Page 25 of The Rancher's Amnesia Bride

"Only when I think too much."

"Then do not think," Philippe's mother said with a wink, "and just love."

"Why, Maman...I didn't think you'd be a hopeless romantic like me. I love it!"

As the two women laughed and chatted some more, Philippe started to wonder if perhaps he had somehow ended up in some alternate universe without being aware of it. Both women had nothing in common on the surface, and yet when one looked at the way the two now had their heads bent close as his mother showed Charlee-Mae something on her phone, it was as if they had known each other their entire lives.

He had wondered before why Charlotte considered Charlee-Mae a suitable match for him, and this, Philippe supposed, was the answer. How the CEO of Heart's Match had known of Sandra's fondness for his wife's videos, he could not even begin to imagine, but he now understood why Fleur spoke so highly of the other woman.

And now, speaking of Charlotte...

Charlee-Mae and Sandra glanced up upon his approach, and Philippe held his phone out to his wife. "It is your sister-in-law."

Charlee-Mae was surprised. "She knows your number?"

"You gave me her number in the past," he lied.

His wife turned to Sandra. "Is it alright—-"

"Oh, of course," his mother was quick to say reassuringly, and the way Sandra continued to look fondly at his wife as Charlee-Mae walked away still struck Philippe as surreal.

Looking back at her son, Sandra could not help but smile when she found Philippe staring at her like she had grown a pair of horns (and probably a tail) in the past five minutes. "Is it that much of a shock that I actually like the woman you've married? In fact, I do believe your father would have also been charmed by her—-" Her smile faded when she saw her son stiffen. "Oh, my dear."

"Now is not the time, Maman."

But Sandra only shook her head. "Your father is long gone, Philippe. You must move on and stop letting your anger rule your life."

Even merely hearing his mother mention his father was enough to make him remember all the memories of his miserable childhood. Bruno had been a cold and unloving man, a perfectionist who had not been able to accept that his younger son was dyslexic.

"Philippe..."

He shook his head. "I do not think I will ever stop hating him."

"Even if he ends up ruining your life?"

His lips twisted in a humorless life. "Au contraire, Maman - he was my sole motivation for making our business grow ten times more than he ever had in his lifetime."

"And Greta?"

Philippe stiffened.

"That his two sons have fallen for a woman he despises is certain to make your father turn over in his grave. Is that why your sister-in-law is now your mistress?"

Philippe's lips tightened. "I cannot believe you are bringing her up here—-"

"You are feeling guilty," she observed. "Your wife does not know about her then?"

If Charlee-Mae had not lost her memories, such a question would've required him to lie, but because his wife now believed herself to be in love with him, Philippe was able to speak the truth to his mother.

"Non, Maman, she does not...and I have no plans of her ever finding out."

The fierceness of her son's tone told her everything she had to know, and a tremor of relief shook Sandra's slender frame. Oh, thank God, thank God.

Philippe was surprised when her mother suddenly gave him a warm embrace. "Maman?"

"I am just so happy for you, mon fils. I was worried at first, of course. I thought this marriage of yours was a sham. I thought you only meant to make me relinquish your shares, and you'd soon divorce your wife to marry Greta."

That had been his plan. Marrying Greta, in his mind, would've been his final act of revenge against a father capable of coldly rejecting his own flesh and blood on account of an imperfection.

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