WonNovels

Sean lost his memory in a car crash, completely forgetting his borderline-psychopathic obsession with me.

Once his family found out, they had their legal team process our divorce at breakneck speed.

In barely half a day, I found myself standing dazed on the streets of a city on the West Coast, holding a divorce agreement in one hand and a massive severance check in the other.

After being suffocated by Sean’s extreme control for so long, I actually felt a little lost now that I had my freedom back.

I settled down in this new city and started a quiet, mundane new life.

Until one day, while grocery shopping at the neighborhood farmer’s market, someone clamped a hand over my mouth and nose from behind.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a dimly lit but incredibly familiar basement suite, and a man’s low, crisp voice echoed in my ear:

"Be a good girl and be my woman. I can give you everything you want."

...

Great. God, it’s exactly like before.

1

By the time I found out about Sean’s amnesia, a full week had passed since his car accident.

The ER doctors had fought for hours just to save his life.

When his mother, Mrs. Lindsay, told me about it, she wiped away tears while glaring at me with blazing fury. "If he hadn't gone looking for you, Sean wouldn't be in this state!" she spat, a mix of grief and anger.

According to her, Sean had been at a clinic undergoing psychotherapy with his psychiatrist. When he realized I had slipped away, he immediately jumped into his Aston Martin and sped onto the interstate to chase me down. In a moment of distraction, he crashed head-on into a speeding heavy semi-truck.

Thank God his car had top-tier safety features, and the truck driver managed to jerk the steering wheel at the last critical second.

Otherwise, he would have gone straight to meet his maker.

Suddenly, it all made sense.

Oh... so that was it.

No wonder he hadn't come for me after all those days. I had assumed the GPS tracker he planted on me was broken.

He made me waste a whole week blowing in the wind on that private Caribbean island for nothing.

2

I was the wife Sean had forced to stay by his side using every trick in the book.

Honestly, I didn't think there was anything particularly dazzling about me that would attract him.

I was just a bottom-rung office drone making base salary, while he was the CEO of an entire corporate empire.

Thinking back, the only real interaction we ever had was at the company's annual gala, where I smashed a bottle of Bordeaux over his cousin's head for sexually harassing a female intern.

At the time, I thought I was definitely getting fired.

Who knew that the very next day, an internal transfer email would be sitting in my inbox.

It moved me directly from that crumbling regional branch to the Manhattan headquarters—a place everyone fought tooth and nail to get into.

My salary tripled, and I started working my tail off for him like a loyal mule.

Sean seemed to appreciate me immensely. He always gave me gentle smiles, had HR give me raises and promotions every few days, ruthlessly fired the department head who made my life difficult, and even used his private security to help me shake off a stalker ex-boyfriend.

He recognized my competence and covered up every single mistake I made at work.

He treated a pair of cheap, ten-dollar cufflinks I gave him like they were Patek Philippe, wearing them on the cuffs of his French shirts day in and day out for ten years.

I often marveled at my ridiculous good luck, practically praying to the night sky every evening after work, thanking God for blessing me with such an incredible boss.

I was even willing to work for him for the rest of my life.

Until one time, I had a few too many glasses of whiskey at a party. In my hazy state, Sean helped me into the backseat of his Rolls-Royce.

He let me lean against the broad shoulder of his tailored suit, saying in a soft voice, "Sleep. I'll have the driver take you back to your apartment."

My alcohol tolerance had always been terrible, and I drank way too much that night. Normally, that would have knocked me out until dawn.

But as luck would have it, I woke up halfway through the ride.

And the moment I opened my eyes, I saw the high-and-mighty Sean secretly kissing my lips.

3

The secret was completely out.

Sean just dropped the act altogether and confessed his obsession with me.

A billionaire's pursuit is always blunt and suffocatingly intense.

Private helicopters, luxury yachts, haute couture, antique paintings—if I could imagine it, Sean could afford to give it to me.

And setting aside all those material things, the man himself was absolutely flawless.

He had deep-set features, broad shoulders, and a lean waist. When he smiled, there was a charming, roguish flair to it; when he didn't, he exuded a chaste, untouchable purity. Whenever we walked down Fifth Avenue, passersby would shoot me looks of pure envy.

But I'm a deeply pragmatic person. If I don't like someone, I just don't like them.

I figured if this was some elaborate romance scam, I would at least con him until he was bankrupt.

Unfortunately, it wasn't.

Even I didn't want to admit it, but beneath all the mountains of cold, hard cash was his genuine, unreserved heart.

Playing with someone's genuine feelings is a one-way ticket to hell.

So, after I explicitly rejected his advances yet again, Sean completely lost it.

He had a secluded private estate on Long Island, and in the basement of that estate was an airtight, high-tech safe room. If I ever dared to run, he would drag me into that room and possess me with zero restraint.

When it was over, with the flush still fading from his face, he would use his staggering trust fund and connections to coerce me into marrying him.

"Be my woman, and I'll give you everything you want."

He threatened that if I dared to refuse, he would destroy everything I had and lock me in that estate forever, never letting me go anywhere.

Of course, he made those controlling, vicious threats countless times, but he never actually followed through.

Every time his bodyguards dragged me back, he'd look at my apathetic, indifferent expression and get so angry his eyes would turn red, tears welling up in them.

And then I would behave for a while.

Because I had to admit, he was actually pretty sexy when his eyes got red like that.

At first, this whole cat-and-mouse game felt kind of novel.

But as time went on, even I got bored.

I couldn't escape his grasp, and he couldn't bear to actually hurt me.

Besides, the estate was massive, full of unexplored rooms and scenery. Being locked in a cramped safe room to hook up wasn't exactly a long-term solution.

So, I picked a sunny morning, went to City Hall with him, and signed the marriage license.

Most of the time, Sean displayed absolute dominance around me.

Like any man in power used to taking what he wanted, he would've loved to fill my phone with spyware and track my whereabouts every second of the day.

But deep down, he was plagued by an undeniable sense of insecurity. He knew perfectly well he had forced this marriage using despicable methods, so he never actually dared to clip my wings and treat me like a caged canary.

He was paranoid and possessive; he would lose his mind if he couldn't see me for even a short while.

Eventually, tormented by both his insecurity and his obsessive possessiveness, Sean couldn't help himself. While I was asleep, he secretly implanted micro-GPS trackers in my smartphone and my everyday jewelry.

Whenever he noticed I'd been out for more than twenty-four hours, his motorcade would show up within the hour to forcibly bring me back to the estate.

Once I figured out this pattern, I just started treating him like a free cross-state private airline.

When I got tired of walking around outside, I'd just find a random motel and sleep.

Because I knew that when I woke up, I'd be wearing silk pajamas, tucked safely into the California King bed in the estate's master bedroom.

It was faster and more convenient than a teleportation portal.

The price, of course, was waking up to find new marks on my body from Sean's rough treatment.

4

This time, I miscalculated.

I just wanted to spend the weekend at that private Caribbean island he gave me. But after waiting on the beach for three whole days, I didn't get a single phone call from him.

I sat on the beach chair, enjoying the ocean breeze while repeatedly checking if the tracker in my jewelry was waterlogged and broken.

I even started wondering if one of Elon Musk's satellites had crashed out of orbit. Never in a million years did I think Sean had been in a severe car crash.

But this was great. Now he had amnesia and had completely forgotten about me.

When his assistant reported that he was actually married, Sean just waved it off coldly. "Have the legal team process the divorce. I have absolutely no memory of this woman."

A few casual strokes of fate turned this disaster into a blessing for everyone involved.

Sean went back to being the cold, untouchable, aristocratic Wall Street executive who stayed far away from women.

His mother finally got her wish to arrange a marriage with a socialite from an old-money family of equal status.

And me? I was finally free.

And as compensation, I got eighty million dollars.

5

Before I left, Sean's mother, Mrs. Lindsay, sternly warned me to take the money and never appear in front of her son again.

"Sean's morbid obsession with you was just PTSD from his psychological trauma. Now his psychiatrist says he's almost cured. Don't go getting any ideas that he'll start obsessing over you again."

I had heard rumors about Sean's psychological issues—severe childhood trauma that left him with paranoid personality disorder.

Maybe that was the root of his obsession with me.

In hindsight, it made total sense. What normal, modern person would completely disregard a woman's consent, illegally imprison her, and force her into marriage?

That three-year marriage felt like an absurd dream.

Now that I was awake, the estate, the yachts, the diamonds, the safe room... they were all gone.

The only thing left was the heavy weight of eighty million dollars in my bank account.

Mrs. Lindsay told me to roll as far away as possible. I've always been a person of my word, so I pulled up a map, found a West Coast city as far from Sean's New York as geographically possible, booked the earliest flight, and left without looking back.

6

I settled down in this sunny, unfamiliar city, bought a middle-class suburban house with a yard, and furnished it with some simple Scandinavian pieces.

Then, I got a part-time job at a quiet family bakery-cafe on the corner.

Everything felt like it had returned to the peaceful life I had before I met Sean.

The owner, Mrs. Mary, had a college senior grandson named Alan, who would come help out at the shop during the holidays.

He loved keeping up with Forbes and the financial gossip columns. The TV screen mounted above the cafe counter played a constant loop of scandals and anecdotes about domestic and international corporate titans.

That was where I saw Sean again—on the evening news.

He had been discharged from the hospital. Reporters swarmed him, camera flashes firing wildly at his handsome, slightly pale face, while he didn't even spare the lenses a glance.

He was cold, distant, radiating an aura that screamed "stay away."

A gossip reporter loudly pressed him about rumors of a secret marriage, even holding up a blurry, secretly taken photo from God-knows-where: "Mr. Sean, is the woman in this photo really your legal wife?"

Sean just shot it a frosty look, his tone completely flat. "No comment. I have no memory of this woman."

Watching this, Alan sighed next to me. "Mr. Sean must be in his thirties by now, right? How has he never been married?"

"Mr. Sean?"

"Yeah, he used to be a guest professor at our business school. The line of people crushing on him stretched two blocks down."

"Why?" I asked, lazily propping my chin on my hand. "Because he gave everyone passing grades?"

"Because he's handsome, obviously! God."

Alan explained that a mature guy like Sean was basically a lethal weapon on a college campus. Elegant, poised, impeccably polite.

He went on and on about how Sean coldly rejected advances from both girls and guys at school.

The flawless picture he was painting slowly merged with the cold, ascetic image on the TV screen.

I recalled Sean's mother berating me during the divorce proceedings: "It's all your fault. Our Sean was never like this before he met you!"

At the time, I thought she was being totally unreasonable.

How the hell was I supposed to know what Sean was like before he met me?

From the day I knew him, he was already a paranoid lunatic who would use any means necessary to make me his.

Even if I slapped him hard across the face, he would just kiss the red marks on my palm like a sick, devoted dog.

Now, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Oh, so this was what Sean was really like.

Mental illness really is terrifying. It managed to shatter the persona of an aloof, universally adored Wall Street elite, turning him into someone who would lose his mind over me, cry over me, and do every despicable thing that skirted the edge of the law just for me.

Thank God he finally lost his memory.

7

For the past few days, news about Sean was everywhere.

Losing three years of memory didn't seem to have any negative impact on the business genius's brain. One day he was leading an M&A deal for a tech startup, the next he was having dinner with the CEO of some multinational conglomerate. His company's stock was climbing faster than ever.

His performance in TV interviews was also flawless.

A talk show host asked him if he had any plans to get married soon.

He bluntly stated that he had no expectations for romantic love and that any future marriage would most likely be a PR-driven contract marriage for the benefit of the corporation.

"But what if you happen to meet a girl you really like in your everyday life?"

He gave the camera a faint smile. "Even if I did, I probably wouldn't take any extreme measures. I would fully respect her personal wishes."

I sat in front of the TV, falling into a long silence.

Damn it all. Why did I have to run into him exactly when he was out of his mind?

Alan walked out from the back kitchen carrying a slice of the signature apple pie with double syrup.

"Whoa, feeling generous today?"

He raised an eyebrow smugly. "Of course. Celebrating my official job offer."

"Congratulations. Which company?"

"Sean Group."

I choked, violently coughing twice on the apple pie in my mouth.

"If I remember correctly... Sean Group's headquarters are in New York, on the East Coast, right?"

"They're expanding into the Western market and setting up a new branch here. Haven't you seen the news?"

Alan dragged the video progress bar back by thirty minutes.

On the screen, Sean was speaking eloquently about his upcoming business expansion plans, and the very first stop was the coastal city we were currently living in.

I remembered my own miserable days as a bottom-tier corporate slave at his branch office, so I offered him some kind advice: "Going to headquarters is great for your career, but these newly established regional branches usually have brutal workloads."

"But the pay is incredibly good."

"You're barely in your twenties. Why work yourself to death just for money?"

Alan sneaked a quick glance at me, then looked away just as fast. "Maybe... so I have a little more confidence when I pursue the girl I like."

8

I don't know if it was just my imagination.

But this kid Alan seemed to have a crush on me.

Early-twenties boys are way too easy to read. His cheeks flushing the second our eyes met, his hands nervously twisting his apron strings, the phantom basketball shots he took while walking—all of it gave his little secret away completely.

Unsurprisingly, he confessed his feelings to me one evening.

Equally unsurprisingly, I rejected him cleanly, telling him we weren't a good match.

This was completely different from Sean.

If it were Sean, after being rejected, he'd still show up the next day in a sharp suit, acting like nothing happened, and boldly declare: "Persistence is a businessman's most valuable trait."

Alan obviously had a much thinner skin. The moment I rejected him, his eyes went red. He dropped a quick "I'm sorry, I was out of line," pushed open the shop door, and ran out into the night.

By 11 PM, when he still hadn't returned, Mrs. Mary was pacing the living room with worry.

I was just about to dial his number when a text popped up on my screen.

[Mia, I'm at the 12th Precinct right now. Can you come bail me out?]

9

To my mild surprise, Alan hadn't gone on a bender or smashed someone's store windows just because he got his heart broken, like in some cheesy movie.

On the contrary, he had spent the entire day earnestly doing his onboarding training.

That evening, during a department dinner with clients, he drank a bit too much as the new guy. After a few rounds, a major client said he was going to take him out for "some fun."

Alan, thoroughly wasted, groggily followed him into a car.

It wasn't until someone tried to force his belt off in a dimly lit private VIP room that he jolted awake.

"I had no idea that old creep of a client was gay, and the place he took me to was some underground men-only private club... I was terrified, so I immediately called 911."

The end result was that the cops hauled him into the station to take his statement too.

"That old bastard was yelling in the station that he'd make sure I was blacklisted from the industry," Alan said, close to tears. "My manager said the big boss is coming over to handle it personally..."

"Your big boss." A deeply ominous feeling flared in my chest. "Which boss are we talking about?"

"It's..."

Before he could finish, he suddenly stood up from his chair, tears in his eyes, and looked past me.

"Mr. Sean, you came personally."

10

After six months apart, Sean really hadn't changed at all.

He was still as elusive and ghostly as ever.

I really didn't want to run into him, so I pulled the brim of my baseball cap down low and slumped into the corner of the waiting area, playing dead.

He moved with crisp efficiency, leading his corporate legal team to deal with the police and process the paperwork, ruthlessly using the law to ensure that creepy old client was thrown into a holding cell.

Through the glass window, I heard him comforting Alan in a steady voice. "If you encounter this kind of harassment in the future, fight back directly without hesitation. The company's regulations will always prioritize our employees' personal safety."

"Furthermore, during business social events, you must never allow yourself to lose consciousness."

Alan sniffled. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Sean. I was just feeling a bit down today because the girl I like rejected me, so I..."

"Love is full of randomness. The person you like liking you back is statistically a low-probability event," he said, counseling Alan with the patience of a gentle, rational, and understanding mentor. "There are so many outstanding women in the world. You'll eventually find one who fits you. Some things just aren't worth forcing."

Hiding in the corner listening to this, I actually felt a strange sense of relief.

This was the very first time I had ever heard Sean say anything that aligned with normal human logic.

It was almost weirdly unsettling.

"By the way," Sean suddenly asked. "Didn't your family come to wait with you?"

Alan snapped back to reality and frantically pointed in my direction. "Oh, she's right there."

Sean followed the sound of his voice and looked toward my corner.

And at that exact second, I happened to look up, and our eyes locked.

11

Back when the lawyers were processing the divorce, I had thrown out a hypothetical: "What if he gets his memory back and remembers me?"

"Or, what if he looks through his files, sees this mysterious marriage, and asks you guys to explain it?"

His mother had promised me with absolute certainty, telling me to rest easy.

She was going to pull every string she had to completely scrub any trace of me from Sean's records.

And Sean would absolutely never remember me.

She had sounded so confident back then. But the moment we actually made eye contact, my instincts kicked in, and I subconsciously took two steps backward.

The way Sean was looking at me right now gave me a creeping, bone-chilling sense of familiarity.

It instantly dragged me back to that night when I caught him secretly kissing me in the backseat of his car.

Back then, the Sean I had caught red-handed still showed a flicker of panic and shame on his face.

Feigning composure, he made excuses, saying he had too much Scotch, the alcohol had gone to his head, and he lost his reason. He begged me not to take it to heart.

God as my witness, I actually believed his bullshit back then.

I even offered him a polite, awkward out. "It's okay, Mr. Sean. Everyone's brain short-circuits sometimes."

Then I pretended to check my phone screen. "So, my boyfriend just texted me to grab some late-night food down the street, so I'll just get out here."

Since the situation was already awkward, the only thought in my mind was to escape this suffocating Rolls-Royce immediately.

I reached for the door handle, only to find it wouldn't budge—the central locking system was engaged.

The back of my neck broke out in a cold sweat. I turned around and met Sean's deep, bottomless eyes.

"You have another boyfriend?"

I shrank back against the seat, biting the bullet and spinning my lie. "Yeah, we just made it official. Love is a crazy thing, you know? When there's a spark, you just can't stop it. Haha."

"Is that so."

Sean let out a low laugh, his tone laced with a dangerous sense of helplessness.

"Then why can't you try having a spark with me?"

Me: ...

Huh?

I felt like I'd been struck by lightning.

Sean completely tore away his gentlemanly disguise, demanding answers like a wronged child demanding candy. "Mia, am I not good enough?"

"Compared to that crazy ex of yours who stalked you, and this new boyfriend whose name I don't even know, no matter how you look at it, you should be choosing me."

He spread his hands, showing off a flawless appearance crafted from head to toe by top-tier stylists.

The impeccably slicked-back hair, the perfectly tailored charcoal-gray Savile Row suit, the lingering scent of his expensive citrus cologne in the air.

And even though I knew his eyesight was practically 20/20, he insisted on wearing a pair of silver-rimmed, non-prescription glasses that made him look so refined and intellectual.

"I've carefully studied your social media profiles. I know all your preferences. I dress myself every single day exactly according to your ideal type. Mia, look at me and tell me: am I not handsome enough? Are my assets not substantial enough?"

He leaned in closer, his long fingers pressing the button to turn off the phone screen I was clutching.

The light in the car instantly dimmed.

"Call that boyfriend of yours and break up with him," he ordered in an unquestionable tone. "I'll bet my entire net worth he can't compare to me."

"You know very well I can give you things ordinary men can't—limitless wealth, absolute power, top-tier social connections. I can be the stepping stone that gets you into high society."

"Besides, I'm actually a very generous person," he finally threw down his most twisted trump card. "If you really can't bear to part with him, you can just keep him on the side. When you get tired of playing with him, you can just pay him off and send him away."

"So, agree to be my woman right now, okay?"

12

Even though what happened in that car that night was practically nothing compared to the insane things Sean did later, the predatory look in his eyes—like the serpent in Eden—was something I could never forget.

But as it turned out, I was probably just flattering myself this time.

Sean very naturally reached out his right hand to me. "Hello. A pleasure to meet you."

Standard business etiquette. A light handshake that lasted less than two seconds before politely letting go.

Nothing felt off. We acted like two strangers meeting for the first time at a cocktail party. Aside from that dry greeting, we had almost zero interaction.

After leaving the police station, he offered to have his driver drop us off since it was on the way.

I curled up in the back seat of the spacious Lincoln SUV, listening to the two of them making idle small talk in the front. My eyelids grew heavy.

Half-asleep, I vaguely heard Sean ask casually, "Is Ms. Mia a relative of yours?"

Alan lowered his voice. "Actually, no. She works at my grandmother's cafe. She's really friendly and always takes good care of me at the shop."

"How old is she?"

"I think... twenty-eight."

"Is she a California native?"

"No, she just moved to this neighborhood six months ago."

"Does she have a boy—"

"Mr. Sean," Alan turned his head, sounding a bit surprised. "You seem particularly interested in her?"

The car slowly rolled to a stop at a red light.

Sean lifted his eyes, shooting me a deep, probing look through the rearview mirror.

"I'm not," he denied flatly.

13

Ever since dropping us off in his private car that day, Sean seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth.

My only updates came from Alan, who fed me endless, creative variations of praise for his "incredible boss."

Things like how much Sean appreciated his talent, fast-tracked his promotion and raise, directly transferred him to the CEO's office as an assistant, and constantly showed an interest in his personal life and relationship status.

"The boss says that after Christmas, he'll officially transfer me to the New York headquarters."

Alan checked his phone screen, then turned and yelled toward the kitchen, "Grandma, I won't be home for dinner! The boss wants me to attend an important business mixer with him!"

...

For some reason, this exact career trajectory felt so terrifyingly familiar it made my skin crawl.

Did the car crash break Sean's brain so badly he even forgot his own sexual orientation?

"Alan, I suggest you stay on your guard," I couldn't help but warn him.

He just gave me a bright, innocent smile. "Don't worry! With Mr. Sean there personally, that awful harassment stuff definitely won't happen again."

The problem is, having him there is exactly what makes it dangerous...

Sure enough, it was past midnight, and Alan still wasn't home.

I sat on the couch, debating with myself, and finally decided to call his number.

It rang a few times before connecting, but the voice that came through the receiver was Sean's deep, cello-like tone.

"I apologize, Alan had too much to drink. Who is this?"

I deliberately pinched my throat, putting on an exaggeratedly sweet, cloying American sweetheart accent. "I'm Alan's girlfriend! And who might you be?"

Dead silence hung over the line.

When he finally spoke again, his voice had plummeted to sub-zero, terrifyingly dark. "I am his direct supervisor."

"Oh my gosh, Mr. Sean! Our Alan talks about you all the time! Thank you so much for looking out for him at the company. Which bar are you at right now? I'll drive over and pick him up."

The call was abruptly cut off.

A second later, a location pin popped up on my phone.

It was the iconic five-star luxury hotel downtown.

14

To protect Alan's innocence, I bit the bullet and paid premium pricing for a late-night Uber. I got to the penthouse suite in less than ten minutes.

However, when I pushed open the heavy double mahogany doors, Alan was nowhere to be seen.

Under the warm glow of the crystal chandelier, Sean was the only person in the room.

He had taken off his suit jacket and was wearing only a meticulously tailored French shirt, the collar slightly open. He sat leaning against the leather sofa in a relaxed, languid posture.

Seeing me walk in, he stood up, displaying perfect gentlemanly manners. He gestured for me to enter, a cryptic smile playing on his lips. "Ms. Mia. It's been a while."

"Uh, yeah, it's been a while," I said, eyeing the lavish suite warily. "Where's Alan?"

"Alan..." Sean chewed on the name slowly. "So, you two are actually dating?"

Crap. I had gotten too into character on the phone and let it slip.

"Yeah, we recently made it official," I said, forced to keep up the lie.

He walked over to the bar and poured me a glass of juice with ice, stating calmly that Alan was dead drunk and currently passed out in the guest bedroom next door.

"That's how young guys in their twenties are. They panic at the first sign of trouble, can't even hold their liquor, and end up making other people clean up their mess," he observed dryly.

"He's a full six years younger than you. He must rely on you a lot in his day-to-day life."

As Sean spoke, he subconsciously rubbed the knuckle of his left ring finger.

That was where our wedding ring used to be.

Whenever he was emotional or feeling a surge of desire, he would unknowingly touch that spot.

"Honestly, if you ask me, dating a boy so much younger than you must be incredibly exhausting. Aside from a young body, they can't offer any real value. Most of the time, you end up having to act like a babysitter and tolerate their immaturity."

"And you, Ms. Mia, are in the golden age of a woman's maturity and charm. Why waste your precious time playing a boring game of helping a little boy grow up?"

"Besides, in a ruthless city like this, there's no guarantee he'll ever achieve any real success anyway."

I hadn't realized when, but he had already stepped behind me. Leaning in slightly, his presence overwhel