"Let go, Eve," Charls commanded, his voice a low growl near her ear. He tried to pry her fingers from his lapel, but her grip was surprisingly strong, fueled by hysteria.

"No!" Eve wailed, burying her face back into his chest. "Don't leave me again! I'll be better! I won't be boring!"

The whispers around them were turning into excited shouts.

"Did she just say she won't be boring?"

"Is she begging him not to dump her?"

"I thought they hated each other!"

A paparazzi photographer, bold and hungry, stepped past the velvet rope, his camera flashing rapidly in their faces. Click. Click. Click.

Charls was blinded for a second. His Chief of Staff, Harrison, materialized from the shadows, shoving his hand in front of the lens. "Back off! No photos!"

But it was too late. The damage was done.

Charls looked down at Eve. She was shaking against him, oblivious to the sharks circling. He felt a surge of protectiveness that annoyed him. He hated her, theoretically. But he hated the vultures with cameras more.

"Harrison," Charls barked over the noise. "Clear a path. Now."

"Sir, the car is out back, but the alley is blocked by a delivery truck. We have to go out the front."

Charls cursed. He couldn't drag her. She couldn't walk.

He sighed, a sound of pure resignation. He bent down, swept his arm behind her knees, and hoisted her up into his arms.

Eve gasped as the world tilted. She instinctively threw her arms around his neck, her face pressing into the crook of his shoulder.

"You're holding me," she murmured into his skin, her voice wet with tears. "I knew you still loved me."

"Shut up, Eve," Charls gritted out.

He marched through the crowd, his face a mask of icy fury. The crowd parted like the Red Sea, a mixture of awe and shock on their faces. Charls Wiley, the Ice King of Wall Street, carrying his rival like a bride.

Harrison and two bodyguards formed a wedge, pushing people aside.

They burst out of the club doors onto the sidewalk. The night air was crisp. A wall of paparazzi was waiting. The flashes erupted like a lightning storm.

"Mr. Wiley! Is it true you two are engaged?"

"Eve! Why are you crying?"

"Is this a merger or a marriage?"

As Charls moved toward his SUV, he saw Eve's driver, Thomas, trying to push through the throng of photographers. "Ms. Franks!" Thomas yelled, his face a mask of alarm. Charls's bodyguard moved swiftly, intercepting him. "Sir, Mr. Wiley will see to her safety. Follow us to the hospital." The bodyguard's voice was low but firm, an undeniable command that left Thomas frozen in place, watching as Charls used his hand to press Eve's face firmly into his chest, shielding her from the photos. It looked like a romantic gesture. In reality, he just didn't want the world to see her snot-streaked face.

"Move!" Harrison shouted, opening the back door of the waiting SUV.

Charls practically threw Eve onto the leather bench seat and climbed in after her. He slammed the door shut, cutting off the blinding lights.

"Go," he ordered the driver. "Just drive."

The car surged forward.

Inside the dim cabin, the smell of vodka and Eve's expensive floral perfume was suffocating. Eve slumped against the door, her sobbing quieting down to hiccuping breaths.

"Where are we taking her?" the driver asked, eyeing them in the rearview mirror.

"Franks Estate," Charls said, rubbing his temples.

At the word Estate, Eve jolted upright. Her eyes flew open, wild and panicked.

"No!" she screamed. "Not home! I can't go home!"

The emptiness of her apartment, the gifts she had bought for Andre, the memories-it was a haunted house to her now.

"Eve, stop it," Charls said, his patience snapping. "You're drunk. You need to sleep it off."

"I won't go back there!" She lunged toward the front seat. "Stop the car! Let me out!"

"Hey!" Charls grabbed her waist, hauling her back. "Sit down!"

"You don't understand!" She struggled, her elbow catching him in the ribs. She was stronger than she looked. "He's everywhere in that house! I have to find him! I have to ask him why!"

"Ask who?" Charls demanded, pinning her arms to her sides. "Ask me? I'm right here!"

"Not you!" Eve cried, her logic fracturing. She looked at him, and for a second, the illusion broke. She saw Charls. Not Andre.

The confusion made her panic worse. "Let me out!"

She reached for the door handle. The car was moving at 50 miles per hour.

"Don't touch that!" Charls lunged across her to lock the door.

In the chaos, Eve's knee hit the driver's arm hard. The steering wheel jerked to the left.

"Watch out!" Harrison yelled from the front passenger seat.

The SUV swerved violently across the lane. The tires screeched, a horrific sound of rubber tearing against asphalt.

Through the windshield, headlights appeared out of nowhere. A delivery truck was merging, too close, too fast.

Time seemed to slow down for Charls. He saw the truck's grill. He saw the driver's terrified face. He felt the SUV begin to tip as his driver overcorrected.

He didn't think about his portfolio. He didn't think about his legacy.

He looked at Eve. She was frozen, her hand still reaching for the door handle, her eyes wide with sudden, sobering terror.

Charls threw himself across the seat. He wrapped his body around hers, shielding her head with his chest, his hand cupping the back of her skull.

"Hold on!"

CRASH.

The impact was deafening. Metal crumpled like paper. Glass exploded inward in a glittering shower. The SUV spun, hit the median, and rolled.

The world became a washing machine of violence. Charls felt his shoulder slam against the door pillar. A sharp, sickening crack echoed through his arm. He gritted his teeth, refusing to let go of Eve. He buried her face into his coat, taking the brunt of the glass shards raining down on them.

The car came to a rest upside down.

Silence. Absolute, terrifying silence. Then, the hiss of steam and the drip of fluids.

"Eve?" Charls whispered. His voice was raspy. Blood was dripping into his eye from a cut on his forehead.

Eve didn't answer. She was limp in his arms, her head resting heavily against his broken shoulder.

"Eve!" Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through his shock. He tried to shift, but his left arm screamed in agony.

"Sir?" Harrison's voice came from the front, groggy. "Are you okay?"

"Check her," Charls gasped. "Call 911. And check the driver."

Sirens were already wailing in the distance. Harrison, groaning, unbuckled himself and crawled toward the front. "Driver's unconscious, sir, pinned by the airbag. But he's breathing."

The emergency room at Lenox Hill was a blur of fluorescent lights and shouting.

Charls sat on a gurney in the hallway, refusing to lie down. His left arm was in a temporary sling, his expensive suit ruined, stained with blood and oil.

"Mr. Wiley, you need a CT scan," a nurse insisted.

"I'm fine," Charls snapped, though he was dizzy. "Where is she?"

Down the hall, behind double doors, a team of doctors was working on Eve.

The doors burst open. Silas Franks ran in, looking disheveled, followed closely by Huldah Franks. Huldah looked impeccable, even at 2 AM, but her face was pale.

Silas spotted Charls. He marched over, grabbing Charls by his good lapel.

"What did you do to her?" Silas roared, shaking him. "If she doesn't wake up, I will kill you, Wiley!"

"Get off him, Silas," Huldah commanded sharply. She looked at Charls, assessing the damage. "Is she alive?"

"She's unconscious," Charls said, his voice flat. He pushed Silas away. "Head trauma. The doctors are running scans now."

"Why was she in your car?" Huldah asked, her eyes narrowing. "The internet is saying you two were... intimate at a club."

Charls laughed, a dark, humorless sound. "She was drunk. I was trying to stop her from doing something stupid. She grabbed the wheel."

The doctor emerged from the trauma room. He pulled off his surgical mask.

"Family of Ms. Franks?"

"Here," Huldah stepped forward. "I'm her mother."

"She has a severe concussion and some bruising," the doctor said. "Physically, she will recover. But the impact to the temporal lobe was significant. There is swelling. We won't know the extent of the neurological damage until she wakes up."

Charls let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. She was alive.

He leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes. The adrenaline was fading, replaced by a throbbing pain in his arm and a strange, heavy weight in his chest. He kept seeing her face right before the crash. The heartbreak.

Who hurt her? he wondered. Who made Eve Franks drink herself into oblivion?

The VIP hospital suite smelled of antiseptic and lilies. Sunlight filtered through the blinds, casting striped shadows across the bed.

Eve groaned. The sound was dry and cracked.

Silas jumped up from the armchair where he had been dozing. "Eve? You're awake!"

Eve blinked. Her head felt like it had been split open with an axe. She reached up, her fingers brushing against thick bandages wrapped around her forehead.

"Silas?" Her voice was weak. "Where...?"

"Hospital," Silas said, grabbing her hand. "You were in a car accident. You scared the hell out of us." He glanced at his phone, where a dozen frantic messages from their PR team were waiting. The board meeting had been postponed, citing a 'family emergency,' but the market was already spooked.

Eve frowned, trying to access her memory. It was a blank slate. Just white noise. "Accident?"

"Yeah. You and... well, look." Silas picked up his tablet. He hesitated, then decided she needed to know. "You went viral last night."

He played the video.

Eve watched the screen. She saw herself, disheveled and crying, clinging to a man in a dark suit. She heard her own voice screaming, I love you so much! Don't leave me!

She watched the man pick her up. She watched him shield her face from the cameras.

Something clicked in her brain. The synapses, firing across the damaged pathways, sought a logical narrative to explain the emotion she was seeing. Her brain, protecting her from the trauma of Andre's betrayal, completely erased him. It paved over the hole with the only available data: the man in the video.

A smile, soft and dreamy, spread across Eve's face.

"He saved me," she whispered.

Silas winced. "Uh, sort of. He was actually trying to get you out of there because you were making a scene."

"No," Eve shook her head. "Look at how he holds me. He loves me."

Silas froze. "Eve. That's Charls Wiley. You hate him. He's your nemesis."

Eve looked at her brother like he was speaking a foreign language. "Nemesis? Don't be silly, Silas. That's Charls. My fiancé."

Silas dropped the tablet. It clattered onto the floor. "What the f...?"

Eve struggled to sit up, wincing at the pain. "We've been keeping it a secret. You know, because of the merger. Because of Mother. But... I guess the secret is out now."

Her brain was working fast, confabulating, building a bridge over the abyss of her memory loss. It made perfect sense. The intense feelings, the dream, the man in the video. It was love. It had to be.

"Nurse!" Silas yelled, hitting the call button. "Doctor!"

"Is he here?" Eve asked, her eyes darting to the door. "I want to see him. I need to tell him I'm sorry for the fight."

"There was no fight!" Silas argued, panicking. "There is no relationship! Eve, you are hallucinating!"

"Shh," Eve put a finger to her lips. "You just don't know about it. It was very private."

The door opened. But it wasn't the nurse.

It was Charls.

He had his arm in a black sling. He had come to check on the legal situation, to make sure the Franks weren't planning to sue him for the crash.

He stopped in the doorway, seeing Eve awake.

"You're up," he said, his voice cool and detached.

Eve's face lit up like a Christmas tree. The sheer wattage of her smile took Charls aback. He had never seen her look at him like that. Usually, she looked at him like she wanted to stab him with a pen.

"Charls," she breathed. She held out her hands. "Darling, you're hurt."

Charls looked behind him, assuming she was talking to someone else. There was no one there.

"Excuse me?" Charls asked.

"Your arm," Eve said, her eyes filling with tears. "Did you get hurt protecting me? Oh, I'm so sorry. I love you so much."

Charls stood there, stunned into silence. He looked at Silas.

Silas mouthed, She thinks you're engaged.

Charls felt the floor drop out from under him. This was a nightmare. This was worse than the crash.

"Eve," Charls started, stepping forward to correct her. "I think you hit your head harder than-"

"Don't be mad," Eve pleaded, her lower lip trembling. "I know I messed up. But I remember how you held me. Please, come here."

She looked so fragile. The bandages, the bruises, the IV drip. And that look... it was pure, unfiltered affection.

Charls closed his mouth. He didn't know why, but he couldn't bring himself to shatter her reality right there. Not when she looked like she might break into a million pieces.