He Forgot Me for His Childhood Sweetheart

"Audrey, move your feet."

Tessa's grip was an iron clamp around my bicep, dragging me down the corridor before my knees could give out.

"Tessa, wait—"

"I am not letting you stand outside that door and watch him screw her," Tessa hissed, shoving through the hospital's heavy exit doors into the biting ocean wind. "Get in the passenger seat. Now."

The car door slammed shut. Tessa gunned the engine, tearing down the coastal highway until the asphalt turned into crushed shells and packed sand.

She killed the ignition near the shoreline.

The roar of crashing waves filled the silence. The salt air whipped through the cracked window, cold and damp, but it couldn't wash away the chemical stench of hospital disinfectant clinging to my coat.

"Breathe," Tessa ordered, thrusting a thermos toward me. "Drink the coffee."

"He looked right at me," I whispered. My hands shook against the warm metal mug. "Iris saw me through the door, and she pushed him deeper into her."

"Because she's garbage, Audrey. And Callum is worse."

"He wasn't always like this," I protested, my voice cracking under the weight of seven years. "You remember how we met. My serpentine belt snapped on Route 9 in the pouring rain. He spent three hours in the mud replacing it, yelling at me for driving on a belt that was already frayed."

"And you thought that meant he was your protector," Tessa said flatly.

"He told me he was terrified of being abandoned," I said, staring at the gray froth of the surf. "When his family firm nearly collapsed three years ago, his partners jumped ship. Callum sat on the floor of his office, crying into his hands. He said everyone he ever loved walked away when things got hard."

"So you gave up your acceptance to Oxford."

"I stayed to help him rebuild," I admitted quietly. "I managed their PR. I smoothed over the board. When he got pneumonia, I slept on two plastic chairs in his office so he wouldn't miss his antibiotics. When his father had that bypass surgery, I drove the medical files across the state while Callum slept."

"And what did you get for it?" Tessa turned in her seat, pinning me with an unyielding glare. "A bloodied temple and a front-row seat to his affair."

"He has amnesia, Tessa! The doctors said the trauma—"

"Stop lying to yourself!" Tessa shouted, cutting me off with a sharp slap against the steering wheel. "A man with real amnesia doesn't single out his fiancée to torment! Callum didn't abandon you because he lost his memory, Audrey. He abandoned you the second his memory came back."

Her words felt like ice water dumped over my chest.

"What are you talking about?"

"Think about it," Tessa pressed, her voice dropping into an intense murmur. "If he truly didn't know who you were, he would be confused. He would be cautious. Instead, he treats you with calculated spite. He knows exactly where to push the knife to make you bleed."

My mouth opened, but no words came out. The chill in my bones grew heavier.

"Come on," Tessa sighed, glancing at my shivering shoulders. "Let's wait for dawn. The boardwalk café opens early."

By the time the first gray light touched the horizon, Tessa steered us toward the boardwalk café. It had just opened for the morning. We walked across the empty wooden planks in silence. The bell above the café door jingled, welcoming us into the warmth of steamed milk and roasted beans.

We took a high-backed leather booth tucked near the back corner.

Tessa stood up to order. "Black coffee for you, extra sugar. Don't move."

I leaned my head back against the leather, closing my eyes.

A high-pitched, melodic laugh drifted over the wooden partition behind me.

"Oh, stop it! He wasn't gentle at all," a familiar voice purred. "My neck is completely purple."

My eyes snapped open. Every muscle in my spine locked rigid.

It was Iris.

"Are you serious?" another woman asked, giggling across the adjacent booth. "In the hospital bed? Wasn't his head bandaged?"

"Callum doesn't care about a little concussion," Iris boasted. The clinking of a ceramic teaspoon against porcelain punctuated her smug tone. "He was all over me the minute his parents walked out."

"Wait, Iris, what about Audrey?" a third voice asked, lowered in hesitation. "Aren't their families merging corporate shares next month? Isn't she his fiancée?"

Iris let out a loud, mocking snort.

"Fiancée? Please. Callum never lost his memory. He woke up three days ago knowing exactly who he was."

The air vanished from my lungs.

"What?" the second friend gasped. "He remembered?"

"Of course he did," Iris said, her voice dripping with satisfaction. "He remembered Audrey the second he opened his eyes. The crash left him unconscious for a week, but his memory was intact when he woke. When he saw Audrey's suffocating face leaning over him, he realized he finally had the perfect out."

"Shut up! He faked the amnesia?"

"He concocted the whole thing," Iris laughed, clinking her glass against the table. "He told me he was sick of being indebted to her family. He said Audrey treated him like a charity case, hovering around him like some pathetic martyr. She spent a week crying beside him while he was unconscious, then kept bringing him homemade soup while he texted me beneath the hospital blankets."

"That is wicked, Iris."

"It's brilliant," Iris corrected smoothly. "If he broke the engagement while in his right mind, his father would have stripped his board seat and frozen his trust fund. But if he has 'traumatic personality shifts from brain damage'? His family can't blame him for rejecting a stranger. He told me she's just a huge nuisance. He said throwing her out felt better than winning a multimillion-dollar bid."

I sat frozen in the booth.

I didn't tremble. I didn't scream. I didn't tear around the wooden partition to claw the smirk off her face.

Instead, a quiet, eerie calm washed through my veins.

I slid my hand into my coat pocket. My fingers were completely steady as I unlocked my phone, opened the voice memo app, and hit the red circle.

The screen blinked, capturing the sound waves.

"So when is he announcing the split?" the friend asked.

"Tonight," Iris replied brightly. "He already sent her crying to her daddy. Once the Lancaster board agrees to buy out her family's shares, Callum and I are taking his yacht to Monaco. Audrey can spend the rest of her twenties finding another broken boy to fix."

I pressed the red button to stop the recording.

The file saved with a soft click.

Tessa returned to the table, carrying two mugs. She took one look at my face and paused, her eyebrows knitting together.

"Audrey? What happened?"

"Nothing," I said.

A slow, dry laugh escaped my throat. It sounded foreign, even to me.

"Audrey, you're scaring me," Tessa whispered, setting the mugs down.

"Drink your coffee," I said calmly, sliding out of the booth. "I have a phone call to make."

I walked past Iris's table without sparing her a single glance. She was applying pink lip gloss in a compact mirror, completely oblivious.

I stepped outside into the cold ocean wind.

I dialed my father's private line. It connected on the second ring.

"Audrey?" My father's voice was tight with tension. "Richard Lancaster just called me again, begging for more time. He claims Callum is mentally unstable from the trauma."

"Dad," I interrupted, my tone smooth, free of any tremble.

"What is it, sweetheart?"

"Pull every cent of our capital from their firm," I said.

A heavy pause hung on the line. "Audrey... are you sure? Earlier you begged me—"

"I was an idiot earlier," I cut in. "Call the attorneys. Dissolve the partnership. Terminate the joint accounts. Release a statement to the business wire before the market opens tomorrow morning. The engagement is dead."

My father let out a long breath. "Consider it done."

"Thank you, Dad."

I ended the call and lowered the phone.

A second later, the screen lit up with a banner notification.

*Callum:*

*Stop hiding behind your parents, Audrey. Call my father right now and tell him you're releasing me from the contract. If you don't issue a joint statement calling off the wedding by midnight, I'll leak to every news outlet that you're an abusive, unstable parasite trying to trap an injured man. End it.*

I stared at the harsh letters glowing against the dark glass.

Seven years burned down to ash in the span of ten seconds.

My thumbs moved over the keypad without hesitation.

*As you wish.*