Divorced but Claimed by the CEO

A car crash took Callum Ashford's memory.

It erased exactly one thing. Me.

I stand a foot from his hospital bed.

He looks up at me like I'm a stranger who walked into the wrong room.

This man once took whatever he wanted.

And what he wanted was me.

You really want the divorce?

Mm. He doesn't lift his eyes from his files. "My assistant will draw up the papers. We sign, we're done."

Out in the hall, his executive assistant is sweating through his shirt.

Everyone in our world knows the truth. Callum Ashford was out of his mind for me. He once swore he'd be the other man, my dirty little secret, if that was all I'd let him have.

I pick up my bag.

"Sure. Send it over."

He has no idea that before the wedding, he signed eighty percent of everything he owned over to me.

I'll let him find out.

Later.

Chapter 1

"Mm."

Good. So he was rationing his words with everyone now, not just me.

For three years, I'd been the one exception. The crash had fixed that, too.

Behind my sunglasses, my eyebrow climbed. He couldn't see it. He couldn't see the smile I wasn't bothering to hide either, because he hadn't looked up from those files once.

I sat a foot away, arms crossed, cap pulled low.

"No regrets?"

"Mm."

"You don't want to ask Desmond first?"

"My life is my business." He turned a page. "I don't need anyone's permission."

There it was. Some men you coax back from the ledge. Callum Ashford, you just wave as he steps off. Pray you never remember me, husband. When you do, don't call me heartless. I gave you every chance to keep me.

"Sure. When do we file?"

His head came up. For half a second he looked almost thrown, like he'd braced for a fight and I'd handed him the win instead.

"Desmond will draft the papers. You look them over, you sign, we go."

"Fine. Have him call me."

I stood, picked up my bag, and walked out without looking back. Behind me, the only sound was paper turning.

* * *

The assistant showed up a few minutes later, hair damp at his hairline.

"Mr. Ashford, are you all" Desmond stopped in the doorway. "You're alone? Where's Mrs. Ashford?"

"She left."

"She"

Something in the man's voice snagged, and Callum finally looked up. "You're surprised."

"No. No. I just didn't think you'd let her leave first."

Desmond changed the subject fast, the way people do when they've stepped somewhere they shouldn't. "Your phone's going straight to voicemail. Are you hurt anywhere?"

"Cracked the phone. Minor concussion."

"I'll get someone to fix it"

"Toss it. Have a new one sent up."

Desmond stared. He had watched this man guard that phone like it was an organ. Now it was garbage.

"And draw up divorce papers."

Desmond had the cracked phone in one hand and was already texting Mrs. Ashford with the other, trying to figure out what planet he'd woken up on. The reply hadn't landed when the words hit.

"Of course." Reflex.

Then his brain caught up and his head snapped around. "For for who?"

Callum's brow creased. "Who else do you work for?"

"Nobody. No one."

Desmond shut his mouth and privately begged Mrs. Ashford to text back before he had to keep guessing.

"Send me the files when they're sorted."

"Yes, sir. I'll"

He got out.

Callum pressed two fingers to his temple, where a small pulse had started up. He couldn't shake the feeling he'd forgotten something. Something that mattered.

He looked at the empty doorway a beat longer than he meant to.

Chapter 2

Out in the hall, Desmond mopped his forehead.

Wrong. This was all wrong. Had they fought? They couldn't have. The things the boss had done to marry that woman, the lines he'd crossed, the fortunes he'd burned, and now he was signing her away like a lunch order?

He couldn't make it add up. So he did the only thing he could: delivered the new phone, and went to draft the divorce papers he still didn't believe in.

* * *

I got home to a string of texts.

Me: [His idea. All his.]

Desmond: [Did you two fight??]

Me: [No.]

Desmond: [Is the boss's... head okay? The concussion, I mean. Is it bad?]

Me: [It's minor. Why?]

Desmond: [You two are really getting divorced?]

Me: [Yep. Send me the papers when they're drafted.]

The typing bubble pulsed, stopped, pulsed again. He couldn't land on what to say.

Me: [Oh. His phone's broken. Get it fixed.]

Desmond: [...He had me buy a new one.]

I laughed out loud.

Me: [Sure.]

I spent the next few days doing absolutely nothing, answering to no one. It was, frankly, glorious.

Then I called my manager and told her I was coming back to work.

Diane was one of maybe three people alive who knew I'd married Callum Ashford. She wanted to know how on earth he'd agreed to let me out of the house.

Me: [He's divorcing me. I have to earn my own living now, don't I?]

Diane: [??????]

Diane: [You cheated? No. Even if you cheated, that man wouldn't let you walk. What did you DO?]

Me: [Nothing. It's his idea.]

Diane: [...Is his brain okay.]

By then I understood why every single person who heard the news asked the exact same question about his brain.

Because they'd all watched what he did to have me. They knew how far gone he was.

Me: [Who knows. We'll probably file in a few days.]

Diane: [Fine. Let me see who's casting. Maybe a show.]

Me: [Thanks.]

I set the phone down and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.

Hair to my waist, loose. Skin I hadn't had to work for in years. Three years married to Callum Ashford had left me spoiled, rested, sharper than the girl he'd first chased down.

I'd spent those three years playing his devoted wife. I could play the walked-away one a few weeks more. I always hit my marks.

I pulled on a robe and crossed to the bedroom.

The bed was cold. No furnace of a man wrapped around me from behind, the way there had been every night for three years.

He'd been sleeping in his office since the hospital.

* * *

Someone knocked. Callum set down his pen and pressed the spot between his brows. The restlessness under his ribs had been getting worse all day, and he couldn't name a reason for it.

"Come in."

Desmond handed over a folder and took two steps back. "The divorce papers. As requested."

For three days the man had worn the face of someone with something stuck behind his teeth.

"I'll look at them later." Callum noticed he hadn't left, and took off his glasses. "Something else?"

Desmond started up again.

"Say it. Or don't, and never bring it up again."

"Yes do you actually want to divorce Mrs. Ashford, sir?"

"That's what's been eating you for three days?"

"Yes."

"Mm."

Whatever patience he had left was thinning fast. "If there's nothing else, get out."

"There's... does your father know? Your mother?"

Callum turned his head and looked straight at him.

"That's my business."

A beat.

"Out."

"Yes, sir."

Desmond left. He did not mention that the elder Ashfords had no idea any of this was happening. That the day they found out, this tidy little divorce was going to stop being tidy, fast.

He liked his job. He liked breathing more.

So he kept his mouth shut, and let his boss wave off the one thing that could bury him.

Chapter 3

The assistant, Callum decided, was an idiot.

The woman was almost certainly some arranged match his parents had lined up. Old families did that. He couldn't remember agreeing to it, which meant he'd probably been out of his mind at the time.

Forgettable, anyway. Forgettable enough that a car crash had done him the favor of deleting her and nothing else.

Which left exactly one problem: his parents. The day they found out he wanted out, they'd never let him file.

God, Desmond was slow.

That afternoon he had the man come up.

"Sir."

"I read the settlement. It's fine. Send it to her."

"...Sir, she said she'll sign whatever's in it. You could just sign it and have it delivered."

Callum's brow drew together. His hand stopped over the page.

Something turned over in his chest. He pressed his knuckles to his sternum and swallowed hard, his stomach turning for no reason he could name.

Desmond, reading the pause as regret, jumped in. "I'll go tell Mrs. Ash"

"Book me a cardiology exam."

"...Sorry, what?"

Callum breathed through it, then raised his eyes. "Nothing. I said fine."

"...Right. Of course."

He signed. His name, clean and final, at the bottom of a document ending a marriage he couldn't feel a thing about.

"Take it to her."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

The signed papers landed in my inbox.

Me: [Works for me. Though I'm not at Lindenhall right now.]

Desmond: [You're out?]

Me: [On set.]

Desmond: [You left the CITY?! Did you tell Mr. Ashford? Isn't he still at the office?]

Me: [We're getting divorced. You think it still works the way it used to?]

Desmond: [...Travel safe.]

Me: [I'll find you when I'm back. Just bring the papers.]

Desmond: [Got it.]

I set the phone down. A warm voice came from beside me.

"Everything okay? Someone need you?"

I picked up a glass of juice. "Nope."

A few seats over, Sid Pruitt was three drinks deep and feeling chatty. "Oho, what are you two whispering about? I've been rooting for you since way back. Shame Viv here dropped off the map for a while."

He swayed closer.

"But look at her now. Back in the game. On my show, no less. Ha!"

I did a small, private eye-roll. If your network didn't pay the most for the least work, Sid, not a soul would set foot in this circus.

Yes. I'd signed onto a dating show.

Technically I wasn't single yet. But that was a formality with an expiration date, and I wasn't going to lose sleep over it.

The day I'd flown into LA to meet the producers, Desmond had texted me out of nowhere and nearly stopped my heart. For one second I'd thought Callum had his memory back.

There was one more thing about this show I hadn't bothered to mention to Desmond. My old flame from the industry was on it too.

Aurelio Knight.

Seeing him had thrown me. The man was an Oscar-sweeping headliner now. Why he'd sign onto a gimmicky little dating show was beyond me.

* * *

Dinner wrapped. Back at the hotel, showered, I picked up my phone to a message from Callum.

Callum: [Anything in the settlement you're not happy with?]

Me: [No.]

Callum: [Desmond says you haven't signed.]

Me: [I'm not home right now.]

I didn't mention the show. I didn't mention Aurelio.

Some things a man should find out on his own.

Chapter 4

Callum stared at that last line for a while.

When he came back to himself, he'd already typed it out: Where are you? Why did you go out alone? He frowned at his own thumbs.

He flattened his palm over his heart, which was going too fast, and breathed until it slowed.

He deleted every word and typed something else.

Callum: [Don't forget to sign when you're back.]

Me: [Ok.]

He watched the thread go quiet and stay quiet.

He loosened his tie. His breathing wouldn't level out. He pressed his knuckles to his sternum, over the thing that wouldn't sit still, and stared at the dead screen.

Then he opened Desmond's thread.

Callum: [Book that cardiology exam. First opening you can get.]

Desmond had no idea what had gotten into the boss. All he knew was that ever since he'd let slip that Mrs. Ashford hadn't signed, that she was out of town, the man had gone strange. One minute the room was warm. The next it was a meat locker. Desmond figured that if he had a weaker constitution, he'd have run a fever and checked himself into a hospital by now.

Desmond: [On it.]

* * *

Callum held the results in one long-fingered hand and read them twice, because they made no sense.

"Nothing?"

"No, sir. Your heart is in excellent shape. Nothing came back abnormal." The doctor was careful, earnest. "Are you having symptoms?"

Callum considered it. Then he stood.

"No."

Desmond had the car idling outside the clinic.

"Everything all right, sir?"

Callum's eyes were half-lidded, his face cold and clean in the rearview. "I'm fine."

"Right. Right." Desmond faced front. The car eased out.

"Did she sign?"

"Mrs. Ashford says the shoot runs a week. She'll be home tomorrow afternoon."

"You'd know."

Callum didn't catch the jealousy in his own voice before the car braked hard and threw him forward an inch.

"What the"

"Is that Mrs. Ashford?!"

Whatever Callum had been about to say died in his throat under the shock in Desmond's voice. Unhurried, he smoothed his lapels, adjusted a cuff, and only then lifted his eyes to the window.

"Where?"

Desmond had no words for it. Sir. You couldn't have looked before straightening a suit for a woman who isn't even here to see it. The one person who likes you in a suit is on the other side of the city.

"Must have been mistaken."

"Then drive."

Callum decided a good portion of his headache was Desmond's fault.

"Yes, sir."

Desmond: [You back, ma'am?]

Me: [Yeah. How'd you know? I thought he pulled everyone off me.]

Desmond: [We saw you on the road, the boss and I.]

Me: [What'd he say?]

Desmond: [...The boss didn't see you.]

Me: [Got it. Don't forget to bring the papers tomorrow.]

Desmond: [Yes, ma'am.]

* * *

"Sir, Mrs. Ashford's back home."

Callum didn't look up. His voice went flat. "Did I ask?"

"...No. She wants me to bring the papers by tomorrow afternoon. For her signature."

And there it was again. That nameless ache. The nausea.

Like something important was draining out of him and he couldn't find the leak.

He wet his lips, which had gone dry, and the sound of his own voice startled him. Rough. Unsteady. Something under it he refused to name.

"She... asked for it herself?"

Desmond looked at his self-made disaster of a boss.

"Yes."

Callum was quiet for a moment.

"I just remembered I have a trip to Los Angeles tomorrow. You're coming with me."

"Tomorrow? Sir, we don't have anything on the"

Chapter 5

The air around Callum had gone thin and electric, the way it did right before something broke. Desmond knew that look.

"Yes. I'll arrange it now."

* * *

Desmond texted me the update. They were going out of town. The papers would have to wait a few days.

Me: [Long trip? I've got one of my own coming up.]

Desmond: [Not sure yet. How long are you gone this time, ma'am?]

Me: [A week.]

Me: [Never mind. We'll figure it out later.]

Which is how I ended up staring at Desmond across a restaurant, rubbing my forehead.

"What are you doing here?"

He hadn't planned on running into me over dinner either.

"The boss and I are here on business. You're in LA too, ma'am?"

"Callum's here?"

"He went back to the hotel. I'm handling the rest of the schedule."

"Perfect. You bring the papers?"

Before he could answer, footsteps came up behind me. A tall shape unfolded out of the dark.

"Someone you know, Viv?"

Aurelio Knight stopped at my side and settled himself between me and the stranger, easy as breathing, like he'd decided the space around me was his to guard.

"Mm. What are you doing out here?"

"You'd been gone a while." He smiled down at me, warm. "I got worried."

"...Aurelio Knight?" Desmond's voice cracked out beside us.

"You know me?" Aurelio looked at the man in the sharp suit. Had his fan base really gotten this wide?

"You're an A-lister. Everyone knows you." I cut in. "That's enough. Head back."

I turned and walked toward our private room ahead of them. Aurelio gave Desmond one glance, said nothing, and fell into step behind me.

* * *

The next day, Callum clocked the assistant still hovering after his briefing.

"What is it."

"I ran into Mrs. Ashford last night."

Callum took off his glasses and pressed the bridge of his nose. Desmond couldn't see his face, couldn't read a single thing off it.

Then the voice came, low and smooth, something dangerous folded quietly inside it.

"Alone?"

"No she was she was"

"Mm?"

The anger packed under those two letters was unmistakable. Desmond just spat it out.

"She was with Aurelio Knight."

The hand at his brow went still. When Callum spoke, there was a jealousy in it he hadn't authorized.

"Aurelio Knight."

Desmond tried to become smaller.

"Why is she in LA?"

"Mrs. Ashford's filming. Some show."

Callum had not expected the arranged match his stiff, old-fashioned parents picked out for him to be an entertainment-industry name.

"She also said..."

"Said what."

"Said to... bring the papers to her."

Callum's head came up. One brow rose. Those dark, deep-water eyes narrowed to something that could frost glass.

"You packed divorce papers for a business trip?"

"Packed didn't pack"

Desmond hated, daily, that he was not a mind reader.

"Fine. Nothing else, get out."

"Yes, sir."

Alone, Callum turned the name over once. Aurelio Knight. He didn't care for the shape of it in his mouth.

Chapter 6

Callum and Desmond flew back on Wednesday. I was booked in LA through the following Tuesday.

Filming was easy money.

Diane: [You really and truly done with him?]

Me: [I'm out here doing a dating show. What do you think.]

Diane: [Good. Because I keep picturing him changing his mind and coming for my head.]

Diane would later swear she needed to sage the office and knock on every surface in it. Say a thing, summon it.

The show aired as we filmed it, each episode dropping a week behind the cameras. We wrapped episode two. Episode one was already live.

Aurelio Knight, A-list, on his first-ever dating show: the internet lost its mind. The numbers were obscene.

And I got hauled up into the noise right beside him.

Hate-famous is still famous.

Diane: [How are you getting torn apart like this? He's really not stepping in?]

Me: [Aurelio and I get a lot of screen time. Of course they're coming for me.]

Diane: [What IS the deal with the movie star? Why would he randomly sign onto a dating show?]

Me: [Probably heard I was getting divorced.]

Diane: [He STILL hasn't given up??]

Me: [Doesn't look like it.]

Diane: [And your husband's just... letting him near you? That's not like him.]

I thought about all the things Callum used to do to keep Aurelio Knight three time zones away from me. My mouth curved before I could stop it.

Callum. I cannot wait to see your face when you remember.

* * *

That weekend, Callum drove out to the family estate.

"How come Viv's not with you?"

His mother started in the second he walked through the door alone. Her son. Voluntarily more than three feet from that woman.

Callum handed his coat to the staff and tugged his tie loose. "She's busy."

"And you didn't go with her?"

"Is she a child? Does she need a chaperone?"

His father, mid-sip, made the sound of a man whose water had taken a wrong turn.

"Kh kh"

His mother thumped the old man's back with one hand and looked at her son like a stranger had walked in wearing his face.

"Father, are you all right?"

His father waved a slow hand, coughing into his fist.

"Mother. Why are you looking at me like that."

"Is your head okay?"

"Didn't I tell Desmond not to say anything to you two?"

"Say what? Desmond hasn't breathed a word."

"Then how do you know I took a hit to the head."

"...Come again?"

His mother shoved his father clean out of the way.

"Hey I"

His father watched her barrel past and shook his head, fond.

She dropped down next to Callum and took his face in both hands, turning it one way, then the other.

"You hit your head? When? Why didn't you say anything? Is it bad?"

"Mother."

Callum caught her wrists, gentle, and let out a small sigh.

"Keep shaking me and I won't answer for what comes loose."

"Fine, fine, I'll stop. Now talk."

"Car accident on a work trip. Minor concussion. No external injuries."

"Oh."

The instant she heard nothing was seriously wrong, she released him.

"So. Did you and Viv fight?"

"No."

"Is she sick of you?"

Callum arched a brow and drew it out, unhurried.

"Do I strike you as the clingy type?"

His mother's face did something complicated.

The things you did, boy. The sheer nerve, sitting there asking me if you're the clingy type.

Before she could get a word out, her son dropped his next bomb.

Chapter 7

"By the way. I'm divorcing her."

"...I'm sorry?"

His parents stared at him, identical looks of flat disbelief.

"Who? Who are you divorcing?"

"How many people did I marry?"

"Son. Maybe we take you back for another scan. I don't think 'minor concussion' is covering this."

"You might be brain-damaged," his father offered.

Callum's brow drew in, genuinely puzzled. "Why does everyone react the same way when I say I want a divorce. This exact shock."

"Shouldn't we be shocked?"

"I'm divorcing the woman you arranged for me to marry. A woman I don't love. I assumed you'd have seen it coming."

His parents' faces filled with question marks. Arranged? What arranged marriage? What in God's name was the boy talking about.

They traded a look.

"Besides the concussion. Any other symptoms?"

"No."

"Not possible. You just called Viv an arranged match. Your brain is not fine."

"She isn't the match you set up for me?"

Both of them went speechless.

"Do we look like a family that needs to arrange marriages?"

For once, Callum had no answer.

"Wait. You don't remember Viv? You've got amnesia?"

His mother had found the bug in the code.

"I don't have amnesia. I just don't remember her."

"Just? Only her, out of every person alive?"

"Mm. Someone that unimportant, it's no loss to forget."

His father let out a short laugh, sat back down, and returned to his tea wearing the smile of a man with a front-row seat.

"You..."

His mother looked at him and ran clean out of words.

"Have you told Viv you want the divorce?"

"Mm. Already signed the papers."

His mother asked only one more thing.

"Did the doctor say the amnesia will come back?"

"Yes. The right trigger should do it."

His mother turned and traded a slow smile with his father.

The two of them settled in to watch their own son, who had dug this grave with his bare hands, try to climb back out.

* * *

Desmond's right eye had been twitching since he woke up. One look at the entertainment headlines on his phone and he started praying, quietly, that the boss would leave him be today.

"You wanted me, sir."

He pushed open the office door like a man walking to his own sentencing.

"What production is she on."

There it was. God. What were the odds he walked back out this door.

"...A show."

"What show."

The interrogation stayed cold and even.

Sir, she's already ON it, Desmond howled internally. What is the point of asking me now.

"A da a dating show."

Desmond heard a sharp crack and looked up.

"Sir? Sir, are you all right?"

Callum came back to himself at the sound of it.

"What?"

"Your... your hand, sir. Your hand's bleeding."

Chapter 8

Callum looked down at the pen crushed in his fist, ink thrown across the desk, threaded through with red.

He drew a tissue and wiped his palm, slow. His face showed nothing, and somehow that made it harder to look at.

When he finally spoke, his voice was flat as still water.

"Bring it here. I want to see it."

"Watch it with me."

He stopped Desmond before the man could back out of the room.

On screen, the program was introducing its cast one at a time.

"Which one is she."

"Who?"

Desmond genuinely did not follow.

Callum gave him a cold look.

"My wife."

"...Huh?"

Desmond's head snapped up. He stared, opened his mouth twice, got nothing out.

Callum's eyes narrowed, dangerous.

"Talk."

"You don't remember what Mrs. Ashford looks like?"

"Mm."

"Is there anything else you've forgotten?"

"Anything to do with her, I've got nothing."

"...That explains it. That explains all of it."

Desmond's soul left his body. Every strange thing the boss had done for weeks clicked into place at once.

"Was it the crash?"

"The doctor didn't tell you?"

"No... Mrs. Ashford checked you in. You handled the discharge yourself."

"She didn't say anything?"

"No..."

Callum rubbed his aching temple.

"Which one is she."

Desmond took a moment to digest the sheer size of what he'd just learned, then answered slowly.

"She's not on yet. Third from the end."

A pause.

"Sir. When you get your memory back, you are going to hate the man who signed those papers."

Callum didn't spare him a glance. He watched the screen, waiting for the woman Desmond swore would make him regret all of it.

Syrupy background music. A host who would not shut up. Every second of it scraping at what little patience he had left.

Then.

"Let's give a big welcome to our next guest. This is... Vivienne Sinclair!"

The camera swung to a doorway. A slender white arm pushed it open. Black patent heels. A fine pale ankle. The long clean line of a calf. Black silk. White lace.

The camera began to climb.

Up the silk. Toward her face.

The face that filled the screen stopped his breath