Page 13 of His Forgotten Wife
“Tell me what my father said to you,” he cut her off, as if he knew what she was about to say.
“He offered to buy me a first-class ticket to return home. And your mother could barely make eye contact with me.”
Displeasure radiated from him. “I didn’t think he would make such a direct move. As for Mama, she worries about me.”
“As she should. It’s clear your father wants to use this opportunity to reconnect with you. Maybe even heal the rift between you two.”
“You’ve surmised all that in two hours?”
“Unlike the two meatheads, who by the way give me the creeps, your father was genuinely distressed by my arrival.” She must be really tired because she was connecting the dots only now. “I’m a mere assistant. Why does he believe I have any say on you staying or leaving?”
“Because I might have intimated something to that effect.”
“Intimated what exactly?”
“That you and I have a relationship outside of work.”
Lead seemed to sink through Dolly’s stomach. Had he remembered everything after all? “What kind of relationship?”
Arms folded on the table in front of him, he studied her for long moments before saying, “I told them you’re a conniving, beautiful witch who has chained me with her beauty and did not let me return home all these years. You know, like the siren and Ulysses.”
“That sounds over-the-top and…” She shook her head. “Oh, my God! Did you start work on the little droid again? Because that sounds like regurgitated crap that an AI bot would produce.”
He laughed and lines crinkled from the edges of his eyes. His white teeth shone against his olive skin and a sheepish grin stretched his lips. “Those lines were the answer from the bot when I asked.”
“I’m scared to know what the question was.” Then she gave a rather dramatic sigh. “Your bot is going to sink us all, isn’t it?”
His teeth dug into his lower lip as he shook his head. “You jumped ship already. So why do you care?”
“Technically, I didn’t jump ship,” she retorted. “I didn’t go off to another company.”
“No, you simply decided to jump into the ocean,ne?”
“We’re going off track. What did you tell your family about me?”
“That you and I are engaged. To be married,” he added, to clarify.
Dolly’s belly rolled as if she were lurching on a ship on the high seas, drunk.
“Apparently I told my parents right before the accident.”
So he had told them they were engaged before the accident—like they had agreed upon as the first step? But his mother had reminded him. Which meant he didn’t remember their plan, the contract they had signed, the confession or his rejection?
“You’ve gone alarmingly pale, Dahlia.”
A soft breeze from the ocean ruffled his collar, giving her a glimpse of the smooth, taut edge of his pectoral muscles. Swallowing, she looked away, pressing her shaking fingers to her suddenly thumping heart. “No wonder they…loathe me. They think I didn’t care enough to show up here when you wereunwell. But now that you are recovering, I come running back to you.”
“You didn’t care to be here. That is the truth.”
Cheeks heating, Dolly stared at him. “You’re angry about that?” she asked, surprise coloring her words. “It didn’t make sense for me to fly all the way here, Ares. Not when you—”
He raised a hand, cutting off her apology. “Why didn’t you tell me that we agreed to a fake engagement? My mother, of all people, had to remind me what I blurted to her on the phone, moments before the accident.”
Shivers coursed through her even though it was only balmy. Dolly rubbed her fingers over her neck. “I…”
“You agreed, right?”
The doubts in his eyes made her feel awful. “Yes, of course.”
