Page 26 of His Forgotten Wife

But she also was beginning to see that wherever Ares was would be home to her. Somehow, the realization felt like it was late, or rather inopportune, after the worst had occurred.

She had been sitting like that, for hours, desperate for him to come back. Come back to me , her heart said, but she was afraid to admit it, even to herself.

Her legs felt leaden as she pushed up to stand and face him.

She’d pretzeled herself inside out to never let her aunt find fault with her.

She’d studied hard, worked harder, sacrificed so many of her own personal desires to pay back what her uncle and aunt had done for her by giving her a home.

She’d not given them a single chance to find fault with her in any way.

And yet, now she was facing Ares with a truckload of lies and half-truths nearly bowing her back, making her actions with him wrong in so many ways. God, she was such a fool to have waited this long.

Who hadn’t she trusted—him or her own feelings? What was scarier to believe—that he wouldn’t love her or that she didn’t deserve to be loved?

Her arms and legs trembled with the need to go to him but she resisted. “Ares, I’m so sorry. I…know how much you wanted it not to go this way.”

He came to the veranda and leaned against the arch, without looking at her. His other hand was wrapped around the nape of his neck. Moonlight created deeper grooves of the lines pain had etched into his face—both physical and emotional. “It was foolish to hope for a better, a different resolution.”

“No,” she said, turning toward him, her throat filled with tears.

“It’s not foolish or shameful or weak to want to be seen and loved and understood, Ares.

Never that. In fact, I think it takes uncommon bravery to want to mend relationships, to come to the table, willing to forgive and wanting to build something new. ”

He laughed and the sound rippled out to her, full of sarcasm. “Forgive me if I’m not in the mood to put too much stock into your words right now, Dahlia. I’m tired.”

He seemed to barely get out the words. “Ares, please let me explain.”

“It’s a little late for explanations, no?”

“Will you please look at me?”

He turned, and there was none of the wicked laughter or the teasing glint in his eyes. No asymmetrical tilt of his lips or the flash of his smile. Not even the basic recognition she’d always seen in him at the sight of her.

“It was foolish to hide the truth from you. I understand how strange it must have felt to you—”

“Strange to have Isiah call me and tell me the marriage contract I sent him by mail has followed him around the world as he traveled?”

Dolly sighed. Of course, Ares would have trusted only their old friend with the contract once it was signed. No wonder even his lawyers had only assumed that Dolly and he were engaged, but not married.

“And that I’m already married to the woman posing as my fiancée, the woman I trusted more than anyone else?

And that I made a ten-million payout to you for being my wife for twelve months?

No wonder you left the company the moment you heard of the accident.

You’d had everything you could get out of me and didn’t need my overbearing, rigid, arrogant self in your life. ”

“That’s unfair!” Dolly shouted, outrage taking the space of guilt. “Ten more minutes and you will say I caused your accident to retire as a filthy rich widow. Please, Ares… I understand that—”

“Feeling like I can’t trust you hurts me more than you could even imagine, Dahlia.”

That one guttural admission wiped all her anger, filling her with regrets. “You know, deep inside the place that you’ve been trusting more and more, that I didn’t do it for the money. I was devastated by your accident. I felt as if I’d lost my own—”

“Enough, Dahlia! I don’t want more lies about how much you missed me.”

“No, you have to listen to me today,” she demanded, going toe to toe with him. “You can’t seriously think, after everything we’ve been through together, that I married you for money?”

Cutting eye contact, he rubbed a hand over his temple. Even when he spoke, he sounded so rational, so calm that Dolly’s temper spiraled in contrast. “Maybe you didn’t.”

“Maybe? You railroaded me into the payment! You told me it was better to term it like a service done.”

“Fine. But I still don’t see why you wouldn’t tell me that we were actually married.

Why didn’t you tell me that you’re my bloody wife for real?

” A rough groan escaped his lips. “You know how I tormented myself that I must have done something awful to you? That I had to be the reason you abandoned a relationship that we built for nearly a decade?”

Dolly shook her head, considering and discarding where to start, what to say. God, she’d made such a mess out of it, and a very real panic was beginning to brew in her stomach.

What if she lost him over this? Just when she was gaining the courage to believe they had another chance? To reach for what she had always felt for him, deep in her heart, from the moment he had sat by the chair near her bed in her dorm room, making sure she wasn’t alone with her nightmares?

“I have a reason for why I didn’t tell you.

And like you, I hoped that your brothers would come to their senses and drop the whole lawsuit.

Which is the only reason we married, Ares.

To protect the company from their grasping hands.

If they dropped it, the twelve months would pass, and our marriage would be dissolved legally. Nothing to give a second thought to.”

“That was before we decided to have sex with each other, Dahlia,” he said, sounding extremely tired. “Now it will have to be a divorce after twelve months because the marriage was consummated. And don’t worry. My lawyer said there’s a nice payout for you however it ends too.”

“Stop! Stop saying that,” she said, grabbing his shoulders.

He stared at her, finally making eye contact, confusion and something else painted across his features.

His lips twisted with bitterness. “What I can’t stop wondering is why you did it.

” The more emotional he got, the lower his voice fell, until it was a soft rumble that pulled at her.

“Was it out of pity? Did you feel sorry for me?”

“What was out of pity?”

“Sleeping with me.”

She pushed at his chest, beyond anger or rage now. “You know that’s not true. I did it because I wanted to. So much. I’ve always wanted you like that, Ares.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s the truth, late as it might be. Do you want to know what it is you forgot? Why you were so angry with me when you left for Greece? Why I had to walk away from you and the company even though an hour didn’t go by when I didn’t think of you?”

“Yes, I want to know.”

“That weekend, the weekend after we signed the marriage contract, we got caught up in a snowstorm upstate. There was a citywide power outage and I was chilled to the bone. You poured me cognac, I believe, to get me warmed up. I had never drunk anything more than maybe one beer in my life. It went straight to my head, cut through every rule and boundary I lived by. I…” she licked her lips, feeling her heart bottom out of her “…I told you that I had feelings for you. That I had never felt like that before. That being your wife on paper made me want the real thing. That you had always made me feel safe and needed.”

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 return my 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.