The morning sun felt like a lie. It streamed through the grand windows of the drawing room, gilding the dust motes in the air, but it brought no warmth. A deep, pervasive chill had taken root in my bones, one that had nothing to do with the mansion's impeccable climate control.
I was trying to read, a futile attempt to anchor myself in the present, when the air in the room changed. It wasn't a sound, but a shift in pressure, a subtle scent of expensive, cloying perfume that preceded her.
Mia stood in the doorway, a vision in cream silk and razor-sharp judgment. I didn't remember her, but my body did. A visceral recoil tightened my muscles, a sour taste flooded my mouth. My fingers clenched around the book in my lap.
"Aria," she purred, gliding into the room as if she owned it. Her smile was a perfect, painted curve that didn't touch her eyes. "My God, look at you. Like a little lost lamb among the wolves."
I stayed seated, forcing a calm I didn't feel. "Do I know you?"
Her laugh was a light, tinkling sound that grated. "Oh, darling. We were *inseparable* at Wellesley. At least, you thought we were." She drifted to the mantel, trailing a finger along it, checking for dust. "I always knew you'd land on your feet, of course. Though I must say, 'billionaire's amnesiac wife' is quite the dramatic turn, even for you."
Every word was a tiny, precise needle. I set the book aside slowly. "What do you want, Mia?"
"To see an old friend, of course!" She turned, her gaze sweeping over me, assessing, dismissing. "And to offer a little… perspective. This must be so confusing for you. Waking up in a palace, married to a man like Damian Hart. It's every girl's fantasy, isn't it? Except you can't remember buying the ticket."
"Damian is my husband." I said it as much to convince myself as her.
"Is he?" She tilted her head, a panther playing with its food. "Or is he your warden? Tell me, does he let you answer the phone? Check your own email? Do you even have a phone, or does he vet all your calls?"
The questions struck with uncomfortable accuracy. I had no phone. No laptop. Any call was announced by Mrs. Finch and happened on the landline in the study, often with Damian nearby.
"He's protecting me," I said, parroting his line, hearing the weakness in it.
"From what, I wonder?" Mia took a step closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "From the world? Or from the truth? The Aria I knew was a fighter. She wouldn't have sat quietly in a gilded cage. She would have been ripping the bars out with her bare hands. What did he do to you, I wonder, to make you so… docile?"
Anger, hot and sudden, flared in my chest. "You don't know anything about me."
"Don't I?" Her eyes glinted. "I know you were planning to leave him."
The world tilted. The air rushed from my lungs. "What?"
"Before your… accident." She drew out the word, making it sound like a lie. "You were done. You'd confided in… well, in people who actually cared about your happiness. You said he was cold. Controlling. That you felt like a beautiful doll he kept on a shelf. You were gathering your things. Your courage." She leaned in, her perfume overwhelming. "And then, poof. Memory gone. How very convenient for him."
My heart was a frantic bird against my ribs. It was a nightmare version of the doubts that already plagued me, given voice and a smug face. The divorce papers hidden in the book. The weeping woman in the mirror. The locked doors.
"You're lying."
"Am I?" She straightened, her expression shifting to one of pity. "Ask him about the pre-nup. The one he had you sign a week before the wedding. The one that leaves you with nothing if *you* initiate a divorce. Ask him why your old friends aren't allowed to visit. Ask him about the security detail that follows you every time you so much as step into the garden. Protection, or surveillance?"
Each point was a hammer blow. I'd seen the discreet men at the gates. I'd felt the absence of a past beyond these walls.
"Why are you telling me this?" My voice was a thin thread.
"Because someone has to," she said, her mask slipping to reveal a flash of genuine, icy malice. "Before you forget how to want anything for yourself at all. Before you become a permanent fixture in his beautiful, empty museum."
"That's enough, Mia."
Damian's voice cut through the room like a whip. He stood in the doorway, having entered as silently as a shadow. His face was a marble mask of controlled fury. He didn't look at me. His entire focus was on Mia, and the temperature in the room seemed to plummet.
Mia didn't startle. She turned that venomous smile on him. "Damian. Always appearing just in time to shut down the conversation. How predictable."
"You were leaving," he stated, taking a step into the room. His presence was immense, dominating the space. "Now."
"Or what?" she challenged, but a flicker of uncertainty crossed her face.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. "Or I will have you removed. And I will ensure the charitable board of the Metropolitan Guild understands exactly where their most prolific donor's sudden liquidity problems originated."
The color drained from Mia's face. The smugness vanished, replaced by pure, hateful fear. She shot me one last, triumphant look, as if to say, *See? This is who he is.*
"This isn't over," she hissed at him.
"It is for you," he replied, his tone final.
She left, her exit less graceful than her entrance, the click of her heels sharp with defeat and rage.
The silence she left behind was deafening. I stood up, my legs trembling.
"Aria," Damian began, turning toward me, his expression shifting, trying to soften.
"Is it true?" The question ripped from me, raw and broken. "The pre-nup? My friends? Was I… was I leaving you?"
He closed his eyes for a brief second, a muscle working in his jaw. When he opened them, the storm was still there, but banked. "Mia has been jealous of you since university. She wanted a life like this and could never grasp it. She specializes in poison dressed as concern."
"That's not an answer!" I cried, the frustration finally breaking through. "Stop talking around it! Just tell me! Did I want to divorce you?"
He crossed the room in two long strides, stopping just before me. He didn't touch me. "Our marriage was going through a difficult period," he admitted, each word seemingly pulled from him. "You were… unhappy. Confused. There were external pressures. Influences." His gaze flickered toward the door where Mia had exited. "You were not yourself."
"What does that even mean?" I whispered, tears of frustration brimming. "Who was I, then?"
"You were scared!" he said, his own control fraying. A crack of raw emotion showed—fear, guilt, desperation. "You were in danger, Aria, and you didn't even fully see it! Pushing you away, building walls… it was the only way I knew to keep you safe! And yes, it pushed you to the brink. I know that. I live with that every day."
*Danger.* The word hung between us, more concrete than any accusation from Mia.
"What danger?" I pressed, but my voice had lost its force, replaced by a dawning, terrible understanding.
He shook his head, the shutters slamming down again. "Not like this. Not when you're upset. Not when her venom is still in your veins." He reached out then, his hand hovering near my cheek before he let it fall. "I have made mistakes. Catastrophic ones. But everything I have done—the control, the isolation, the secrecy—has been to create a perimeter nothing and no one can cross. To keep you alive."
He looked at me, and for the first time, I didn't just see the cold husband or the imposing CEO. I saw a man standing in the ruins of a life he'd built, desperately trying to shield the one precious thing left from a storm I couldn't remember.
"The woman you were," he said, his voice barely audible, "was brave, and brilliant, and she loved with her whole heart. And I failed her. I am trying… God, I am trying not to fail you now."
He turned and walked out, leaving me more alone and confused than ever.
Mia's words were poison, but they had found fertile ground. Damian's words were a confession, but they were wrapped in more mystery.
I walked to the window, staring out at the manicured lawn, the high walls, the world beyond I wasn't allowed to navigate alone. A gilded cage, Mia had called it. A fortress, Damian called it.
I was the treasure inside. Or the prisoner.
The chill in my chest had solidified into a cold, hard knot of resolve. Mia wanted to shatter my trust. Damian wanted to preserve it at all costs.
But I was no longer content to be the prize they fought over or the patient to be managed.
If there was truth to be found—about the danger, about my past unhappiness, about the man I had married—I would have to find it myself. Not through the filter of jealousy or the prism of guilt-ridden protection.
I looked down at my bare left hand. I hadn't put the ring back on after my shower.
I didn't reach for it.