Page 22 of So Close

Amy leans forward. “She doesn’t remembermarryingyou? She doesn’t know she’s your wife?”

“She does now, but she doesn’t remember the particulars.”

“Wow,” Rosana repeats. “How crazy is all this?”

“It’s insane.” Ramin throws himself back into the black leather sofa and crosses one leg atop the opposite knee. “One of the craziest things I’ve ever heard.”

I mentally sort out the timeline he’s given us. “She disappeared days after you were married?”

“Yes.” With every word he’s spoken, he’s grown harder and more unreachable.

“Why weren’t you with her?” Amy asks.

“I had classes all day, then practice. It wasn’t unusual for her to take the boat out by herself. She sailed often.”

“Oh, that breaks my heart!” Rosana cries. “You’d just married. You must have been so happy, and then she was gone. It’s all so sad, Kane. I’m sorry you went through that! Sorry you both went through that.”

“Thank you,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry, too.”

I’m speechless, shocked that we should have something so bizarre happen to both of us – a missing spouse.

He continues. “It’s possible therapy can help with accessing her memories, or they might naturally resurface with time … but limiting any stress or strain will be paramount to her healing. I’m asking you to please minimize any friction while she recovers.”

“That’s why you called us all here?” Darius blinks, incredulous. “You’re worried about protectingher? What about protecting your family? Or at the very least Baharan?”

“My thoughts exactly,” Ramin says with a brisk nod. “Do you have a prenup? If not, we need to discuss a postnup.”

“Stop. All of you.” I’m vibrating with nerves, and the penthouse’s ambiance feeds them. “You said Lily sailed a lot … Did she own the boat?”

His gaze is laser-focused on my face. “Yes, it was hers.”

“Not that one has anything to do with the other, but … was she wealthy?”

Silence descends so completely the library becomes a tomb. The building creaks as it shifts in the wind, a sound I’ve learned to ignore, but somehow, it’s painfully jarring today.

His answer is brusque. “Extremely. Haven’t any of you wondered how Baharan became what it is today?”

Aside from Kane, every person in the room has stiffened into stone. Amy recovers first, tipping her glass up to gulp the last of her drink.

“Oh, wow!” Rosana breathes.

“We have investors,” I argue as if anything I could say would change the facts. “Iinvested. Ryan said you’d been cultivating business contacts all through college …”

But I never asked. I didn’t care where he got the money. I just wanted Baharan back. I wanted as much of what Paul took from me as I could get. I sold my soul for it.

Kane gives a curt shake of his head. “Lily is the foundation for Baharan, period.”

And Kane owns fifty-one percent of the shares, which means Lily, as his wife, has her hands firmly around the company’s throat.

The room tilts. I grasp the arms of my chair. No one else has sacrificed what I have for the company, and no one ever will. They don’t have it in them. They don’t deserve it.

“This just gets better and better,” Ramin mutters.

Kane turns to him. “To answer your questions, Ramin: no, there are no agreements between Lily and me, and there will never be. She added me as a manager of her LLC, which held her assets, and that LLC holds the shares for Baharan. The company exists because of her; she’s entitled to stake in it.”

Ramin laughs. “After all this time, does she evenwantto be married to you? Maybe she just wants her money back and not you?”

Rosana shakes her head violently. “You’re seriously a dick sometimes, you know that?”

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