Before I could even think of a reply, Patrick and Danica came striding toward our table like a storm I had no interest in facing.
"Ahce, you're here…" Patrick's voice was strange, hesitant, almost guilty.
I kept my eyes down, refusing to give them the satisfaction of my reaction.
"Are you too afraid to see us?" Danica's tone was sharp, her words slicing through the air.
I smiled up at them, calm and deliberate. "Are you worthy?"
Her eyes widened, the color rising to her cheeks.
"You… bitch!" she hissed, her hand trembling as the iced coffee she held splashed onto the floor.
I braced myself for the cold, but before the liquid could hit me, a shadow moved. Someone covered me with his body, shielding me completely.
"You…" My voice faltered as I looked up at him, the stranger who had just been sitting across from me, now holding himself between me and them like a wall. I didn't know what to say, my breath caught in my throat. But he only smiled at me, calm and unbothered.
"Who the hell are you? Why would you cover for this bitch?" Danica's curses were loud enough to turn every head in the café.
"Ahce, are you hurt?" Patrick's voice came closer, full of concern that made my stomach churn.
He reached out, but the stranger's hand moved faster, blocking him effortlessly.
"Don't touch my wife," he said firmly.
I froze.
Wife?
Of all the things he could have said, why that?
The café buzzed with murmurs, people leaned closer, watching.
Patrick blinked at me, stunned. "Your wife? Ahce… you're married? You didn't even tell me?"
"Why," the stranger said coolly, "would my wife need to inform you of her decisions?"
Patrick's face went pale, his lips parting but no words coming out.
"Ahce… you…"
I stood, cutting through the noise before it could spiral further. I slipped my hand into the stranger's arm, my smile bright and deliberate, my mask. "Let's go, sweetheart. You need to change your clothes. Mad dogs run around and stress people, they pee anywhere. Change your clothes before you get sick."
A soft laugh rippled through the café at my words. Danica's jaw clenched.
Without hesitation, he placed his hand over mine where it rested on his arm, the gesture natural, protective.
"Of course," he said, his tone steady, as if he'd been my husband all along.
As we turned to leave, the eyes of the crowd followed us. I could feel Patrick's stare burning into my back, but I didn't look back. I kept my head high, my grip on the stranger firm.
Outside, the noise of the café faded, replaced by the hum of traffic and the pounding of my heart.
I finally looked at him, still holding his arm.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
He only smiled, a little secret hidden behind his eyes.
"Your husband," he said simply.
I stared at him, then laughed, though my voice came out shaky. "My husband? I don't even have a boyfriend. When exactly did you marry me?"
His lips curved into a faint smile, but his eyes didn't waver. "Boss, have you forgotten how you slipped away from our honeymoon after you woke up?"
The word Boss hit me like a jolt. It was such an odd endearment for a couple, too sharp, too personal, almost like a code. And yet… something inside me trembled at the sound of it. My heart sped up, but not from fear. From recognition.
I couldn't understand why. I didn't even realize what his words meant until they started echoing in my head like a melody I couldn't place.
Because someone had called me that before. Someone whose face I couldn't see, whose voice was hidden in a fog of half-memories.
Someone important.
It was true.
I had forgotten so much.
After December of 2025, my life became fractured. I went to hospitals, many of them. Tests, scans, questions. All of them telling me the same thing: amnesia.
A trauma not physical but emotional. My own mind had shut the door on memories too painful to carry, locked them away where I couldn't reach them.
And now, here was this man, standing in front of me, claiming to be my husband. Calling me Boss. Speaking of a honeymoon I didn't remember.
A flicker of the dream I'd had, the heat, the hands, the lips, rose to the surface again, vivid and raw.
Was he…?
I swallowed hard, my fingers tightening on his arm.
"If what you're saying is true," I whispered, "then tell me... who am I to you? And who are you really?"
He smiled again, softer this time, but there was something in his eyes that made my stomach twist, a look of longing, of patience, of someone who had been waiting a very long time.
"I am your lawfully wedded husband," he said, his voice steady but shadowed with something I couldn't name.
Before I could laugh or scoff, he pulled out two registration certificates from nowhere, laying them gently in front of me.
I froze. My eyes scanned the documents, and my stomach twisted. My name. My signature. Stamped, dated, official.
I stared harder, my breath caught in my throat. "No way! When did I sign such a document?"
He looked at me then, and for the first time, I saw the cracks in his calm expression.
"So it's true…" he murmured, his voice low and pained.
"What was true?"
"That you've lost your memories."
His words hit me like a cold wave. My throat went dry.
I looked at him. Then back at the certificates. Then at him again. Nothing made sense. My thoughts spun in circles, a storm I couldn't escape.
When had I ever met this man?
When did I marry him?
When did he become part of my life?
And why… why was everything so sudden, so unreal, as if someone had rewritten the story of my life without telling me?
My fingers brushed against the edge of the paper, trembling. Birth years. Names. Details I couldn't deny.
Year 2000. My year of birth.
Year 2008. His.
I felt the blood drain from my face.
"No… that's impossible. You're eight years younger than me?" My voice shook between disbelief and fear.
He didn't flinch. He held my gaze, unwavering, as though he'd already prepared for this moment.
"Age doesn't matter," he said quietly. "But you… you mattered to me more than anything. And I promised I wouldn't let you go. Not even when you forgot me."
My heart pounded in my ears, torn between panic and something else, something dangerously close to recognition.
But all I could whisper was, "Who… are you to me?"