ashford." Elias almost never used my full name.

When he did, it meant it was my turn to fold, to soften, to apologize for whatever I'd felt too loudly.

But I wasn't that Rowan anymore, the one who spent seven years angling to be his wife.

Now I was Rowan "concussed and conveniently amnesiac" Ashford. "I'm sorry, sir." I took another step back, opening the space between us, scanning the room for Beckett Lockhart, my childhood best friend and current disaster. "Have we met before?" Elias's patience thinned.

He looked like a man with a headache. "Rowan. Don't be difficult." Don't be difficult. Four words, and my chest cracked down the middle. That night.

The screaming, the packing, the door. Me, coming apart in his living room. And in his head, all of it filed under: she's being difficult. My blank face nearly slipped.

Thank God for Beckett, who is unreliable about everything except timing, and who arrived exactly one second before I broke. "Sorry, Mr.

Thorne." White dinner jacket, six foot two, planting himself in front of me like a wall. "My fiancée was in an accident recently. It affected her memory.

She's still in treatment." "So no, she wouldn't know you. That's normal." Elias's pupils contracted. He looked at me like the floor had moved. His lips parted.

Three syllables, asking to be corrected. "Fiancée?" Chapter 2 I paused. I'd assumed the thing that would shock him was the amnesia. For the record, I didn't set out to fake it.

I woke up in a hospital bed with my parents leaning over me, both of them wrecked, my mother's eyes swollen from two nights of not sleeping. And I couldn't make my mouth say it.

Mom, Dad, I let a man use me for seven years, and he still wouldn't marry me. So I let the accident do it for me. Forgot everything. Started clean.

The lucky part is that the concussion was real and ugly, which makes amnesia a legitimate medical event instead of a soap opera plot. Elias could go check.

He'd find the scans, the chart, a month of rehab appointments with my name on every line. "Mr.— Mr.

Thorne?" I leaned out from behind Beckett, biting my lip, eyes clear and bewildered. "Why did you say you'd take me to a hotel?

Are we— were we that kind of thing?" "Because my parents have never once mentioned you." I asked it on purpose. Both questions. Because he couldn't answer either one.

Elias runs cold. Famously uncatchable, twentysomething years of it, and not once a woman anyone could name. I fell anyway. First love, first sight.

Then I chased him shamelessly, with no dignity whatsoever, and I won. I got him into a hotel room and I called that winning. Seven years.

We did everything two people can do behind a closed door. We just never did any of it where anyone could see. I told myself he was being careful.

Our families, the optics, wait until it's solid, then we go public. That's what I told myself.

So when I was finally ready, when I thought we'd earned the next step, I asked him to marry me. Candlelight.

And Elias's face doing something I'd never seen it do, this pained, faintly astonished look, like I'd handed him a bill he didn't remember signing. "I thought we both understood what this was.

I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong idea." "My family's already picked someone. We're getting engaged." "You're a fling, Ro. Not a wife." A fling.

Where exactly does a man keep his brain. Seven years. An Ashford heiress, on call, any night, rain or shine, driving across town at 2 a.m. because he said come over. That's a fling?

Was I that— cheap? If he was never going to marry me, why accept the confession at all? Is 'no' not in his vocabulary?

So my chasing him, all of it, was me begging for the privilege of being his booty call. And he acted like it was a favor. Who does he think he is. We had it out that night.

I ended it, packed every last thing I owned, and drove. The crying started somewhere on the interstate. The road smeared.

That's how the accident happened. "That kind of thing?" Elias repeated it slowly, watching me the entire time, hunting for the seam in the mask.

I held his eyes and stayed blank while my pulse climbed into my throat and my fingers dug into Beckett's arm. Then he gave up. His smile went stiff. "No. We're— friends.

I upset you a while back. I wanted to buy you dinner. Apologize." Fine.

Nice save. "Oh," I said, relieved. "Okay." I came out from behind Beckett and wrapped both arms around his, leaning into his shoulder. "You scared me.

For a second I thought I used to be some girl with no standards." Beckett, the only person alive who knows I'm faking, played it beautifully. He tapped the end of my nose. "Never.

My Ro has the best taste in the room." "You two." Elias's eyes had stopped on my left hand, on the ring, on where it sat against Beckett's sleeve.

His smile was very dry. "When did you two get engaged?" Chapter 3 Seven years of him. I know Elias Thorne. When he asked that last question, his hand went to his tie and tugged it.

A quarter inch. He doesn't know he does it. He does it when he's agitated and losing. Male possessiveness, I assume. Nothing deeper.

I'd been clean the entire time I was his, and now, one month out, I was suddenly wearing another man's ring.

Even a man who threw you away doesn't enjoy watching someone else pick you up. Beckett, meanwhile, had the situational awareness of a golden retriever in traffic.

He smiled, warm as anything. "Two weeks ago. Her accident scared the hell out of me. We did it the day she got discharged." "Wedding's in a month. If you're free, Mr.

Thorne, I'd be happy to send a card over." Elias didn't answer. He was still looking at me. At his side, his hand closed into a fist. That's the quiet part. The part before.

My stomach tightened. I let my face open up, delighted, like I'd finally understood something. "Mr. Thorne, are you still upset about whatever happened before? Please don't be.

I don't know what you did to make me angry, but I don't remember any of it, so it's all wiped clean anyway. Truly.

We'd love to have you at the wedding." Then I covered my mouth and laughed, all sweetness. "I mean, it's not like you did something terrible to me.

Right?" The wiped clean part was true. I meant it. That word of his, fling, went into me like a blade and stopped somewhere near the bone. It's still there. Touch it and it hurts.

Touch it and I'm back in that candlelight, holding a ring box like an idiot. I thought about revenge. Of course I did.

Why should I be the only one lying awake while he goes to brunch. Why does he get to take another person's love and file it as a favor granted.

But when you strip it all down, the anger and the shame and the seven years, you get one very small, very useless fact. He didn't love me. You can't hurt a man who doesn't love you.

There's nothing soft to aim at. Revenge would just be me, bleeding on a schedule. And honestly? I was blind. I poured and poured and never noticed I'd been priced down to nothing.

I earned that. So I meant it. I wanted to use the amnesia to make peace with Elias, and with the girl I used to be, the cheap, devoted, unlovable one.

Weddings, funerals, whatever comes. Strangers from here on. I'd said everything I came to say. I pulled Beckett closer and smiled. "Mr.

Thorne, we'll just be—" "And if I say yes." I blinked. "Yes to what?" "If I really did do something terrible to you." I stared at him.

That is not a sentence Elias "never leaves a fingerprint" Thorne says out loud. "Oh! That's okay.

I forgot it anyway." Then I got us out of there before he could say anything else that might require me to have a face. I didn't turn around. "Don't push your luck.

Walk." Beckett's mouth curled. He leaned down as we walked, voice barely there. "He's still watching. I can feel it on my neck." Chapter 4 The rooftop terrace was empty.

Beckett checked the corners, locked the door behind us, and started vibrating with commentary. "Okay, so he's not over you. That's a man who is not over you.

You sure you don't want to reel him in a little?" "Full grovel arc. Amnesia edition. He crawls, you're radiant, I sell tickets." I lifted my hair off my neck.

The night air got under it and my skull finally stopped humming. I looked at him sideways. "Read fewer books." Beckett has been my best friend since we were four.

His whole philosophy is: party forever, marry never. But in families like ours, love is optional and the marriage is a merger. Beckett was never getting out either.

So when he accidentally discovered I wasn't actually missing any memories, we made a deal. Get married, keep the families quiet, live our own lives.

He tilted his head at me, curious now. "Huh. Seven years, though.

You're really not going back?" I laughed, and it came out wrong. "A thing one person does alone isn't a relationship." It was never level. Not once.

To Elias, taking my confession was charity. Keeping me in his bed was charity. Going back would just be asking for a second helping of it. "Whatever. I'm done thinking about it.

People only suffer because they won't let themselves off the hook." I went to rub my arms and got a handful of wool instead. Right. I was still wearing his jacket.

I peeled it off and threw it at Beckett. "Take this back to him. I'll wait in the garage. Let's go home." He made a face, but he went, and the door swung shut behind him.

I stood in the wind a while longer. Then I took the corridor toward the elevators, planning to be in my car in ninety seconds. I turned the corner and there he was.

Elias, shoulder against the wall, phone in his hand, face like weather coming in. I nodded at him, polite. "Mr. Thorne." I wasn't going to flatter myself that he was waiting.

I just wanted to leave. But as I passed him I caught it. Bourbon, on his breath. And then his hand closed around my wrist.

I turned, startled, and my eyes went to his screen before I could stop them. My photograph. My name. Medical records. So he'd checked. "Was there something else, Mr.

Thorne?" He held my gaze. "I came for my jacket." "Bad timing. I sent Beck to return it. You must have missed each other." "No.

I watched him go." Which makes no sense at all, unless. "Then—" "The jacket was an excuse. I came to confirm something." "Confirm what?" My throat went dry. Does he know.

The floor left. He walked me backward and the nearest door gave way and then it was dark, some private lounge, nobody in it, and my shoulders hit the wood. "You said it's fine.

That even if I did something terrible to you, you don't remember it. Yes?" "Um. Yes?" "Then how about this." Close enough that I knew what was coming. My body knew it first.

That kiss used to take my knees out from under me. His mouth took the air out of me.

Bourbon and heat, his weight pinning me flat to the door, and his hand went down the open line of my back and under the fabric. I did not understand what was happening to him.

His palm was hot against my waist and my skin lit up under it like a struck match, and I hated that, I hated it. I made a noise against his mouth. No.

I got my hands on his shoulders and shoved. Now it was a blade, scraping. I am getting married in four weeks. Nominally, but still.

Did he think for one second about what happens to me if someone opens that door. He felt it. The stillness of me, the notkissingback.

Something went through him and he let go of my wrists. He didn't step away. He stayed close, breath ragged, his voice low and stripped. He was studying me.

Looking for the seam. "We did so many terrible things together. And you just forgot?" "Just me?" "That convenient, Ro?" Chapter 5 And there it was.

The reason he'd been off all night. He didn't believe me. Which is almost funny, given how this started. I faked it because I was humiliated.

Because I couldn't look at my parents and tell them the boyfriend I'd hidden for seven years thought I was furniture. So I set the clock back to before I ever loved him.

Which means, give or take, I remember every person alive. Except Elias Thorne. "I could call the cops for what you just did." I shoved him off me, hard, and let my face go cold.

Offended. Correctly, visibly offended. "You said it yourself. A minute ago. We were never together." "So these terrible things you keep bringing up. What are we talking about?

A booty call?" I let the word land like a stranger's word.

My voice sharpened. "An Ashford heiress, quietly making herself available to a man with no title, no claim, nothing official.

Does that sound normal to you?" "Unless you're just that irresistible, Mr. Thorne?" I looked him over. Shoes to jaw. Then tipped my head. "Mid." "So I'm guessing I got lied to.

Or played." Which. Yes. I did. Turns out some men make you confess first, chase them for a year, and hand over your whole twenties. For the privilege of being their booty call.

The color went out of his face. His jaw locked. "Rowan. Ashford." "Okay." I put my hands up, gracious. "We won't argue about it.

Let's say I made a bad call and slipped." "But as a booty call, Mr. Thorne, what standing do you have to question me?

To put your hands on me?" He used one word, fling, to demote me from girlfriend to booty call. So I picked the word up and handed it back to him.

His fist tightened until the veins stood up on the back of his hand. He closed his eyes. Breathed in. Held it. He was, visibly, deciding not to.

When he opened them, his voice had gone soft. "Ro. Stop having a tantrum. I didn't know being my girlfriend was something you wanted." "I turned down the match my family arranged.

If you want the title, take it. It's yours." "This month has been— I've missed you. What I said that night was blunt. I do care about you. You know that." "So stop.

Come home." An apology. Finally. Seven years and one month late. And what I felt wasn't heartbreak. It was the urge to laugh. He still didn't get it. Look at him.

He was still up there. The problem was never the title. The problem is that he looked at me from a height. That he took my love and recorded it as a donation.

What am I supposed to do with a relationship where one person is always giving alms. "Mr.

Thorne." I pulled in a breath and held his eyes, patient, almost sorry for him. "I've told you. I don't remember any of it." "But I think I understand what we were now.

And it doesn't sound like it was good for me." "I have a fiancé. Keeping a booty call on the side would be a character problem. Besides—" I shrugged.

Looked him over one more time. "Doesn't look like much of a loss." His teeth came together. Harder than before. His eyes stayed on me, black and unblinking. Chapter 6