Page 2 of His Forgotten Wife
Despite everything that had passed between them that night, her heart ached for the weakness he tried to hide from the world.
“They couldn’t find anything suitable for me at GenTech,” she said, mentioning the company he had founded straight out of Columbia with her by his side. “I stayed on doing the minimal for a few days, after the crash. When I wasn’t at the hospital with my grandfather.” She added the last to fight her own vague sense of guilt for abandoning him.
Clearly, he thought the same. “That’s not what Christina said,” he retorted, mentioning the third of their college mates—and her childhood friend—who had become CEO of GenTech.
Dolly blanched. And even with her grainy Wi-Fi, which she was mostly stealing off of her neighbor, she knew Ares didn’t miss her reaction. Apparently, the man had risen out of his coma with all his superior faculties rearing and ready to go.
Only he hadn’t mentioned…their little contract, the big payout he had given her, and the humiliating weekend that had followed.
“I…”
It didn’t feel the same without you, the words played on her lips. But she stashed them away, deep in the place where sheshould havestashed the other words too.
“I needed a chance to recover from the anxiety and heartburn six years working with you gave me.” In her bid to hide the fact that she had been half-dead herself with him gone, she ended up sounding callous and even irreverent.
“How delightfully practical of you, Dahlia,” he said with dry censure that she let hang between them. Maybe it was better to let him think she was cold-blooded. “I see the reason I kept you around all these years.”
He sounded like…he used to when they had met during her freshman year at university, he a junior.
Cold and calculating to the last word, brutally honest and painfully reserved, until she had realized that it was a reaction to how he saw the world. With transparent detachment, he compulsively reduced it to a simple equation that his mind could grasp. Emotional complexities made his experience of the world extra messy for him, taking away his sense of control.
It had taken her months to see through to the kindness and generosity of spirit beneath what had seemed like an extremely uncaring exterior.
“How are you, Ares?” she said, wanting to start over.
“I hate everything about this,” he responded, without mincing his words.
“Is everything back to…normal?” The word tasted like garbage on her lips because she knew how much he loathed the reductive term. “Christina said you sustained a very severe head wound. When do the doctors think you might be ready to resume usual activities?”
He shrugged. The movement caused the cotton fabric to slide off a muscled shoulder.
Dolly pressed a hand to her mouth. She’d been so caught up in her own tumultuous feelings and shuddering relief at the sight of him that she had noticed nothing else.
Only now could she see past him,from the new scar on his right cheek, to the sterile white wall behind him, and the hospital gown sliding off his shoulder to reveal gleaming olive skin and taut muscle. Then there were the multiple machines hewas hooked up to, and the people running around him in a flurry of activity.
Her heart made a long, slow dive down into her belly. “Ares…” She wet her suddenly dry lips. “How long has it been since you woke up?”
His gray gaze flicked upward, toward the clock on the wall she assumed. One brow rose, as if he was displeased with his discovery. “Five hours. It took them forever to give me my phone.”
Longing flooded her in dizzying bursts, making her tremble on the hard seat. How could she feel this confusing tumble of emotions when he’d made his thoughts on the matter clear? He’d been disgusted by her heated admission that night.
You’re like an extra limb to him, she chanted like a mantra now.Or maybe an administrative robot that’s been programmed to do his bidding. Nothing more, nothing less.
“In about fifteen minutes, I’ll be surrounded by my family.” Resentment threaded his tone, pulling her back to reality. Obviously, he had told her about some of his family dynamics—given what he’d asked of her—but he’d never let her see his frustration so clearly. “The consulting specialist called my older brother without my permission.”
“They had to inform someone, Ares,” she said, falling into the habit of pacifying him.
“Especially since you’ve been MIA,” he retorted instantly.
She sighed. “I couldn’t abandon my grandpa to strangers’ care, Ares.”
“So you chose him over me.”
“He’s the only true family I have and I would do anything for him. Not my fault if you don’t get that.” She regretted the sharp words immediately.
In the nine years that she’d known him, Ares had rarely, if ever, talked about his family. Given that the Demetriusfamily was one of the wealthiest, most powerful families in all of Greece, she had simply assumed that it was the ultrarich protecting their privacy. Even though Ares himself had never shown off his wealth.
Only in the last few months had she learned that Ares was actually estranged from them, given the open animosity between him and his two older brothers. Even that admission had only come about because he’d needed her “cooperation.”
