After the car accident that wiped Ethan Thorne's memory, he forgot everything about me.

He couldn't wrap his head around it — a man of his standing, the heir to one of New York's most powerful dynasties, had apparently married a girl with a community college degree.

While he was still in the hospital, he refused to let me visit.

Once he recovered, he tracked me down. The first words out of his mouth were:

"Ms. Calloway. I'd like a divorce."

I gripped my hands together, my eyes filling with tears, and nodded.

Six years. I finally waited long enough.

Six years of waking up next to a man so cold and controlled it felt like sharing a bed with a marble statue. For someone like me — warm, messy, alive — it had been nothing short of hell.

My best friend heard the news and immediately texted me a photo of a man with a stomach you could grate cheese on.

"Interested?"

At the café, Ethan was polite toward me in the way you'd be polite to a stranger you were trying to get rid of.

"Ms. Calloway. Have a seat."

I played along and sat down across from him.

This was the first time I'd seen him since the accident.

He was leaner than I remembered. The line of his jaw looked sharper for it.

He slid the divorce papers across the table with a card on top.

"The car and the house are yours. There's five hundred thousand on this card — consider it compensation for the years you gave me."

I gripped my hands in my lap. My eyes went glassy with tears.

Ethan must have read it as heartbreak, because he frowned slightly. As if afraid I might make a scene, he hesitated, then added:

"Make it eight hundred thousand. Please don't cry."

I blinked.

Eight hundred thousand?

Six years at Thorne Industries. I'd clawed my way up from entry-level admin to deputy director, saved every dime, and scraped together barely thirty thousand in savings.

This was an absolute windfall.

I signed the papers through my tears. Ethan mistook my emotion for grief and pulled a tissue from the holder, sliding it across to me.

"The 30-day separation period starts today. I'll have my driver pick you up when it's done."

"I'll have someone collect my things from the house."

I nodded, still tearful. "Of course, Mr. Thorne."

He paused. "You don't have to call me that."

"Understood, Mr. Ethan."

His lips pressed together. He didn't say anything else — just stood up and walked out.

I stayed in my chair and watched his straight-backed figure push through the door. The afternoon light caught him just right: cool, impeccable, like something framed on a gallery wall.

God, what a man.

Shame about the one problem.

Six years of marriage, and I could count the number of times we'd been intimate on one hand. Once, emboldened by half a bottle of wine, I'd put on a silk slip and actually thrown myself at him.

He'd caught me steadily, carried me back to bed, and said with infuriating calm:

"You're drunk. Get some sleep."

That was Ethan. Cold and controlled all the way down to his bones. To him, I'd always felt less like a wife and more like something to be maintained — like an heirloom he wasn't sure what to do with.

The day he had his things moved out, I prepared myself a bubble bath with rose petals and poured a glass of wine.

I leaned against the edge of the tub and took a photo — shoulder half-bare, just the right amount of elegant — and posted it.

Caption: New chapter. New me. Watch this space.

I lifted the glass to my lips.

My stomach lurched.

I set the wine down and dry-heaved for a moment, then checked the bottle. The date was fine.

My phone rang. The screen said: Felix Thorne.

Ethan's younger brother. Devoted to a fault.

The call connected before I could brace myself. What I got was a meltdown in stereo.

"Sophie! You and my brother are actually going through with this? Have you lost your mind? Has he?"

I swirled the wine I was no longer drinking. "Last I checked, it was your brother who handed me the papers with a check to go along with them. Want to run that question by him?"

Felix choked on a response. When he came back, his voice had gone small. "Sophie, he fought his entire family to marry you. Grandpa spent three weeks in the hospital from the stress. He would never do this if he remembered. He'll remember eventually — please just wait."

I made a noncommittal noise and hung up.

A text came through from my best friend, Zoe Pemberton.

"You really went through with it?"

She sent back a row of exclamation points, then a photo of a man standing at the ocean's edge, shirtless. Cut arms, defined abs, sun-bronzed skin still wet from the water.

"Maxwell Ellsworth — my husband's cousin. Just got back from studying abroad. Six-two."

She sent a voice note: "Trust me. He'll never send you to bed early."

I sent one back: "Zoe!"

Then, after a beat: "...but we're still in the separation period. Wouldn't moving on this fast be a little much?"

She fired back a link.

"Your 'separation period' can wait! Your husband is at the airport RIGHT NOW picking up his first love!"

I tapped it.

In the photo, Ethan stood at the arrivals exit in a dark wool coat. He was reaching to take a woman's suitcase from her hands, his expression softer than I'd seen it in years.

The headline hit me like a fist: THORNE INDUSTRIES CEO REUNITES WITH COLLEGE FLAME — WAS SIX-YEAR MARRIAGE JUST A STAND-IN?

A cold thought slipped in before I could stop it.

What if he'd known Serena Ashford was coming back? What if the accident was real — but the amnesia was convenient?