Before Ahce could even think of a reply, Patrick and Danica came striding toward the café table like a storm she had no intention of facing. Their presence rippled through the air. Patrick's guilt was barely masked beneath his hesitant steps, Danica's rage sharpening her every movement.
"Ahce, you're here…" Patrick's voice faltered, strange and heavy, carrying the weight of something unspoken.
Ahce didn't lift her gaze. The surface of her untouched drink reflected their blurred shapes, ghosts of a past she had long stopped mourning. Silence, for her, was armor.
"Are you too afraid to see us?" Danica's tone cut through the café's peaceful atmosphere, her words honed like glass.
Ahce finally looked up. Her smile was calm, charmingly deliberate, like a blade wrapped in silk. "Are you worthy?"
The question landed like a slap. Danica's eyes widened, color flaring across her cheeks. Her hand trembled, and the iced coffee she gripped slipped, splashing onto the floor in a sharp, cold burst.
Ahce braced herself for the inevitable sting of liquid, but it never came.
A shadow moved faster than her breath. Someone tall and steady stepped between her and the flying coffee, shielding her completely with the sweep of his body.
She blinked up, stunned. The stranger who had been sitting quietly across from her now stood like a wall before her, solid and unyielding. For a moment, time seemed to hold its breath. His calmness was a strange contrast to the chaos around them.
"You…" The word caught in her throat. She didn't even know his name. Yet his presence filled the space like a storm contained in silence.
Danica's voice rose, shrill with disbelief. "Who the hell are you? Why would you cover for this bitch?"
Her curses drew every head in the café. Conversations froze mid-sentence. Even the sound of milk frothing behind the counter faded into stillness.
Patrick stepped forward, voice dripping with false concern. "Ahce, are you hurt?"
He reached out, but the stranger's hand intercepted his with fluid precision, blocking him without aggression, yet with unshakable finality.
"Don't touch my wife," he said firmly.
The word hit the room like thunder.
Wife...
Wife?
Ahce's mind blanked.
Of all the things he could have said, why that?
Whispers rose among the watching crowd, a mix of disbelief and intrigue.
Patrick blinked rapidly, his confusion tangible. "Your… wife? Ahce, you're married? You didn't even tell me?"
The stranger's voice turned cool, almost lazy. "Why would my wife need to inform you of her decisions?"
Patrick's face drained of color, lips parting, words lost to the air.
Ahce stood abruptly. Her smile was poised and bright, the kind born of long practice. She slipped her hand into the stranger's arm as if it had always belonged there.
"Let's go, sweetheart. You need to change your clothes. Mad dogs run around and stress people. They pee anywhere. Change before you catch something."
A soft ripple of laughter spread through the café. Danica's jaw tightened, her embarrassment raw.
The stranger's hand settled gently over hers, warm and sure.
"Of course," he said, his tone steady, as if he truly was her husband, protective, composed, and utterly believable.
As they turned to leave, curious eyes followed them. Patrick's stare burned into Ahce's back, but she didn't look back. Her spine stayed straight, her steps unhurried. Pride was her armor. Distance, her escape.
Outside, the air was cooler. The muffled noise of the café gave way to the hum of traffic, the low chatter of the city, and the wild pounding of her own heart. She stopped under the awning, her hand still looped through his arm.
"Who are you?" she whispered, finally daring to meet his gaze.
He only smiled, that same unreadable calmness in his eyes. "Your husband."
Ahce stared at him, disbelief twisting into uneasy amusement. "My husband? I don't even have a boyfriend. When exactly did you marry me?"
His lips curved, faintly amused. "Boss, have you forgotten how you slipped away from our honeymoon after you woke up?"
The word Boss struck her like lightning. It wasn't the term itself, it was the echo of it, the strange familiarity threading through her chest. The way it stirred something dormant, something that knew.
Her heart fluttered. That word, she had heard it before. Not recently, not clearly, but in dreams steeped in warmth and shadow. A voice in the dark, a touch she couldn't place.
Because someone had called her that before. Someone whose face lingered just beyond memory's reach. It was true. She had forgotten so much.
After December 2025, her life had fractured like glass. Endless hospitals, tests, white lights. Doctors with polite eyes and careful words. Amnesia, they said. Trauma is not physical, but emotional. Her mind had locked doors she couldn't open.
And now, standing before her, was a man claiming to be her husband. Calling her Boss. Speaking of a honeymoon, she didn't remember.
A flash, heat, skin, breath, surged up from the depths of her forgotten dreams, so vivid it made her chest tighten.
Could it be him?
Her fingers trembled where they rested on his arm.
"If what you're saying is true," she whispered, "then tell me… who am I to you? And who are you really?"
He smiled again, softer now, but his eyes betrayed something deep, longing, patience, and the ache of someone who had waited too long.
"I am your lawfully wedded husband," he said, his voice steady yet shadowed by grief.
Before she could laugh, he reached into his coat and drew out two folded documents, placing them gently in her hands.
Ahce froze.
Her name. Her signature. The date.
Everything looked painfully real.
She stared at the marriage certificates as if they were ticking bombs.
"No way," she breathed. "When did I sign such a thing?"
His expression faltered for the first time. The composure cracked, revealing something raw beneath.
"So it's true…" he murmured.
"What's true?" Her voice was almost a plea.
"That you've lost your memories."
The words sank into her like ice. The world tilted. She looked at the papers again, her heart racing in disbelief.
Details. Dates. Birth years.
Year 2000, hers.
Year 2008, his.
Her throat tightened.
"You're eight years younger than me?" The shock trembled in her voice.
He didn't waver. His gaze stayed firm, unwavering.
"Age doesn't matter," he said softly. "But you… You mattered to me more than anything. And I promised I wouldn't let you go. Not even when you forgot me."
The city moved around them, cars passing, horns blaring, people walking by, but for Ahce, the world had gone silent. All she could hear was the sound of her own heartbeat, echoing in the space between what she remembered… and what she didn't.