Chapter 2

I spun around and found myself face-to-face with Lucas, who looked like a thundercloud.

Oh my God. He was so hot.

Even knowing we’d been married for seven years, for the amnesiac me, this was basically meeting him for the first time.

No wonder that, out of all the men passed out in alleys in the world, I picked this one to save.

It was the face.

Even standing there with that block-of-ice expression, he somehow made the air in the room feel fresher.

Now I totally believed what Evan had said about me being obsessed with him all these years.

I was, without a doubt, a sucker for a pretty face!

My staring seemed to annoy him. He lifted his eyelids, cold, and said with a sneer, “Didn’t get killed, I see. What scheme are you cooking up now?”

As he talked, he yanked off his tie and shrugged out of his jacket. He walked right past me without stopping and picked out a casual outfit from the closet.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Scheme?”

Hand to God, I’d fully committed to being an invisible trophy wife, a happy little supporting character in his love story with his first love.

Something unmistakably cold flashed in Lucas’s eyes. “Playing it aloof now? Hard to get?”

That threw me a little.

What kind of marriage had I been running with this guy? A soap opera? Tears, tantrums, threats to die—the whole package?

But I didn’t let it show. I just said, flatly, “Don’t worry. It won’t happen again.”

I figured he’d relax.

Instead, the look he gave me got even colder. If looks could kill, there wouldn’t have been enough of me left to bury.

After a moment, he said, as a warning, “Ivy, whatever you’re up to, keep it away from Chloe. She’s from a different world than you. Even if you threaten to kill yourself, it won’t work.”

I went still. Something sour and painful welled up inside me without my permission.

I’d thought Evan had made the situation pretty clear.

I loved him. He didn’t love me. He loved her. I wanted my husband’s love, so I kept testing his limits, kept crossing lines.

Like this time. It was just an ordinary meeting between him and Chloe, and I’d chased his car barefoot and ended up in an accident.

And all it proved was that he didn’t care about me. He didn’t even ask how badly I was hurt. He just coldly warned me off and took his place on the opposite side.

This man really didn’t love me. To him, I was a problem.

So why was he staying married to me? As far as I knew, he’d never once mentioned divorce.

My zoning out irritated him all over again, and he went off to the living room.

I let out a breath and flopped down on the bed, my head a mess of questions.

Was it really possible to change that much, just from getting married?

In my memory, I’d always been the kind of person who paid back every slight.

At eighteen, working a summer job, my boss shorted me ten bucks. I stared him down for three straight days until he paid me double.

And now I was willing to live or die over some man? Turn down money and become a lovesick fool?

I could not figure out how I’d let myself sink this low!

So what now…

I was still trying to work out how to turn my reputation around when the blanket beside me was suddenly pulled back.

A shadow almost twice my size came down over me. Even mixed with cologne, it scared me half to death.

I turned my head and looked straight into Lucas’s deep, dark eyes, and I felt a weird kind of nervous.

I stammered, “Wh-what are you doing?”

From everything I knew, he should have been completely disgusted by me.

For all I knew, we were supposed to sleep separately at night, one in the bedroom and one on the couch. So why was he touching me like it was the most natural thing in the world?

Lucas gave a short laugh. I couldn’t read anything in it.

He didn’t say a word. He just wrapped both arms around me, bent his head, and breathed in deeply. His breath curled around my neck and made it tingle.

My face went up in flames.

Come on. My soul was still an eighteen-year-old girl!