Page 27 of His Forgotten Wife

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.

Standing there, gazing at all the memories collected over the years, made every breath painful. What a fool she was to want a glimpse of this, as if it would fill the bottomless pit in her heart that he had left behind.

But five weeks of not seeing him had felt like five painful eternities and Dolly was so eager for even a scrap of information about him.

Christina had called her a few times and then stopped when Dolly wouldn’t answer.

Her loyalty to Ares would still be absolute.

Unlike Dolly, Christina would never be foolish enough to fall in love with a man who would never return it.

And somehow, she’d kept herself from finding out how he was faring.

Even though it ached to imagine him navigating this new rift in his family, all without her.

Of course the scandal that had touched his family, with the meatheads facing prosecution for embezzlement, had reached New York too, given Ares had made it his home for nearly a decade. Anything more personal than that wasn’t public knowledge. Just how he liked it.

Letting Arabella tempt her into coming here had been foolish.

But when the girl had texted Dolly that she was in New York and begged to meet, Dolly hadn’t been able to resist. Yes, Ares had thrown her out of his life but she cared about Arabella.

Especially given the aftermath of everything that had happened in her family.

If Arabella needed her, Dolly would be there.

But she should have insisted that the girl meet her downstairs, or at a café somewhere. Anywhere else but here.

She’d just fished her phone out of her bag, intending to text Arabella, when she felt him standing at the top of the stairs, glaring down at her.

It was as if the very energy in the air had been charged up.

The phone escaped her graceless fingers, thudding to the floor as Dolly looked up, as if drawn by a string.

Her neck ached, her heart thrummed at a dangerous beat, her belly sloshed as if she was riding that elevator down at dangerous speeds, but she couldn’t look away. In a white linen shirt and black trousers, with scruff making his jaw dark, he looked painfully, achingly gorgeous.

And he was looking straight into her eyes, as if he meant to drown himself in there.

The intensity and intimacy of it was as shocking as his rough kiss.

Her spine straightened, and her tongue swiped over her lower lip before Dolly realized what she was doing.

Embarrassment flooded her cheeks and she looked away, panting.

Rubbing a hand over her forehead, she said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here. Arabella said…” She swallowed the knot of tears in her throat. “I’m leaving.”

“Don’t move,” Ares said, in that commanding tone of his just as she turned.

And her stupidly in-love body listened as if it were one of Pavlov’s dogs.

Dolly bit her lip, hard, hoping it would propel her out of the lovesick daze.

His feet made barely any sound on the floor as he reached her. The scent of him—soap and pine—came at her first, nearly knocking her out at the knees. Then his clever hands were on her shoulders, turning her around.

Dolly dropped her gaze, afraid of what he would read there.

His fingers caressed her cheek, then tipped her chin up. “You have the very bad habit of apologizing for things that aren’t your fault, Dahlia.”

Taking a deep breath, she swatted his hand away. “I just… I can’t do this, Ares. I simply wanted to check on Arabella.”

“Can’t do what, agapi mou ?”

His voice so infinitely tender that heat prickled behind her eyes. Why was he being so kind after sending her away? Why wasn’t he angry with her for invading his privacy? “I can’t be near you. It’s…unbearable.”

His throat bobbed as his gaze flitted between her eyes. “Not even for the few minutes it will take me to tell you that I was an ass and a coward and a fool? I shouldn’t have sent you away. Nothing has been the same since.”

She laughed then, through the tears. His brilliant eyes and stunning beauty were easier to bear through the fog of her vision, dulled and dimmed just a little. “Both of us made mistakes. Without the intent to hurt each other. I can see that after all these weeks. So this is not necessary.”

“Dahlia—”

“I know you’re not used to affairs, but you don’t owe me anything, Ares. You never promised me more. It’s okay to let this go.”

“But I promised myself more, agapi . And you know the whiny baby I become when I don’t get what I want.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you know that when my mother asked if she could plan a Christmas wedding for us, I almost said yes to her right there?”

“Don’t play with me.”

She almost turned on her heel when, in one swift, sudden move, his arm was at her midriff, he was bending his knees, and two seconds later, Dolly was slung over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

A giggle erupted from her mouth and she covered it with her palm. “Ares,” she said, beating at his back, very half-heartedly. “Your hip! Oh, my God, this must be killing you.”

He proceeded without a break, to carry her to one of the bedrooms at the back of that floor. “Wait, where’s Arabella?”

“I sent her shopping.”

“What? So you knew I was coming?”

“Yes.”

Once again, the recessed lights of the different ceiling hit her eyes and Dolly found herself on her back. Staring up at the man she’d love forever.

“That’s not nice of you. To make me come here without asking me yourself.”

“Would you have come if I had asked?”

She shrugged.

He sighed, long and deep. “Just hear me out, okay? If you don’t like what I say, I will never show you my face again.”

“I like your face,” she blurted out before she could stop herself.

He grinned and then sobered. “I like yours too, agapi . In fact, it’s quite stupid of me that it’s taken me this long but I more than like you. I love you, Dahlia, and I never should have sent you away, wife or not.”

Tears swam in her eyes and hope unfurled like some slumbering beast, ferocious in its bite.

But Dolly fought it back, for now. Fear had a deeper, fierce hold on her.

And she knew it would hurt him but she couldn’t help it.

“I want to believe you. But, Ares, I understand if you’re simply unable to do without me at work.

You’re a creature of habit and nine years is like a lifetime to you. ”

Hurt flashed in his eyes but he didn’t chase it away or cut eye contact. He let her see everything that traversed his beautiful features and Dolly stared as if she were a starving man offered a feast. “I can see why you would think that.”

Putting one knee on the bed by her thigh, he bent until his forehead pressed against her lower belly.

Something about the supplication in the gesture nearly broke her heart all over again, even as it patched up the fragmented pieces.

“In five weeks, I’ve tried everything to remember that scene at the cabin, during the blackout.

And it won’t come to me. It’s as if my mind has decided to cloak it in darkness forever. Ashamed of itself.”

Dolly couldn’t help it. She might as well stop breathing than stop herself from sinking her fingers into his hair. His confusion, his ache, it was an open book to her. “It’s okay, Ares.”

“It’s not,” he said, placing a kiss on her belly.

“I hurt you. And I can’t fathom a version of me that would do that to you.

The only answer I have is what you surmised so cleverly.

I never realized how well you truly know me, Dahlia.

I think my brain couldn’t make the jump, couldn’t sustain the idea of losing you.

Then there was the way my parents and their so-called passion ruined so many lives.

I convinced myself that I didn’t need passion in my life and nothing could distract me from that stance.

Until you. And even that night at the cabin, I would have been afraid, Dahlia.

So afraid that I couldn’t be all that you would need in a man.

All my life, I’ve been told again and again that I fall short and you…

you were the most important thing in my life.

“So, I chose contempt to hide my own panic beneath. I’m so sorry for thrusting that on you.”

“I had just confessed to loving you, Ares. Why would you lose me?”

His lean shoulders rose in a shrug. “I’ve never wanted a woman as a lover before, Dahlia.

The one time I had kissed a girl, the meatheads had paid her to kiss me when I turned sixteen, and then to tell me that I was the worst kiss she’d ever had.

It only cemented the feeling that something was wrong with me. ”