CHAPTER 26: CHAPTER-26. (COLD HEARTED HUSBAND OF MINE).

My heart skipped a beat.

Freaking Jesus, he is now suspicious about my reaction.

There was not one single reason that I wanted to hide our marriage from the public’s eye, but a hell lot of reasons.

And one of the main reasons was that I had to divorce him after he regained his memory.

Once everything got disclosed, there was no turning back. Wherever I go, the shadow of being his ex-wife will follow me.

It would be millions, no zillion times harder for me to even step outside without attracting any attention.

For Dave, it would be any other scandal, but for me, it would be a drastic change.

He would ignore it like always for me, which I could not ignore. Moreover, it will always come to my face, mocking me.

"Why?" His low voice sent a shiver down my spine, spreading goosebumps all over my body, bringing me back from my dark thoughts. I did not want but something forced me to meet his gaze.

The moment our gazes met, it felt as if something came over me.

I gulped the lump formed in my throat as I cleared out my throat, ready to speak because no matter what, I had to convince him to drop this idea at any cost.

"This isn’t a discussion. This is just you informing me like I’m one of your employees, right? A memo on the desk that oh, and by the way, we’re announcing our marriage, hope you’re fine with that..."

"Elena," he said, my name like it was meant to ground me, but it only made my chest tighten more.

I hated the way my pulse reacted to that, hated the heat building in my cheeks, hated the fact that part of me still remembered our kiss, and now that was tangled with this mess.

"You don’t get to play husband when it suits you, Dave," I said, my voice lower now but sharper, my words slicing through the thick air between us.

"You’ve spent years pretending we’re strangers, and now? Now suddenly it’s a good PR move?"

His jaw tightened, and I caught the slightest flicker of tension in his shoulders. "It’s not about PR."

I know, it was not about that, but I also did not know the real reason why he wanted to do it.

Though I knew that making him confess the real reason would be hard, almost like moving a wall by pushing it.

His eyes stayed locked on mine, unblinking, unreadable. That was the thing about Dave: he could stand there in complete silence and still somehow feel louder than a crowd.

"Then what is it about?" I asked, the words slipping out before I could stop them. I hated how they sounded as if I was desperate to know. Like I cared.

He didn’t answer right away, and that pause... God, that pause was lethal.

My brain filled it in with every possible scenario, every ugly truth, every version of the future I’d been trying to avoid.

The corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile, not quite a frown. "You’ll know when you need to know."

Oh, fantastic. The classic Dave answer. Just vague enough to make me want to slam my head against the wall.

"You think this is some kind of game?" I snapped, my voice louder now, sharper.

"Because newsflash, I’m not a pawn you get to move around to fit whatever plan you’ve cooked up in that overconfident head of yours."

He took one slow step toward me, closing the gap I’d been clinging to like it was oxygen. I wanted to move back, but my stupid feet stayed rooted to the floor.

"It’s not a game," he said quietly, and there was something in his tone that made my skin prickle. Something steady, stubborn... and final.

I crossed my arms, more to hold myself together than to look defiant. "Then tell me the truth, Dave. Right now."

His gaze flickered over my face, searching for something I didn’t know what. For a second, I thought maybe, maybe he’d actually give me an answer.

Instead, he just murmured, "You’ll understand soon enough."

And just like that, the air between us felt heavier.

My chest ached with all the words I wanted to throw at him, but I bit them back.

I knew this look, this tone. Once Dave decided on something, prying it out of his grip was next to impossible.

But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t try.

Because if he thought I was going to stand there and let him dismantle the fragile little life I’d built, he had another thing coming.

He tried to move away, but this time I held his arm, gripping it tightly, almost as if my life depended on it.

"You are not going anywhere before you tell me the reason," I stated firmly, leaving no room for doubt.

Today, either he will give me my answer or we will stay here the whole night bickering about it.

While my one hand gripped his arm, the other clutched the T-shirt’s fabric.

His gaze first moved to his arm and then to my other hand, which was gripping his T-shirt.

A little wave of doubt hit me, almost losing my grip on him, but in that moment, I held it with the same strength as before.

His face did not have any expression, which was not the surprising factor, but the shocking part was that his eyes did not show any anger or fury.

Instead, something primal which I could not put my finger on.

His focus then shifted to my face before he replied, "First, you give the answer to my question."

My breath hitched, and my grip faltered for half a second.

His question.

I would stop everything if you gave me one reason why we shouldn’t do this?

His eyes stayed intently over me.

He did not even blink, as if he did not want to lose any chance to see the crack through my facade.

I took a deep breath, knowing fully well that I could not use just any excuse because he would know the next moment.

Taking a moment, I searched for the list of reasons that would not be rejected by this cold-hearted husband of mine, when my eyes sparkled as my mind finally gave in.

I opened my mouth and spoke out the word with no hesitation, "If you reveal everything that nothing between us would be the same."