Chapter 1

The day I walked out of that marriage with nothing, Dylan Phillips looked at me like I was a stranger.

He said, "We might be married, but I don't remember any of it. You're not taking a single penny."

Something in his expression softened when he saw how wrecked I looked.

He added, "We can still be friends. If you ever need help, I'm there."

I stared at this man I had loved with everything I had. A laugh slipped out before I could stop it.

After his car accident, he claimed he'd lost his memory. I poured every ounce of myself into helping him get it back.

Then one day, he told me the memories had returned. His feelings for me hadn't.

I raged. I confronted him. I refused to accept it.

In the end, I let him go.

But none of it was real. The whole thing had been a lie.

He stood there still keeping up the act, still pretending he couldn't remember. I waved him off, disgusted.

I said, "No thanks. Let's not see each other again."

I turned away and added, "Dylan, you're a terrible actor."

*****

When I got the call about Dylan's car accident, I was in the middle of closing a major deal.

I'd always been the decisive type, but panic wiped every rational thought from my mind. I forgot to call a cab and ran to the hospital in my heels.

By the time I reached his room, one heel had snapped off, and my hair hung in a tangled mess around my face.

Blood pooled beneath my feet where broken glass and gravel had torn through my skin on the way there.

But none of it hurt as much as the look Dylan gave me, cold and unrecognizing.

The doctor explained that the crash had caused a head injury, and a blood clot pressing against his nerves had triggered the amnesia. All they could do was wait for his brain to absorb the clot on its own.

I sat at his bedside, caught between crying and laughing, overwhelmed by the sheer relief that he was alive.

He was alive. That was all that mattered. Everything else could wait.

Dylan loved me more than anything. He wouldn't bear to forget me for long.

And even if he did, I was confident I could make him fall for me all over again.

Over a decade together had given me that certainty, and his unwavering devotion had made it unshakable.

But I didn't understand back then.

I didn't know people couldn't wake someone who was only pretending to sleep, or how ruthless a man could truly be.

The doctor said that taking him back to familiar places and revisiting the past could stimulate his brain and help restore his memory.

So I brought him to our old apartment.

It wasn't anything special. Just a small walk-up in an older neighborhood, no elevator, creaky stairs.

But when Dylan made his first real money, he bought it at the full asking price without blinking.

He told me once that it wasn't just an apartment. It was something that belonged only to us.

We had so many firsts here.

The first time we fumbled through cooking a meal and somehow kept ourselves fed. The first time we pretended to be real adults, haggling over prices at the farmer's market like we knew what we were doing.

The first time we sat up on a rainy night and peeled back all the old scars we'd been hiding. And the first time we truly belonged to each other.

I leaned against the doorframe and waved him in with a grin. "What are you standing there for? Get in here."

The place hadn't been lived in for a while, but it didn't feel neglected.

Dylan used to come by every now and then to tidy up, and I'd send someone over to clean when I thought of it.

He stepped inside, and I caught the flicker of something soft in his eyes. It made my heart ache in the best way.

See? Even without his memory, Dylan was still Dylan. Still the same boy who had loved me fiercely since we were seventeen.