Hearts Remember What Minds Try To Forget by Rex Wilder 12

12 

What the hell was this? 

His stunned gaze dropped to the signature line. My name was already scrawled there, stark and definitive. Already signed. 

A month prior. That’s when it was dated. 

Lucas’s grip on the document tightened to a white–knuckled vice, the paper rustling softly under the strain. “She’s been planning this… planning to divorce me all along…” His voice, ragged and raw, clawed its way past clenched teeth. “How dare she?” 

Oh, yes. What right did I have? And how did I dare? 

Lucas stood, teeth grinding, the divorce agreement clutched in his fists. He tore it to shreds, the pristine white pieces showering down to cover the floor. 

But through the red haze of his rage, an image flickered: the last time he’d seen her. 

He remembered her cold voice echoing in the empty hospital room: “I’m leaving you for good. 

The memory of her distant, vacant eyes from that moment sent a jolt of pain through Lucas’s chest, his heart seizing in a tight vice. 

Had she… truly gone? 

But she’d loved him so much, hadn’t she? How could she have brought herself to just… leave? To simply vanish? 

Lucas couldn’t fathom any of it. He stalked the perimeter of his study, raw disbelief churning in his gut. Fumbling for a pack of cigarettes, his hands shook as he pulled one out and lit it. He took a deep, shaky drag, but the acrid smoke instantly caught in his throat, 

burning. 

“This isn’t happening,” Lucas muttered, trying to brainwash himself, his words a desperate mantra. “She wouldn’t leave me. She wouldn’t divorce me. She just wants my attention.” 

The thought spurred him to action. Lucas snatched up his phone, dialing my number once more, only to be met with the familiar, chilling message: “The number you have dialed is not in service. 

His patience snapped. With a roar of frustration, Lucas hurled the phone across the room. 

He stormed out of the study, yelling for his secretary. “Get me the hospital surveillance! Find every last shot of Anna Reed leaving!” 

Less than an hour later, his secretary returned, a stack of video files in hand. 

The footage showed me leaving the hospital room that very afternoon. From that moment on, I never came back. 

A sharp frown creased Lucas’s brow, laced with a dawning, terrible realization. 

She had been gone since that day. 

His secretary cleared her throat. “Mr. Thorne, I spoke with the nurse on duty that day. Mrs. Reed did complete her discharge papers. However, the nurse didn’t ask her where she was going.” 

Lucas’s breathing grew ragged, thick with rage. He couldn’t believe I’d vanished right under his nose. 

His fists clenched, knuckles white. He snarled at his secretary, each word sharp and deliberate. “Find her. Track her every move. Airports, ports–leave no stone unturned. Go. Now!” 

In the weeks that followed, the entire Thorne Conglomerate was mobilized to find my whereabouts. 

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Lucas didn’t even care about the scorn of reporters and the media. He put out a missing person’s notice, paid to trend on every social media platform, and offered an astronomical, explicitly detailed reward. 

Anything, if it meant getting Anna Reed back, he would do. 

Online, people scoffed at his inability to appreciate what he had. He’d cheated with his mistress, not only ruining his reputation but also driving his wife away in a rage. 

“I heard the Thorne Conglomerate’s stock is about to take a nosedive.” 

“Mr. Thorne is probably drowning in debt now, isn’t he?” 

“It’s all because he lost his head and cheated. Serves him right.” 

No one knew that on that fateful night, he had merely mistaken Chloe for me. 

He might have been captivated by Chloe, but he knew, with a gut–wrenching certainty, that I was his only wife. 

He never would have slept with Chloe if he hadn’t mistaken her for me that night. 

Lucas was consumed by bitter regret. He squeezed his eyes shut, a raw pain constricting his chest, only for Chloe’s shrill voice to pierce the air from beyond his office door a moment later. 

“Get out of my way! You all know my relationship with Mr. Thorne! I’m going in to see him!”