My Arranged Husband Lost His Memory

My arranged marriage husband suddenly lost his memory.

Every ounce of his past obsession and ruthless pursuit of me vanished from his mind.

Now, he looks at me like I am a total stranger.

Furious, I slapped divorce papers onto his desk. Then, I packed my bags and dragged my best friend on a singles cruise to let loose.

But on the night of the party, a tall figure stepped out of the shadows, backing me into a corner.

In a tone that left zero room for argument, he whispered. Isla, there is no divorce in this marriage. Only widowhood.

When I rushed into the hospital corridor, Victor's assistant was already waiting by the door.

I practically jumped out of the elevator, my voice laced with a frantic edge I didn't even recognize.

"How is he? Is it serious?"

Simon offered a brief glance, his tone as steady and practiced as ever.

"Please do not worry, Mrs. Sinclair. Mr. Sinclair is fine physically, but..."

"But what?"

"He forgot a few things."

Pushing open the heavy door, I saw Victor sitting up in the hospital bed. He turned his head at the sound of my entrance.

A square of white gauze covered his temple, and a few shallow scrapes marred his sharp jawline.

He lifted his heavy eyelids. His gaze washed over me, perfectly calm and terrifyingly cold.

I froze in my tracks.

Victor Sinclair had never looked at me like that. Whenever his eyes found mine, he looked like a starving wolf locking onto its prey, burning with an intense, suffocating possessiveness.

This was the first time I had ever seen such absolute indifference in his expression.

That was the exact moment I realized I was part of the "few things" he had forgotten.

The neurologist explained that Victor's amnesia was a result of the trauma to his head during the car crash.

It was fragmented memory loss. It would not affect his daily routine or his ability to run his corporate empire.

However, the recovery timeline was entirely unpredictable.

It could take days, months, or years.

He might never remember.

And in a twist of cruel irony, every single memory of me had been completely wiped clean.

When I stepped back into the private suite, Victor was alone, casually leaning against the pillows while flipping through a stack of legal documents.

I took a hesitant step closer.

"The doctor said they need to keep you for a few days of observation. If you need anything from home, I can bring it by."

Victor studied me in silence for a long moment before asking a question.

"Are we happily married?"

I looked down, pouring a glass of water from the pitcher. "It is terrible."

The room plunged into a deafening silence.

"Why is it terrible?"

His face remained expressionless, asking the question with the genuine curiosity of a man who truly did not know the answer.

A sudden, inexplicable spike of irritation flared in my chest. I set the water glass down onto the bedside table with a sharp thud.

"A forced match is never sweet."

Victor held my gaze, one dark eyebrow slowly arching upward.

"How fortunate. I despise sweet things."

I almost forgot.

Delivering the most shameless remarks with an utterly straight face had always been Victor's greatest talent.

Back then, the Sinclair Enterprise's sole condition for bailing out my family's failing gallery was my hand in marriage.

Even knowing I was deeply in love with my boyfriend, he refused to back down an inch.

"Leave him. I am a much better fit for you."

Victor and I were virtually strangers.

As the youngest heir and ruthless CEO of his family's empire, he was notoriously unpredictable and fiercely guarded.

I had only seen him once from a distance at a charity gala. We had never even shared a conversation.

"With your wealth and status, you could have anyone you want. Why force a woman who does not love you?"

He had leaned back in his leather chair, staring at me until a slow, dangerous smile curved his lips.

"That sounds like a personal problem, Miss Isla. Am I truly that impossible to love?"

He played the perfect gentleman that day. When I rejected him, he did not lose his temper. He even put on a flawless mask of understanding, claiming he respected my choice.

It wasn't until our family's debt spiraled out of control, and not a single bank in Boston dared to offer us a loan, that I understood the reality.

Victor held the city in his palm. The moment he extended an olive branch to my family, he silently banned anyone else from stepping in.

He made it look like I had a choice, but he systematically burned down every other bridge until his path was the only one left.

I had no choice but to surrender.

The day I broke up with my boyfriend, the rain was pouring in sheets. I sat in the passenger seat of Victor's Maybach, sobbing until my chest ached.

Victor lowered his dark eyes, patiently using his expensive silk handkerchief to wipe the muddy water off my bare calves.

"There is actually another way you can be with him."

"After we get married, you can slip a slow acting poison into my morning coffee. Once I am dead, your lovely boyfriend can take my place."

His tone was thick with dark humor, but his eyes were completely serious.

For a terrifying second, I couldn't tell if he was joking. I just stared at him, paralyzed.

Then, a low chuckle rumbled in his chest, genuine amusement dancing in his eyes.

"You really want to kill me, don't you?"

"I suppose I would allow it."

I glared at him through my tears. "You are despicable."

The smile never left his face. He simply reached over, intertwining his long fingers with mine, completely ignoring my resistance.

He looked incredibly satisfied.

"You can think whatever you want about me. It does not matter."

"All that matters, Isla, is that you are going to be my wife."

Victor leaned back against the hospital pillows, that exact same half smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

It was the exact same arrogant smirk from three years ago.

I took a deep breath, swallowing down the curse words burning on my tongue.

I could not yell at him. The man literally had brain damage.

Grabbing my designer tote, I turned to leave, nearly colliding with Simon as he walked in.

He held out a sleek, rectangular velvet box.

"Mrs. Sinclair, Mr. Sinclair asked me to bring this for you."

Inside rested a vintage Italian sable watercolor brush. I had lingered on a picture of it in an art magazine for maybe two extra seconds last week.

It was always like this.

Whenever I showed the slightest flicker of interest in something, it miraculously appeared in my hands a few days later.

I cast a sideways glance at the man in the bed. He was deeply engrossed in his paperwork, acting as if the entire exchange had nothing to do with him.

That familiar, suffocating knot tightened in my throat again.

I tossed the velvet box onto the edge of his mattress.

"I do not accept gifts from strangers."

The sky outside the studio window slowly bled into a bruised purple.

I had been sitting at my easel all afternoon, ruining sketch after sketch. My mind was an absolute mess.

Victor losing his memory should have felt like a massive victory.

But instead, a heavy, suffocating weight pressed down on my chest.

It wasn't sadness. It wasn't pity. It was a bizarre, irrational wave of anger.

It felt like... I actually cared that he had forgotten me.

When he asked about our marriage today, my answer wasn't entirely a lie.

In the beginning, it truly was terrible.

For the first two months of our marriage, I refused to eat at the same table as him.

I treated him like a ghost haunting my own house.

Even when I caught a horrific fever in the middle of the night, and he scooped me out of bed to force medicine down my throat, I just slapped him across the face.

He didn't even flinch. He just took the hit, his expression completely blank, and muttered, "You have no strength left. Take the pills, then you can hit me again."

Victor seemed to possess an infinite threshold for my anger.

And somewhere along the way, my bitter resentment slowly morphed into a quiet, reluctant reliance.

When exactly did the shift happen?

I couldn't pinpoint the exact day.

Maybe it was the night of that corporate gala, when he introduced me to his ruthless business partners as "Isla, the brilliant artist," rather than "Mrs. Sinclair."

Maybe it was during the Autumn Art Expo, when a rival gallery intentionally moved my pieces to a dark, hidden corner. Victor canceled a multi million dollar board meeting just to show up and tear the organizers apart.

Or maybe it was the time I went on a mountain retreat to paint and got caught in a massive mudslide. The roads collapsed, the bridges washed out, and he walked five miles through a torrential downpour just to find me.

Three years. He moved into my life like water, silently seeping into every single crack and crevice.

By the time I finally noticed, he was everywhere.

But now, he had wiped the slate clean. We were right back at square one.

I sat in the dark for a few more minutes before throwing my brushes into the sink and grabbing my coat.

The crisp night air hit my face, carrying the sweet scent of blooming jasmine.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a familiar black luxury car idling near the curb. I froze.

Simon quickly stepped out and opened the rear door for me.

And there, sitting in the leather backseat instead of a hospital bed, was Victor.

"What are you doing here?"

The white gauze was still taped to his temple, though his color looked much better.

"I was on my way."

I didn't even have the energy to roll my eyes.

"This road leads to a dead end. Where exactly were you heading?"

Victor let out a low chuckle. "Who said it leads to nowhere? It led me straight to you, didn't it?"

I ignored his smooth talking and slid into the seat next to him.

The amber glow of the streetlights flickered across the tinted windows, illuminating the sharp angles of his face in flashes.

"What do you want for dinner?"

I turned my head to stare out the window. "I am not hungry."

Victor gave a soft laugh. "Are you not hungry, or do you just not want to eat with me?"

I couldn't stop myself from shooting him a deadly glare. His eyes only crinkled with deeper amusement.

"Well, that is a shame, because I really want to eat with you."

"You are just going to have to suffer through it."

Even with his memories completely wiped, his ability to get under my skin remained absolutely flawless.

The Maybach pulled up to an exclusive French bistro downtown.

The hostess guided us to a private booth by the floor to ceiling windows.

While we waited for our appetizers, we sat in total silence.

The only sound was the soft, melancholic melody drifting from the grand piano in the center of the room.

Victor studied my face for a long time before casually tilting his head.

"Were our dinners always this quiet?"

"I don't remember."

"Have we eaten here before?"

"I have no idea."

"Do we go out on dates often?"

"I couldn't tell you."

Victor let out a quiet sigh.

"Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe I am the one with amnesia."

That single sentence acted like a match to gasoline.

I fell silent for a heavy second before flipping my phone face down onto the marble table.

"And? Do you want a medal for forgetting?"

Victor clearly didn't expect the raw hostility in my voice. His playful demeanor vanished, replaced by a serious intensity.

"Isla, that is not what I meant."

"I don't care what you meant."

"Victor, I am not obligated to tutor you on our past. If you want to remember, figure it out yourself. If you can't, then just let it go."

The rest of the meal tasted like cardboard.

I set down my silverware and pushed my chair back.

"I am going to the restroom."

The restrooms were tucked away at the back of the restaurant, past a dimly lit corridor lined with towering monstera plants.

I kept my head down as I washed my hands, the cold water splashing against my skin. I didn't notice the quiet footsteps approaching until a tall figure stepped up beside me.

He didn't turn on the faucet.

I instinctively glanced up, meeting a pair of eyes in the mirror that were both deeply familiar and completely foreign.

He was dressed in a tailored, expensive suit, radiating a quiet, refined maturity. He looked absolutely nothing like the struggling, broke college student I used to know.

"Isla?"

The unexpected reunion clearly caught Oliver off guard. His voice wavered with a hint of disbelief.

I hadn't expected to run into him here either.

After he left me three years ago, we cut all contact. I only heard through mutual friends that he had moved to Europe.

"It has been a long time, Oliver."

"A very long time."

Oliver pressed his lips together. He looked like a man drowning in a thousand unspoken words. His gaze eventually drifted down, landing heavily on the diamond ring flashing on my left hand. He swallowed hard.

"Have you... been doing well these past few years?"

I offered a polite, distant smile and tossed my paper towel into the trash bin.

"I have been great."

"That is good."

After those three words, the air between us completely died.

I noticed a cigarette pinched between his fingers. He kept twirling it nervously, making no move to light it.

"I should get back to my table."

Oliver blinked, snapping out of his daze, and nodded quickly. "Right. Take care."

When I returned to the booth, Victor was leaning back in his chair, slowly swirling the ice water in his crystal glass.

Seeing me approach, he set the glass down, his dark eyes locking onto my face for a split second.

He asked the question entirely too casually.

"What took you so long?"

"There was a line."

"Do you want to order dessert?"

"No, I am full. Let's go home."

He didn't press the issue. He simply stood up, wrapped his warm hand around mine, and led me toward the exit.

Deep in the shadows of the corridor we had just left, a solitary figure leaned against the textured wallpaper.

A tiny spark flared in the dark as the cigarette finally ignited, the cherry glowing dull red through the leaves of the monstera plant.

The Boston Autumn Art Salon was the biggest event of the year, and I was honored to be featured among the invited artists.

Usually, Victor would be hovering right over my shoulder at these events, but today, he was nowhere to be found.

Halfway through the exhibition, the gallery curator approached me, whispering that a VIP collector was extremely interested in one of my pieces and requested a private chat.

When I stepped into the viewing area, I immediately recognized the broad shoulders facing my canvas.

He was wearing a charcoal gray suit, a Patek Philippe watch gleaming subtly on his wrist. He looked like the epitome of low key wealth.

Hearing my footsteps, Oliver turned around, a soft, nostalgic smile playing on his lips.

"We meet again."

We both turned our attention back to the canvas. It was an oil painting of an old, ivy covered gazebo on our college campus.

I had painted it six months ago, right after being invited back to the university to give an alumni speech.

Oliver's eyes softened completely.

"The rain was pouring so hard that day. I still remember your canvas shoes were completely soaked."

The memory hit me instantly. That gazebo was the exact spot where Oliver and I had first crossed paths.

We had both sprinted under the wooden roof to escape a sudden thunderstorm.

It was an impossibly clich, ridiculously perfect coincidence.

I stayed quiet for a long moment before offering a tight, polite smile. "That is all in the past now."

Oliver looked down at me, the corners of his mouth curving upward.

"Is it in the past? Because I remember every single detail."

He knew exactly when to pull back. He dropped the heavy nostalgia and seamlessly transitioned into a professional discussion about purchasing the artwork.

We had only exchanged a few sentences about pricing when a chilling voice drifted from behind us.

"Isla."