Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 164705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
If I had my head screwed on straight, I’d put a stop to it. Instead, I had every intention of taking her to a house she’d never been in, with none of her things there and no proof to show her of our engagement. No photos, no vacations, no memories, nothing.
Fifteen years ago, I’d scrubbed her clean from my life and started over.
Well, mostly.
And don’t get me started on our pending wedding.
I had a morbid aversion to monogamy. I wasn’t against marriage, per se. I could even see the merits of it, economically and socially. But I wasn’t dumb enough to marry someone I actually liked.
Every day, I witnessed Romeo and Zach, two of the most dominant men in the boardroom, being paraded around Potomac by their wives like well-bred poodles. No, thank you. I liked my balls where they were. Firmly attached to my cock.
Briar penetrated my thoughts. “By the way, where’s my engagement ring?”
“You lost it in the water hazard,” I provided, unblinking.
Her cheeks pinked. “Oh, sorry.”
“It’s fine. It was a simple $500k ring. I still have my mom’s one waiting for you in the safe.”
Someone needed to stop my mouth from talking.
“Oh, Ollie.” She squeezed my hand. “I am so glad we’re still together.”
I was going straight to hell.
And probably rooming with Columbus and King Léopold, too.
Chapter Sixteen
Oliver
I ripped the door open to Doctor Cohen’s office, snarling. “She thinks we’re engaged.”
Doctor Cohen glanced up from his computer screen, which dinged before going black. A tweed jacket stretched across his shoulders, and his worn satchel already slung over his belly.
He looped his key fob around his finger, slamming his brows together behind his reading glasses as he stood from his desk. “What on earth did you tell her?”
“Nothing.” I threw my hands in the air, beginning to pace in his miniature office, not caring that he’d just finished his shift a few minutes shy of four in the morning. “I said something stupid about a flower arrangement, and she drew her own conclusions. Now she thinks we’re planning a wedding. We need to tell her the truth.”
He plucked a scarf from a hanger, slinging it around his thick neck. “You’re not telling her the truth.”
“She can’t think we’re together.”
He shouldered past me, bulldozing toward the door. “She can’t go to your house to recover knowing you lied to her about it, then chickened out.”
I followed him. “I have nothing to prove we’re together at my house. No pictures, none of her stuff, no—”
“Take care of it.” He took the stairs down to the parking garage, with me at his heels. “You’re a resourceful man – a billionaire, they say. I’m sure your people can fetch a few things from her house and make a dozen AI pictures of you two.”
“AI’s unethical,” I grunted, descending the stairs two at a time, blocking his path to the next flight down.
“So is sleeping with the majority of women on the continent.” He stopped, sneering at me. Someone must’ve gotten word about the shit fit I threw years back at this very hospital. “I don’t care about your personal preferences, Mr. von Bismarck. Miss Auer is my patient. Do not tell her you’ve lied to her. Her psyche is as fragile as she is. She will regain her memory back at some point and figure out on her own that you two are not together.”
“And then?” I felt my nostrils flaring. “She’s going to hate me again for lying to her.”
He shrugged, bypassing me. “Looks like she already hated you beforehand. Not much of a change, is it?”
Doctor Cohen disappeared into the next flight of stairs.
I kicked the wall, cursing in the four different languages I knew.
Godfuckingdammit.
Chapter Seventeen
Oliver
Thirty minutes later, I sat in the hospital cafeteria with Romeo, Dallas, Zach, and Farrow, nursing overpriced lukewarm coffees and three-day-old pastries. This looked like one big, fat intervention, which seemed unfair, considering my alcohol, sex, and coke habits were largely manageable.
“So. Let me get this straight.” Rom stirred his coffee, his keen eyes glued to my face. “This woman, whom we’ve never met, is your childhood sweetheart, who now hates your guts, but she suddenly suffers from amnesia, so she thinks you two are getting married?”
I gritted my teeth together. “You’re making it sound ridiculous.”
“It is ridiculous.” Zach took a sip of his coffee, recoiling from the taste. “It sounds like a straight-to-cable romcom.”
Romeo’s lips pulled into a satisfied smirk. “Only an intellectual titan like Ollie could get himself into this kind of predicament.”
“These pastries are awful,” Dallas said around a cinnamon roll but continued eating, nonetheless. “Staler than a dad joke.”
Romeo nabbed his wife’s roll and swapped it with a shortbread cookie he conjured from his inner suit pocket. “So, you can’t tell her the truth about the nature of your relationship?”
I shook my head. “The doctor said it’s crucial that she remember things on her own and that, in the meantime, I need to provide a supportive environment for her.”