Page 47 of His Forgotten Wife
The words nearly made her choke on their way out but she released them.
Ares said nothing, watching her with that impenetrable look in his eyes.
Dolly pushed the heels of her palms against her eyes, feeling as if she was splaying herself open. Her palms came away wet. “God, I don’t know how long I went on for or what else I said. When it was morning, I woke up with a headache and a hangover. Your coat was across my shoulders and the scent of it, of you, more than anything else, brought it all back to me. Your silence in the wake of everything I’d said, how you carefully untangled me from you because I put my arms around you and my head on your chest. I was…embarrassed, terrified. Before I could sort through things in my own head, you—you went off on me.
“You said I crossed lines I should never have. That you were disgusted by my unprofessional behavior. That I had ruined our relationship. That you couldn’t trust me anymore.”
Whatever remnants of shame were still stuck in her got washed away in the retelling. He had been brutal on her, but she should have never let him make her feel ashamed of her feelings. Maybe getting drunk and admitting that you had feelings for your boss to his face was a big no-no. But she hadn’t started out to hurt him or demand anything of him. “And the fact that I might have ruined our friendship devastated me.”
Like she’d just told him, there was no shame in loving someone, or wanting to be close to them, or telling them the truth of it. “It’s only after coming here that I realized that I must have thrown your entire world out of order by admitting to it. You dropped me off at my studio, told me to take a couple of weeks off while you decided what to do with me. You said you were stuck with me, even if you fired me, because of the contract we signed. You wouldn’t make eye contact with me as I got out of the car. I had never felt such pain in my life, and this is counting my aunt’s endless rejections of me. My head hurt from the hangover and yet I felt like I had been dealt a body blow. I…felt crushed, heartbroken. I don’t know if I expected you to returnmy feelings. I was drunk. But I never expected such swift, brutal anger from you.”
Her throat, her body, her heart, every inch of her felt sore.
“Dahlia—”
“No, let me finish. Because I don’t want to go through this again. I never want to relive that moment.” She wiped at her cheeks roughly with the back of her hands. “So yes, when you said you forgot what happened before you left, when I couldn’t find the damned piece of paper we both signed, I felt…relief. If you didn’t remember that it had happened, maybe I could forget that it had too.” She laughed through the tears. “Within hours of waking up, you demanded I come here with your usual arrogance, and I couldn’t stay away from you. I told myself it was better that the contract was forgotten. You had this new perspective on your family and life and I thought you might be able to convince them to drop it, that the fake engagement might be enough. I thought when you had them, you would forget all about me. Then you’d never need to know that we were married. When the twelve months had passed and it was time to dissolve the marriage, I didn’t think you would care that it had existed at some point as it would all have been old news by then.”
“All you had to do was tell me the truth, Dahlia. You knew how much I agonized over what had happened. How much I hated being in the dark about my own behavior. How much I tormented myself about how I must have hurt you.”
“You did hurt me,” Dolly said softly, giving voice to that small truth too. And somehow saying it made her feel lighter. Made the hurt less sharp. “It felt like I’d lost the one person that I thought I would never lose. It felt like I was all alone in the entire world. Because your friendship mattered to me more than anything else.”
“Then why not tell me what I did when you were here? How badly I hurt you?”
“Can’t you see, Ares? Then I would have to tell you what had brought it on. I was trying to get over you. Telling myself that they weren’t real feelings. That it was attachment or codependency or some such nonsense. I never wanted to give you that power over me again.”
“And then when I suggested that we start a sexual relationship?”
He wasn’t saying it like that to hurt her, Dolly knew that. Still, the bare truth of his words helped her hang on to her own clarity. This could have gone so much better if she’d had the nerve to own up to the truth but the conclusion was always going to be the same.
“I’m attracted to you. I always wanted you.” She shrugged. “A fun fling is all you wanted and honestly, after everything that happened, it was what I wanted too. I wanted whatever I could get of you. I even justified it to myself that it could help me get over you, given I had an exit strategy. And I convinced myself that you’re on a novelty kick, that sooner or later, it would fade too and you would revert to the Ares who didn’t see me as a person. I won’t let you make me feel wrong about that.”
“And yet, it does, Dahlia. All of it feels wrong. Feels distorted. You’re my wife, in every way possible. And now, I don’t know if anything you said or did these past few weeks was real because you were lying to me the whole time. It feels…dirty.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore, does it?” she said, cutting him off before he said something that would crush her all over again. “It didn’t get resolved the way you wanted it to but it’s done. I know the contract stipulates that we remain married for another nine months, and I will honor it. But there’s no need for us to pretend to anything anymore, Ares. Not an engagement, not friendship, not even a work relationship. You have a lot of fallout to deal with, after what you’ve set in motion. I will not add to your burden.”
“So understanding, always, Dahlia.”
“I’m doing my best here, Ares, to make this easy for you.”
He nodded, as if coming to a conclusion. “Easier for me or for you, Dahlia?” Then he straightened and nodded, as if coming to a conclusion. “I will have someone take you to Athens first thing tomorrow. Pack your bags and be ready.”
And there was the final blow. Because the truth was he didn’t need her anymore, did he?
Dolly left without another word, her heart in tiny fragments.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Five weeks later, Dahlia was surprised, no, shocked, that her electronic pass allowed her entry into the private elevator that rode up to Ares’s penthouse in Manhattan.
She’d come prepared with an elaborate story to beg the doorman to let her in. Instead, he’d given her a nod, greeted her by name, and before she knew it, the doors to the elevator were swooshing open.
Sudden panic rushed at her as the initial obstacle she’d prepared so much for didn’t even materialize. She focused on the increasing floor numbers but nothing helped cut through the worry about seeing Ares.
Although the plan was that he wouldn’t be here at this precise moment. The elevator doors swished open before she even finished reassuring herself. The dark marble floor gleamed, making her nearly dizzy as she walked into the large foyer.
She had been at the gorgeously designed duplex penthouse multiple times before and yet…everything felt strange and new and alarming.
Her eyes automatically drifted to the life-size cutout she’d had blown up from one of the tech magazines that had featured Ares only last year. God, how he’d hated the sight of it. And yet, he’d let her hang it. Let her decorate the place with a piece here and there—with input from him, when she’d said it looked bare and soulless.
