The Honeymoon Lie
But it didn’t matter if I broke down, if I screamed, if I fell to pieces in front of him. Leo, my Leo, the man with no memory of me, remained perfectly, unnervingly calm.
“The trust fund kid you’re talking about,” he’d say, his voice flat, “that’s really not me.”
Then, a little softer, a hint of something that might have once been affection, now directed at a ghost. “You should go. If I’m out too late, Savannah will make me sleep on the couch again.”
That casual intimacy, the gentle complaint about another woman, was a shard of glass in my heart. Every word twisted deeper.
I was on the verge of giving up, of letting the ghost of him go, when I overheard his friend, Ben, cornering him outside a bar.
“You faked your own death during your honeymoon with Clara, just to be with Savannah,” Ben hissed, his voice a low thrum of disbelief. “And now you want your cushy life as a Maxwell heir back, so you’re playing the amnesia card with her?”
Ben’s voice dripped with a disgust I couldn’t have summoned myself. “Don’t you think you owe her more than that?”
Leo downed his whiskey in one long, desperate swallow. “Savannah’s pregnant,” he slurred, the words thick. “I have to get her into the family. I have to.”
In that instant, the last ember of hope inside me turned to ash. I became perfectly still, perfectly cold. When I saw his parents’ car pull up, no doubt summoned by Ben in a misguided attempt at a reunion, I walked over and intercepted them before they could get out.
“Mom, Dad,” I said, my voice steady for the first time in years. “I saw him myself. I was wrong. That man… it’s not Leo.”
1
An hour earlier, I’d been leaving the restaurant when I saw him stumble out of the bar next door. Leo. My heart seized in my chest.
He saw me and froze, a flicker of recognition—or maybe just annoyance—in his eyes. He shook his head with a practiced weariness. “I’ve told you so many times. Please, stop following me. I’m not your husband.”
Ben, standing beside him, had the decency to look ashamed. “Clara,” he started, his tone pleading. “You haven’t slept in days. Just… go home. Get some rest.”
I wrenched my arm from his grasp, my eyes locked on Leo. “Not a few days, Ben. Three years.”
My voice, when it came out, was a raw, ragged thing. “I haven’t had a single full night’s sleep since the day you disappeared. Do you know what they called me? The black widow. The woman who got her husband killed for the inheritance.”
I took a shaky breath, the memories flooding in. “The stress, the grief… I was a wreck. I fell down a flight of stairs. I lost the baby, Leo.” The words hung in the air, heavy and dead. “For three years, I’ve scoured this entire country, haunted by a guilt that has eaten me alive. And for what?”
My gaze fell to the simple, silver band on his ring finger. A replacement.
“For what?” I repeated, my voice trembling. “For my husband, the man I married, to tell me he’s in love with someone else.”
For a moment, something shifted in his expression. His hand instinctively went to the plain ring, to the place where the custom band I had designed for him used to sit. The movement was a ghost of a memory.
But then his eyes cleared, the brief flicker of connection gone, replaced by a cold, hard impatience. “Look, that’s a tragic story. It really is. But what does any of it have to do with me?”
What does it have to do with you?
The sheer audacity of it stole my breath. He was the architect of my entire nightmare.
An image of his parents flashed in my mind—their faces, etched with hope before I’d left, so sure I was finally bringing their lost son home. A fresh wave of pain crashed over me.
The only thing more devastating than Leo’s death was the fact that he had orchestrated it himself.
All those days I’d spent with him since I’d found him, my heart breaking as I recounted our shared past, desperately trying to spark a single memory—was he feeling anything at all? Or was he and Savannah laughing at my pathetic, desperate performance later that night?
He must have seen the raw anguish in my eyes, because he frowned and took an involuntary step toward me. He started to lift his hand.
SMACK!
The sound cracked through the night air. A woman—Savannah—had appeared out of nowhere, her handprint already blooming on my cheek. She jabbed a manicured finger at my face.
“What’s with the sob story?” she spat, her voice shrill. “You got some nerve, chasing after another woman’s boyfriend, calling him your husband. Are you pathetic or just crazy?”
Leo stared, a flicker of shock on his face as he looked at the red mark on my skin. But it was gone in a second. He immediately pulled Savannah behind him, shielding her.
“Savannah’s just… direct,” he said to me, his tone a warning. “Don’t take it personally.”
His eyes were full of suspicion, of defense, as if I were the threat to the precious woman he was protecting.
A slow, burning heat spread across my cheek. The conversation I’d overheard in the bar echoed in my head, and the gaping wound in my chest ripped wider. His amnesia was a lie. But his coldness, his cruelty? That was real.
I pulled out my phone and, with numb fingers, booked a flight home. I looked straight at Leo.
“Don’t worry,” I said, my voice devoid of all emotion. “I won’t bother you again.”
He wants to be dead? Fine. I’ll grant his wish.
2
The next morning, my bags were packed by the door when my father-in-law called.
“It’s Anne,” he said, his voice cracking. Anne was my mother-in-law. “She had a heart attack. She’s in the ICU, and she keeps… she keeps saying Leo’s name.”
He took a ragged breath. “Clara… are you sure? Is it really not him?”
My hands tightened on the steering wheel until my knuckles were white. My father-in-law, always the stoic, composed patriarch, was openly weeping on the phone.
“The doctors… they don’t know if she’s going to pull through. I’m afraid she’ll die without seeing her son one last time.”
A sharp pain lanced through me. I made a sharp U-turn.
“I’m on my way, Dad,” I said, my voice firm. “Don’t worry. I’ll go get him.”
When he opened the door and saw me, Leo’s face hardened into a mask of irritation. I didn’t have time for niceties. I shoved my phone into his hand.
“Your mother had a heart attack. She’s in intensive care, and she’s asking for you. Are you really going to keep this act up now?”
The mention of his mother made the color drain from his face. He fumbled with the phone, his finger hovering over the video call button, but before he could press it, a slender hand with a glittery manicure snatched it away.
Savannah glared at me, her face a mask of contempt, before throwing the phone back at me. It bounced off my chest and clattered to the floor.
“Lady, are you sick?” she snapped. “I thought you said yesterday you were done harassing us.”
Leo’s eyes darted nervously between us. He wanted the phone back; I could see the panic rising in him. “She said my…” He caught himself, glancing at me. “She said her mother-in-law is sick. She wants me to pretend to be her husband to comfort her.”
Savannah snorted. “What ‘pretend’? She’s obviously lying to trick you into admitting you’re him! I’ve seen this kind of desperate move a million times. Don’t you dare call her! If you do,” she purred, her voice dropping to a seductive threat, “don’t even think about touching me tonight.”
Leo immediately went into placating mode, wrapping his arms around her. “Okay, okay, you’re right. I won’t call.”
Seeing him grovel like that, so weak and compliant, turned my stomach. “Leo, that’s your mother,” I said, my voice shaking with disbelief. “You’ve been gone for three years. She has cried herself half-blind over you. And you won’t even grant her a single phone call? This could be the last time you ever speak to her!”
His body tensed. His lips parted as if to say something, but Savannah tightened her grip, her arms snaking around his waist.
She looked at me with an expression of cloying innocence. “I told you, my boyfriend isn’t your husband. You can’t ask him to lie to a sick old woman.” Then, with a dismissive shrug, she added, “Besides, he’s not a doctor. Is a phone call going to magically save her? Why can’t you just leave us alone?”
She shot me a triumphant look and gestured for Leo to close the door.
He hesitated for a fraction of a second, but then Savannah’s hands started moving, slipping restlessly under his shirt. That was all it took. He turned his attention from me completely, muttering a final, hurried dismissal.
“I can’t deal with that. You guys should find a good doctor.”
The coldness in his voice was like a physical blow.
The door didn’t latch properly. Through the crack, the sound of her hurried, breathless gasps stabbed at my ears like needles.
His mother was dying, and he was in there, with her.
For the first time in three long years, I saw the man in front of me with perfect, horrifying clarity. The answer I’d been searching for was not the one I wanted, but it was the one I had.
I made it to the airport, only to be told at the check-in counter that my ticket had been canceled. Confused, I turned around and saw Ben hurrying toward me. He grabbed my arm.
“You came all this way to find Leo,” he said, his eyes wide with a frantic energy. “Why are you leaving by yourself?”
I looked at his earnest, worried face and felt a profound sense of exhaustion. “He said it himself,” I replied coolly. “He’s not Leo Maxwell.”
Ben blinked, thrown off. “But… you know he has amnesia! That’s why he doesn’t remember anything. You can’t just give up on him like this! You can’t be that cruel.”
A bitter laugh escaped my lips. I’m the cruel one?
Who faked his own death right after I found out I was pregnant?
Who abandoned his family without a word for three years?
Before I could unleash the torrent of questions, I saw them. Leo and Savannah, walking out of a nearby store, their arms loaded with gift bags. My blood ran cold.
Savannah spotted me and a smug, victorious smile spread across her face. She walked right up to me and shoved a handful of cheap, brightly wrapped candies into my hand.
“Leo and I are getting married,” she announced, her voice dripping with syrupy sweetness. “On the Fourth of July, just a few days from now. You should come.” She leaned in closer. “Maybe if you see us exchange our vows, you’ll finally accept reality.”
Leo gazed down at her, his expression soft with an adoration that he had once reserved for me. “It’s a shotgun wedding,” he said, stroking her hair. “The baby will be here in seven months.”
3
His voice, so full of happy anticipation, was a dagger to my heart.
We were supposed to have a baby, too.
I’d found out I was pregnant a week before our honeymoon. Our families were ecstatic. I was walking on air, dreaming of this perfect little life we were creating, the ultimate symbol of our love.
But while I was joyfully awaiting the arrival of our child, he was plotting how to fake his death and run off with his mistress. Even the knowledge of his own child growing inside me wasn’t enough to make him hesitate.
If he never loved me, why didn’t he just call off the engagement? Why go through with the wedding, the grand charade of love, only to shatter my world so completely?
The sharp corners of the cheap candy dug into my palm. Savannah’s triumphant smirk was the ultimate mockery.
I knew exactly what he was doing. He needed to make things official with her before he tried to reclaim his identity. That way, he’d have a legitimate reason to bring her—and their child—into the Maxwell family.
He met my gaze, not a trace of guilt in his eyes. “You should come, if you have the time.”
I was silent for a long moment. Then, I nodded. “Okay. I’ll be there.”
Sometimes, you have to see the destruction up close to finally believe it’s real.
The wedding was nothing like the lavish affair Leo and I had, but it still cost a pretty penny. I heard through the grapevine that Leo had borrowed heavily to pay for it. He’d grown up as the sole heir to the Maxwell fortune, never wanting for anything, and certainly never holding a real job. Life in hiding with Savannah had apparently been funded by debt and IOUs. No wonder he was in such a hurry to get back to his trust fund. For the Maxwells, the amount he owed was pocket change.
But Leo didn’t know.
He wasn’t going back.
I took a slow sip of my water, watching as he slid a gold band onto Savannah’s finger. That ring was the final, definitive period at the end of the twenty-year story of my youth.
I watched them, both beaming, their faces alight with victory, and I spoke into the quiet that followed their kiss.
“I’ve seen the wedding,” I said, my voice calm and even. “Can I go home now?”
Leo started, a flicker of panic in his eyes. He had expected tears, a scene, a dramatic confrontation. He hadn’t expected… acceptance. He hadn’t expected me to believe his lie.
But if I left, how would he orchestrate his grand return?
“Wait!” he called out suddenly, clutching his head in a display of theatrical pain. “Wait… I think I remember something. Have we… have we met somewhere before?”
Watching his pathetic, clumsy acting, I almost had to smile. “You must be mistaken,” I said, my voice gentle. “We’ve never met. You just look a lot like my late husband.”
I threw his own words back at him, polished and sharp.
His jaw tightened, but he was trapped in the character he’d created. He couldn’t get angry. “But… my head is… I’m suddenly seeing things,” he stammered, pointing vaguely at the floral arrangements. “Did we… did we have a wedding? I remember… lilies of the valley, I think. And you were wearing a mermaid-style dress.”
He was recalling the details of our wedding, the one I had spent a year planning, every detail a testament to my na?ve belief in our future. But hearing him speak of it now only fueled the ice-cold rage solidifying in my veins. We’d been childhood sweethearts. I had never imagined a future that didn’t have him in it.
He’d insisted on the Maldives for our honeymoon, only to vanish on the second day. It wasn’t just his mother who had cried herself blind. It was me, too. Inconsolable, shattered, my body giving up on our baby while my family whispered that it was all my fault.
And where was he, then? In bed with his lover, probably laughing.
I looked up to see him staring at me, his face a carefully constructed mask of guilt and confusion.
“I’ll try to remember,” he said earnestly. “I really will. Why don’t you… why don’t you take me home to see Mom and Dad? Maybe being there will…”
I cut him off with a serene smile. “I told you all about that before. Don’t you remember? You said you had no idea what I was talking about.”
Not only that, he’d been annoyed, impatient to get me out of his sight.
“You must have had too much champagne,” I continued, my smile never wavering. “You’re confusing my memories with your own. I think I would know my own husband. And you, sir, are not him.”
Leo hadn’t even processed my words before Savannah shrieked.
“Yes, he is!”
I turned my gaze on her, pinning her with a direct look. “A minute ago, you were insisting he wasn’t. Why the sudden change of heart? Did you get amnesia, too?”
Savannah’s mouth snapped shut. I knew what she wanted. She wanted to ride Leo’s coattails to the top. If he couldn’t reclaim his identity, she was even more screwed than he was. But they had both been too adamant, too loud in their denials. She had spent weeks telling anyone who would listen what a pathetic stalker I was. It was a hard position to walk back from.
As whispers broke out among the wedding guests, Ben shot to his feet, pointing an accusing finger at me.
“He is Leo Maxwell!” he boomed. “Clara, I know you’re angry that he’s with Savannah, but you can’t just deny who he is! His parents have been searching for him for three years. Are you really going to let your pride make them bury their own son?”
Every eye in the room turned to me. I could hear the muttering start. Vindictive. Cruel.
Ben shook his head, holding up his phone like a trophy. “I knew you’d try to stop this. So I already called them. They’re on their way here right now!”
4
Leo let out a breath he’d been holding, a wave of relief washing over his face. He looked at me with profound disappointment. “Clara, what’s happened to you? You’ve become so… bitter.”
He shook his head, as if pained by my transformation. “I was going to make it right. Once I was back in the family, I planned to give Savannah a generous settlement and end things. I wanted to make it up to you. But now I see… you’re not worth giving her up for.”
I watched him perform his noble, long-suffering act, a scornful smile playing on my lips. “So, what’s the plan? Divorce me and marry Savannah?”
Leo hesitated, a flicker of calculation in his eyes. I knew what he was thinking. I was the appropriate wife, the good-on-paper choice from a family of equal standing. A strategic alliance. Savannah was from a poor background, offering him nothing but a baby and a mountain of debt. He was a man who wanted it all. Why else would he orchestrate this entire charade to come back after three years?
Finally, he spoke, his voice heavy with false solemnity. “During my amnesia, Savannah was the one who stood by me, who took care of me. I could never abandon her.” He paused for dramatic effect. “As for you, I’m willing to give you a chance to redeem yourself, for old times’ sake.”
He looked between me and a suddenly glowing Savannah. “From now on, you’ll handle the public-facing duties, she’ll manage the home. And you are not to give her any trouble.”
For a second, I was stunned into silence. Then, a harsh laugh escaped me. He was actually living in a fantasy world where he could have two wives.
Oblivious to my derision, Leo took Savannah’s hand, his voice thick with emotion. “Savannah is carrying my child. The first Maxwell grandchild.” He puffed out his chest. “I’ve already decided. He will be the future heir to the Maxwell Corporation.”
Savannah shot me a look of pure triumph, then leaned against Leo, feigning concern. “Oh, darling, won’t that be unfair to Clara?”
Leo’s brow furrowed. “Unfair to her? If anyone’s getting a raw deal, it’s you. She’s a petty, vindictive woman. The fact that I’m willing to let her remain Mrs. Maxwell is more than she deserves.”
I watched their little performance with detached amusement. “And who said I agree to share a husband with Savannah?”
Savannah’s face lit up. “You’re willing to grant a divorce?”
Leo’s expression soured. He finally looked at me directly. “If you force me to choose, Clara, I will choose her.”
I laughed again, a real, genuine laugh this time. “You don’t have to choose.”
I leaned forward, my voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Because you both have to get out.”
Just then, the doors to the chapel swung open. My in-laws walked in, their faces grim.
Leo’s face split into a wide grin. He rushed toward them. “Mom! Dad! I’m back!”
Savannah hurried after him, one hand placed protectively on her still-flat stomach. “What a wonderful day,” she cooed. “My baby is kicking with joy!”
Leo turned to me, his voice full of righteous indignation. “If it wasn’t for Clara’s interference, we would have been reunited long ago. Now you can see her for who she really is!”
But his parents didn’t rush to embrace him. His father stared at him, his face like stone, and when Leo reached for him, he violently shook him off.
“Don’t call us that,” he said, his voice dangerously low. “Our son is dead.”
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