I didn't find out about Ashton Crane's accident until a full week after it happened.

The doctors had fought hard to save him. It had taken everything they had.

His mother called me with the news — her left eye streaming tears, her right eye blazing fury, grief and rage tangled together in a single breath.

"If he hadn't gone chasing after you, none of this would've happened!"

She told me that Ashton had been in a therapy session when he realized I'd slipped away. He'd bolted from the building, jumped in his car, and gone after me — and in his distraction, he'd drifted into oncoming traffic and been hit by a semi truck.

Lucky for him, the car was expensive enough that the driver managed to swerve at the last second.

Otherwise, Ashton Crane would've needed a full reboot — no memory, no nothing.

Oh.

That explained it.

I'd just assumed the GPS tracker had malfunctioned. I'd spent an entire week sitting on the beach at that island resort, wondering why he hadn't come looking for me.

I'm Ashton Crane's wife — not by choice.

I've never been able to figure out what he saw in me. I was nobody. A corporate grunt. He was my boss's boss.

The only thing that had ever connected us, as far as I could tell, was one night at a company event when I cracked a wine bottle over his cousin's head. The cousin had been groping one of the female staffers, and something in me snapped.

I figured I'd be fired the next morning.

Instead, I got a transfer letter.

Out of the collapsing branch office I'd been stuck in, and into the headquarters that everyone spent years trying to get to. My salary tripled overnight, and I buried my head down and worked.

Ashton seemed to actually respect me. He'd smile at me in the hallways, push through raises and promotions, fire the manager who'd been making my life hell, and quietly deal with an ex who wouldn't leave me alone. He backed my work and cleaned up my messes. He wore the cheap cufflinks I'd given him as a joke gift every single day, for years.

I thought I was just lucky. Every night after work I'd look up at the sky and silently thank whatever force had dropped such a good boss into my life.

I would've happily worked for him forever.

And then one night I had too much to drink at a work dinner. Ashton guided me to the car, steady and warm, told me to lean on his shoulder and close my eyes — that he'd get me home safely.

I passed out before we even left the parking garage.

But somewhere on the way, I woke up.

And when I opened my eyes, I found Ashton Crane quietly pressing his lips to mine.

He stopped pretending.

He told me he liked me. Just like that — no preamble, no softening, no buildup. The window between us had been shattered and he wasn't about to patch it back up.

And god, when Ashton Crane decided to pursue someone, he didn't hold back. Private jets. A yacht. Diamonds. Couture gowns. Antique paintings. There was nothing I could want that he couldn't provide — and honestly, he didn't need any of it, because the man himself was almost unfair. Sharp jaw, broad shoulders, narrow waist, eyes that could go from scorching to soft in a single second. People on the street would compliment me just for walking next to him.

But I'm a straightforward person. If I'm not interested, I'm not interested.

I thought: if this were a con, I'd be stripping him clean right now.

But it wasn't a con. Even I didn't want to admit it — all that sincerity, buried under all that gold. It was real.

And I didn't want it.

So I turned him down. Again.

That's when things changed.

Ashton had a private estate outside the city — sprawling, isolated, beautiful — and somewhere in a locked wing of that estate, there was a room no one else entered. Every time I tried to run, he dragged me back there, and afterward he'd stand in front of me, face still flushed, and demand I marry him.

"Be mine," he'd say. "I'll give you everything you've ever wanted."

He threatened to break my legs and keep me with him forever.

Of course, he never actually did any of it. Every single time he caught me, he'd take one look at my completely unbothered expression and work himself into such a state that his eyes went red at the corners, like he might actually cry.

And that was always when I'd calm down.

Because I thought his crying face was kind of sexy.

At first, the whole push-and-pull had been kind of interesting. But eventually even I got tired of it.

I couldn't run far enough. He wouldn't actually hurt me. And the estate was enormous — there was so much unexplored space, so much more than that one locked wing.

So one mild, sunny morning, I married Ashton Crane.