Page 25 of His Forgotten Wife

Dahlia waited all night for Ares. First in her bedroom, then in the gym, then in the sauna, then in his own bedroom. Had even crawled into his bed past midnight, desperate for a whiff of him. Buried her face in his pillow and around dawn, she’d fallen into an exhausted slumber.

He had never come to bed.

There had been no sign of him the next morning either.

When she’d asked Arabella about it, the girl’s eyes had filled with sudden anxiety, provoked by Dolly’s fervent question.

Finally, the girl had admitted that she had seen her brother that morning and that he had looked extremely agitated.

When she’d begged to know what was going on, Ares had admitted that he was going to visit their grandfather who lived in a nearby village.

Then there was the fact that their mother had gone off to London early this morning.

Dolly’s heart had sunk to her toes, her own agitation on behalf of Ares rising.

Clearly, something big had happened with his father and brothers after he’d ordered her to leave.

The villa was eerily quiet, as if in anticipation of the incoming storm.

And yet Arabella looked alone and small and afraid and she hadn’t wanted to abandon the girl.

God, how had she grown so fond of the teenager? And what was she going to do when it was time to bid goodbye to her too?

The last thing she’d wanted was for Arabella to live through the fraught, even toxic fallout of her brothers’ actions. It was only a momentary reprieve since Dolly couldn’t protect her from the consequences forever.

Still, she understood why Ares hadn’t wanted to open a vein of poison straight through his family.

So, Dolly lied that she was taking the day off—as if it had all been planned with Ares, and begged Arabella to take her sightseeing.

She texted Ares several times throughout the day, even knowing that his cellphone was usually a second thought for him and he hated to be harassed through texts like that.

She’d happily bear his ire and irritation if it meant knowing that he was faring okay.

It was late evening when they returned to an empty villa.

Her body humming with alarm now, Dolly took a quick shower, and pulled on a worn-out T of Ares’s from Columbia.

Her hair in a braid, she was coming down the winding stairs on bare feet when she heard Ares and another familiar voice from the large study. For just a second, she wanted to run back up the stairs to her bedroom and hide there.

Pressing a hand to her abdomen, she walked into the living room to find Ares and his entire family assembled. Including his parents, the meatheads, his grandparents and Arabella. The tension in the room was cloying enough that she hesitated.

The conversation ground to a screeching halt as all heads turned in her direction. But Dolly had eyes for no one else, nor space in her heart to register anything beyond Ares.

Her gaze collided with his and for a moment, all the breath whooshed out of her.

Anger and something more shimmered there, before he cut eye contact completely.

Thoughts flocked through her head at an alarming rate, making her dizzy.

But all she wanted, her stupid heart wanted, was to go to him and hold him and have him hold her tight.

And yet, the gap between them felt like it was wider than ever.

“Oh, don’t run away, Dahlia. We’ve been waiting for you to arrive. There’s important family stuff to take care of.”

“Ares…”

“Sit down, Dahlia,” he bit out in a soft tone that made alarm bells clang in her head.

Something was very wrong.

A moment later, Ares flung a sheaf of papers onto the middle of the coffee table, the movement ringing with impatience and barely suppressed fury.

“Here are the papers I had drawn by my lawyer today. And some other important documentation that I should have acted on, months ago.”

Eager greed danced in the meatheads’ eyes while the rest of them looked baffled. “What are they, Ares? What’s going on?” Juliana asked him and then turned to her, as if Dolly would know the answers. Something about the trust in her eyes made her stomach tight.

“Oh, my sweet, wonderful wife doesn’t know much about it,” Ares said, in a mocking tone. “At least not what I’ve been up to in the last day.”

A single bee’s buzzing would have been loud like thunder in the ensuing silence.

“Wife? What do you mean?” Juliana said, looking between them.

Everything inside her came to a standstill, a cold fist at the center of her. He knew. How? Had he remembered everything? What did that mean?

Dolly understood what it meant to want the ground to open up and swallow you whole. Her cheeks burned at the scrutiny from everyone.

“Ares…” she tried but he cut her off again.

“Turns out Dahlia and I are already married.”

Arabella jumped up, clapped and hugged Dolly with genuine happiness while the rest of them stared at her and Ares. His grandparents wished her a happy married life and Dolly, for the life of her, couldn’t even respond to that.

“I…” Dolly said, not knowing what she wanted to say. “Please, Ares. Let me explain.”

“But you said you were engaged and we thought…” his mother began, but Ares cut her off with a raised hand.

“Dahlia was clearly trying to protect me and my feeble mind, Mama.”

“That’s ridiculous. I never thought of you as feeble,” Dolly snapped, feeling defensive.

Ares didn’t even look at her. “The point is I’ve had enough of trying to do the right thing.

Of trying to feel like I could be a part of this family.

” Standing up, he pushed one folder toward the sofa where his father sat with his brothers standing behind him.

“That folder has all the accounting documentation about how Stefano and Sergio stole thousands of euros from the family company, leading it nearly to bankruptcy. And how much money I’ve injected to save the company and the employees from their crimes. ”

A collective shudder seemed to go through the room. His mother and sister looked devastated, and Ares…there was only a blankness in his expression that tugged at Dolly.

“I’ve gone through it with my lawyers and grandfather,” he said, motioning to the older man.

“I also have a document from him attesting to the fact that the money he gave me as a birthday present for my nineteenth birthday came from his own pocket and not the family business. It clearly stated that you two,” he said, pointing a finger toward Stefano and Sergio, “have no right to even a cent from my company, much less the millions you’re suing me for. ”

This time, Juliana’s “Did you know about this?” addressed toward her husband was loud and full of outrage. Arabella looked like she might simply crumple while Ares’s father stared at him in shock.

But Ares didn’t wait for his father to reply to his mother. His answer was written on his face.

It was as if Ares had lost all hope of fixing the fissure in his family.

Of receiving the amends he deserved from that man and his brothers.

“Then there’s the little fact that my darling Dahlia and I are married.

Legally. If you don’t desist with the lawsuit, I have papers here that I can sign which will transfer all of my personal wealth to her name in a second. All of it.”

When Sergio and Stefano and their father burst out at once—the former two shouting threats at him, Ares raised his hand, palm out.

“I’m not done,” Ares said, his nostrils flaring.

“Not that I don’t trust my wonderful wife, but that is only an extreme measure I had to have in place because I wasn’t sure if I could trust anyone in this family, including my own parents. ”

Juliana’s soft gasp made Dolly’s throat ache. The men stared at Ares, red-faced.

“I have Grandpa’s permission to turn you in to the authorities for embezzling funds from the family company.

I’ve already turned in another set of these documents to the police.

They should be coming for you any moment.

Please don’t ask me for funds for the lawyers.

You’re on your own now.” Finally, Ares met his father’s gaze.

“If they find you an accomplice to the embezzlement, you will be taken in too.” His throat moved in a hard swallow, his jaw so tight that a vein pulsed there.

“It’s what you deserve for enabling these two all these years and for not protecting me when I needed your protection.

But since it will break Mama and Arabella’s heart, I have instructed my personal lawyer to look into it, as a favor to me, that you don’t end up in jail. ”

Pandemonium erupted in the wake of this declaration. His grandfather patted Ares’s shoulder, standing tall and dignified among the rubble of his son and grandsons’ tempers.

Juliana and Arabella were openly crying, and Stefano and Sergio were screaming at their father now, blue in the face, while their father stared at Ares, as if he couldn’t believe what he had unleashed.

Standing amidst all of them, Ares looked alone and unbending and unshaken.

And all Dolly wanted to do was go to him and hold him in her arms. For even as he looked like none of this cost him, she knew that he was devastated.

That he was angry and hurting. But she also knew that he was angry with her too, that whatever they had built in the last month was hanging by a thread.

And that she had brought that on herself through her own fears.

Dolly was sitting in the veranda attached to Ares’s suite, watching the sun begin its descent in the sky when the door finally opened.

The chitter of the cicadas and the scent of jasmine kept her company as if they were old friends.

God, even the villa, so overwhelming and grand at first, felt like a dear friend now.

For she had spent the happiest moments of her life here.