I knew my husband no longer recognized my face the moment he aimed a gun at my heart.
The muzzle was cold.
His hand was steady.
And his eyes… were empty.
Not angry.
Not confused.
Just searching.
"Who are you?" Rafael Tanque asked quietly.
The most feared man in the city.
The man who owned this mansion.
This empire.
This marriage.
Did not know who I was.
I stood in front of him in a silk nightdress, barefoot on marble floors still wet with blood from the ambush that almost killed him two hours ago.
Outside, sirens wailed.
Inside, his men held their breath.
But none of that mattered.
Because the man who once swore to burn the world for me was now looking at me like I was a beautiful intruder in his bedroom.
"My name is Tamara," I said carefully. "I'm your—"
"Don't lie."
His finger tightened on the trigger.
My heart didn't race.
It froze.
Because Rafael Tanque had a rule.
He never pointed a gun at anything he didn't intend to kill.
"I don't know your face," he continued. "But you're in my bed. Wearing my clothes. Standing in my house."
His gaze slid over me slowly, dangerously.
"My instincts are screaming. Either you belong to me… or you're about to die."
Behind him, his right-hand man, Marco, swallowed.
"Boss… she's—"
"Quiet."
Rafael didn't look away from me.
"You," he said. "Take one step closer."
I did.
Every nerve in my body was screaming not to.
The gun didn't move.
When I was close enough to smell the antiseptic on his skin and the faint trace of smoke from the bullets that had torn through his shoulder, something changed in his expression.
Not recognition.
Something worse.
His jaw tightened.
His breathing shifted.
Like his body remembered something his brain couldn't.
"Why," he murmured, "do I feel like you've already ruined me?"
My throat burned.
Because he had.
And I had let him.
"I'm not your enemy," I whispered.
"Everyone is."
His free hand came up suddenly and grabbed my wrist.
Hard.
Not violent.
Possessive.
A gasp slipped from my lips before I could stop it.
The room went deadly quiet.
Rafael's pupils dilated.
That sound.
That reaction.
It hit something inside him.
"You react to me," he said slowly. "Not like a stranger would."
His thumb brushed my pulse.
He could feel how fast it was beating.
"How long," he asked softly, "have you been sleeping in my bed?"
I closed my eyes for half a second.
Because the truth would shatter him.
"Three years," I said.
The gun lowered by a fraction.
"Three years," he repeated.
Then he laughed.
A low, broken sound.
"You expect me to believe I kept a woman in my bed for three years… and I don't know her face?"
"I didn't say you didn't know me," I replied. "I said you don't recognize me."
That made him go still.
"What's the difference?"
"The difference," I whispered, "is that you used to love me."
Silence fell like a guillotine.
Marco looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him.
Rafael stared at me as if I had just handed him a bomb.
"Say that again."
"I'm your wife."
His grip loosened.
Not because he believed me.
Because something in his mind broke.
"My wife is dead."
The words sliced deeper than the gun ever could.
"No," I said. "She's standing right here."
He shook his head slowly.
"No. My wife had eyes like fire. A voice I could find in any crowd. A scent that haunted me."
His gaze dropped to my lips.
My neck.
My hair.
"And you…" he murmured. "You feel like a ghost wearing her skin."
Tears stung my eyes.
Because he was right.
The doctors had warned me.
Prosopagnosia.
Face blindness.
Rafael had hidden it for years.
Now, after the ambush, it had taken everything from him.
Including me.
"Why," he asked, "do you smell like something I'm afraid to lose?"
I didn't answer.
I couldn't.
His fingers tightened around my wrist again.
"Answer me."
"Because," I said, my voice breaking, "you once told me my scent was the only thing that kept you human."
Something flashed across his face.
Pain.
A migraine maybe.
A crack in the wall of his mind.
He stumbled back a step.
"Don't," he growled, pressing his fingers to his temple. "Don't talk like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you belong to me."
"I do."
The gun fell from his hand.
It hit the floor with a dull clang.
Rafael stared at me, breathing hard.
"I don't know your face," he said hoarsely. "I don't know your eyes. I don't know your name beyond what you just told me."
He stepped closer.
Slow.
Careful.
Like approaching a wild animal.
"But my body knows you."
His hand came up.
Not to hurt me.
To touch.
His fingers brushed my cheek.
I flinched.
Not from fear.
From memory.
He froze.
"You pull away," he said. "Like you're afraid of me."
"I am."
"Why?"
"Because," I whispered, "you once loved me so much it destroyed us both."
His breath hitched.
Outside, someone shouted.
Inside, the world narrowed to just us.
"If you're lying," he said quietly, "I will find out. And I will kill you."
"I know."
"And if you're telling the truth…"
He leaned in close enough that I could feel the heat of him.
"Then I'm already in hell."
I swallowed.
"Welcome back, Rafael."
His eyes darkened.
"My wife," he said slowly, tasting the word like poison, "is the most dangerous thing in my world."
And I knew, in that moment…
He was going to fall in love with me all over again.
Without knowing who I was.
And this time…
It would hurt even more.