Knight in Shining Suit (49 page)

He didn’t say that gently.
I couldn’t recognize the exact emotion in his voice. He sounded
like he was angry, but he was also a little relieved. “You say
you’re my girlfriend?”

“
Y-yes,” I said
weakly.

He raised a brow. “You
lack conviction when you say that. It makes it harder for me to
believe it.”

I took a deep breath again
and then repeated my answer, “Yes, Ryder. I am your
girlfriend.”

“
How long have we been
together?”

I didn’t know how to
explain this. Unofficially, we’ve been together for about ten
months. But officially, it was a lot shorter than that. Yeah, like
two days before he forgot about me.

“
We’ve been together for
less than a week before your accident… officially.”

“
Officially?”

I nodded. “We’ve been
pretending to be engaged for about ten months now.”

He narrowed his
eyes.
“Pretending?”

I nodded. “It’s a long
story.”

“
I’m sure! As you can see,
I can’t remember all the stupid things I did this year. So please…
feel free to enlighten me!”

“
Stupid?” I repeated. That
felt like a slap in the face. Did he think having me, as a
girlfriend, was stupid?

“
Yes,” he replied. “Why
would I pretend to be somebody’s fiancé? Do I look like I couldn’t
get a woman to marry me for
real?”

I shook my head.
“No.”

“
Then why, Ms. Jacobson,
would I pretend to be your fiancé?”

I sighed. “Because I asked
you to. My ex-fiancé cheated on me with my cousin and I attended
their wedding with you. You helped me out, so I could save my pride
and my dignity in front my family.”

“
Why would I do that?” he
asked.

I shrugged. “Because…
because you said you liked me. And that was your way to get to know
me.”

He raised a brow. “You
mean I agreed to play along with your charade so I could get you to
bed?” he asked blatantly.

My eyes widened. “No,
Ryder,” I said. “You would never do that. It was never about the
sex for you. You’re… for real. You really cared about
me.”

“
I couldn’t care about you
on such a short notice, miss. I wonder what you did before
that.”

“
You said… you said I got
under your skin the first moment you laid eyes on me.”

He stared at me. And then
he laughed so hard it started to insult me. He shook his head.
“Clearly, miss, you are mistaken. That does not sound like me at
all.” He swung his legs to the side of the bed and he stood
up.

My heart pounded in my
chest as he approached me. When he was close enough he looked down
and studied my face. He looked into my eyes. Then I saw a glimmer
of emotion there, some sort of recognition. But it was so short I
thought I must have imagined it. “Are your eyes violet?” he
asked.

I nodded. I couldn’t
breathe. He was standing too close. And it killed me to know that
this was the same man I loved, my Ryder… and yet he was so
different and because of that, I couldn’t get through him at
all.

“
You sure you’re not a
witch?” he asked. “Because you must have put me under a spell or
given me a love potion. That would be the only explanation for all
my rash actions. The man you are telling me about now does not
sound like me at all.”

I closed my eyes in
disbelief. Then I took a deep breath and reminded myself that it
was not his fault there was a stupid cloud in his brain that veiled
his memories of me.

“
Ryder, I know this is too
much to handle for now.” I figured Jake was right to keep me away
from him for the past month. “Let’s… take this slow,” I said to
him.

“
Well, you should have
told me that ten months ago!” he said. “Apparently, this year I did
everything in super-fast mode! If you really know me, Ms. Jacobson,
you know I don’t fall for a woman that fast. I am not rash. More
importantly, I am not gullible.”

I nodded. “I know that,
Ryder.”

“
So can you just tell me
what you want from me and we can end this charade now? My life is
already complicated as it is.”

“
Ryder…” I started. What
was he saying? Was he breaking up with me? Without him knowing me
and everything that happened to us in the last year? So
unfair!

“
What did you really want,
Miss Jacobson? Is it the money? How much?”

“
What?” I asked back,
totally appalled.

“
Come on, miss. It’s only
the two of us in here. And I noticed that you have won over my
mother, my sister, and my best friends. I want you to stay away
from them, too. Could we stop all pretenses now and let’s just go
our separate ways and pretend nothing happened? I am willing to
compensate you for your trouble.”

My eyes widened. I swear,
if Ryder didn’t already have a brain injury, I was going to inflict
one on him. I was seething with anger.
How
dare he? What does he think of me?

“
I don’t believe this!” I
threw my hands in the air.

“
I know, right? Me too!”
He rolled his eyes sarcastically.

I stared back at him,
tears starting to brim my eyes.

He stared back at me. He
narrowed his eyes and I saw a glint of emotion there. Then his
expression turned cold again.

“
Please don’t cry, Miss
Jacobson,” he said. “It won’t work on me.”

I blinked back the tears.
How could this Ryder be so mean?

“
Let’s not beat around the
bush. You probably came from a middle class family. You came here,
no fancy clothes, no expensive jewelry. I was told you were a
wedding planner. I think you are ambitious; you needed somebody to
bring you to the world of the rich. Well, maybe it’s a good thing
that I lost a year of my memory, because I have time to undo what
you are about to do to me.”

“
Ryder, don’t say this,” I
begged him silently, tears rolling down my cheeks, in spite of him
asking me not to cry.

He stood there watching
me. I knew that he was only trying to be mean to me to shove me
away. I could see a glimmer of emotion in his eyes, but he was
fighting it.

“
When was the last time I
went to bed with you?” he asked.

I stared at him, confused
with his question. “What…”

“
Answer the question. When
was the last time I had sex with you?” he asked bluntly.

“
The day before your
accident,” I replied weakly.

“
That would be over a
month ago,” he said,” he said. “I want you to take a pregnancy
test. I just want to make sure that you’re not
pregnant.”

Every queen needs a prince
or a princess in her Ever After too.
And
suddenly, remembering him say those words to me so tenderly made me
cry even more. I wiped the tears on my cheeks and
nodded.

“
What would you do if I
am?” I asked back.

He raised a brow at me.
“Aren’t you on the pill?”

I shook my head
slowly.

He shrugged. “I’m sure I
always used protection. I doubt that you are pregnant. But just in
case, I want to be sure. And then we will talk about you staying
out of my life so I can start fresh. As you can see, I lost a year
of my life. That’s a lot to catch up on.”

“
Why… why would you want
to get rid of me?”

“
Because I don’t trust
you,” he said,” he said. “How the hell you made me fall in love
with you, I do not know. How you made me put my money on your
business, I am also not sure. You must be really good in bed. I am
usually not the type of man who would fall under a woman’s spell.
And I stay away from girls like you.”

“
Girls like me? What do
you think I am?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know
you well enough to judge you. But the last thing I want is to end
up with a mercenary slut who is only using me to gain access to my
bank accounts!”

“
Mercenary slut?” I
echoed. Is this what Ryder was like before I met him? “You’re
calling me a mercenary slut?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t say
that you are. I don’t know you well enough to judge you. I’m just
saying that I’m trying to stay away from women who only wanted me
for what I am worth.”

I bit my lip and balled my
fists inside my jeans’ pockets to keep myself from swinging the
metal food tray across his face.

“
Maybe it’s not a good
idea for us to talk today. I’ll see you some other time,” I said to
him.

I turned away from him.
When I looked back, I found that his eyes were looking at my
behind. He was totally checking me out. Finally, he looked at my
face.

“
Well, for what it’s
worth, I understand why I would have been attracted to you,” he
said. “But I still don’t think you could trick me into marriage… or
love.”

I was so angry, hurt, and
insulted, I didn’t bother to retort back. I turned away from him
and bumped into Jake who was just getting inside the
room.

He stared down at me and
saw the tears I was trying to hold back. His expression softened
and he reached out to touch my shoulder.

“
Astrid, are you
okay?”

“
I’ll be fine, Jake. I’m a
rock!” I said to him, mustering all the courage I could
find.

Then I turned to leave the
room. I heard Jake shout at Ryder, “Not cool, man! Totally not
cool!”

I was so upset when I got
back to Ryder’s apartment. Ryder seems like a total stranger now. I
never knew he could be this harsh, this mean. When I met him, he
was a dream. He was a sweet guy who I thought only existed in
romance novels and fairy tales. This Ryder also seemed unreal… but
in a terrible way.

God, he was worse than
Kevin Moore! And Kevin and his mother were the reasons why I vowed
I would never date a filthy rich guy who was out of my league. I
didn’t want to be judged, to be measured whether or not I met the
minimum acceptable standards. I didn’t want my boyfriend and his
family to question me, to doubt whether I really loved him or was
in it for the status and the money.

It took me months to stop
fighting what I feel for Ryder. He was so persistent, so sincere,
so desperate; he did everything to make me believe him, trust in
him. And now… he was an example of the very reason why I didn’t
want to fall for him in the first place.

Sometimes, I find my
stupid situation so hilarious, I would actually roll on the floor
laughing if I was not too busy bawling my eyes out.

That night I slept in one
of his long-sleeved shirts again. And as I lay down on his bed and
cried my heart out, I prayed for about the millionth time that this
was just a bad dream that I would soon wake up from.

***

“
You could keep staying in
Ryder’s apartment,” Paris told me the day that Ryder would be going
home from the hospital.

“
No, it’s okay. I know
he’s still not ready to see me,” I said. “I could stay in a
hotel.”

“
Nonsense,” she said. “He
will stay at my mother’s house for a while. At least there, we have
maids and butlers to attend to his needs while he is healing,”
Paris explained. “He won’t come back to his apartment. Stay
there.”

I should be happy. Ryder’s
physical wounds were healing. I would have been the happiest woman
on earth if only his memories hadn’t gotten messed up… if only he
could remember even a second of our time together.

“
Do you think I could see
him again?” I asked.

Paris nodded. “Yes. He has
to deal with you, no matter how hard he tries to run away from
it.”

“
I don’t understand that,
actually.”

“
My brother didn’t believe
he could actually fall in love. You confuse him,” Paris replied.
“And he doesn’t know what to do with you.”

Oh, this Ryder Van Woodsen
knows what to do with me all right! He wants to get rid of me so
fast; he was even willing to pay me. But I didn’t tell anybody
that. I know Ryder didn’t mean it. If he were himself, he would
never say those words at all.

I went with Paris to her
mother’s house. Helen had a ten-bedroom mansion. The whole house
was swarming with butlers and maids keeping it well taken care
of.

Helen was ecstatic to see
me. “Sweetheart.” She gave me a hug. “I’m so glad to see you. I
told one of the maids to call Ryder.”

Helen and I chatted in the
tea room, while Paris excused herself.

“
That girl.” Helen
sighed.

Paris?

“
You’re family now,
Astrid. I suppose I could tell you. I worry about her.”

“
She seems like a girl who
could take care of herself,” I said.

“
Yes. Sometimes a little
too much.” Helen heaved a frustrated breath.

“
I don’t
understand.”