Healing Mr. Ashford

Chapter Twelve: Amnesia

NATALIA GEORGETTE

The first thing I noticed when the plane touched down in Manila was how quickly everything I had tried to forget came rushing back.

The familiar announcements, the bright airport lights, the sound of people dragging their luggage across the polished floor and everything felt strangely ordinary after the quiet days I had spent with Maximo in Portugal. I sat there for a moment after the seatbelt sign switched off, staring at the terminal outside the window as if I could delay whatever was waiting for me beyond those doors.

Maximo reached for my hand before I could stand.

“You okay?”

I looked at our joined hands and felt something tighten inside my chest. I had spent the entire flight trying to convince myself that whatever happened between us in Portugal could remain there, suspended somewhere between Lisbon and Manila, but the moment we landed, reality had found me again.

“I’m fine,” I said, even though we both knew I wasn’t.

He studied my face, then squeezed my hand once before letting go. “You don’t have to be.”

I looked at him, caught off guard by the softness in his voice. That was the problem with Maximo. He always seemed to know when I was lying, even when I was still trying to convince myself that I was telling the truth.

We finally stepped out of the aircraft and into the terminal, moving with the crowd toward baggage claim. I kept walking beside him, listening to the familiar rhythm of his footsteps, quietly wishing the airport were just another place we could disappear into together...but then I saw him.

Ethan was standing beyond the arrival barrier.

He was dressed exactly the way I remembered him, pressed shirt, dark trousers, hair neatly styled, every detail carefully put together. He looked like the man I had once imagined walking beside me on our wedding day, and in his hands was a bouquet of roses.

My steps slowed.

For a second, I couldn't breathe.

Ethan smiled the moment our eyes met, as if the past few weeks had never happened, as if there hadn't been betrayal, arguments, unanswered questions, and a broken engagement hanging between us.

“Natalia.”

My fingers tightened around the handle of my suitcase.

Beside me, Maximo had gone completely still.

Ethan lifted the bouquet slightly. “I missed you.”

I stared at the roses, then at the man holding them, and felt something inside me ache, not because I wanted to run back to him, but because I suddenly understood that the woman who had left the Philippines weeks ago would have been overwhelmed by this gesture.

She would have cried, forgiven him, and convinced herself that the flowers meant everything she had once wanted them to mean. But I wasn’t that woman anymore. Not after Portugal, and certainly not after Maximo. Somehow, realizing that frightened me more than Ethan’s presence ever could.

The first thing Ethan noticed was Maximo standing beside me. His eyes moved from me to him, then back to me again, as if he were trying to make sense of something that didn't quite fit the picture he had expected to see. A few seconds passed before his expression brightened with recognition.

“So you two happened to have the same flight?” he asked casually, looking at Maximo before turning his attention back to me. “I didn't know you were traveling with one of your schoolmates.”

I almost choked.

Beside me, Maximo's jaw tightened so subtly that Ethan probably didn't notice it.

“Schoolmate?” Maximo repeated, his voice calm enough to be dangerous.

Ethan looked at him, seemingly confused by the reaction. “Yeah. Didn't you two go to the same university?”

“We did,” I answered quickly, remembering the scene in the pharmacy when Ethan had first noticed me looking at Maximo.

Maximo's eyes shifted toward me, and there was something in that look that made me want to laugh and hide at the same time.

Schoolmate.

After everything that had happened between us in Portugal, that was what Ethan had decided to call him.

Ethan smiled and handed me the bouquet. “Well, I'm glad you didn't have to travel alone. At least you had someone familiar with you.”

Maximo's jaw flexed again.

I pressed my lips together, desperately trying not to smile, not for Ethan, who looked as though he had conveniently developed amnesia and forgotten everything he had done to me, but for the gorgeous man beside me, who somehow remained breathtakingly handsome even with that barely contained irritation on his face.

Ethan, completely oblivious, continued, “You two must have had fun catching up after all these years.”

Maximo finally looked at him.

“Very.”

I nearly smiled again.

Ethan seemed satisfied with the answer, apparently unaware that there was an entire story hidden behind that one word. He reached for my suitcase, already slipping comfortably back into the role of the man who had come to take me home.

“Come on. I parked outside.”

Ethan took my suitcase, and I followed him toward the exit, but before I could take another step, Maximo's fingers brushed lightly against mine.

I looked up.

The irritation in his expression had faded, replaced by the quiet softness I had become far too familiar with in Portugal. For a moment, the noise of the airport seemed to disappear around us, and I hated how much I wanted to stay there instead of walking away.

“I'll see you soon,” he murmured.

My chest tightened at the certainty in his voice. “Soon.”

His lips curved into a small smile, the kind that always made me feel as though there was something only the two of us understood.

I forced myself to let go of his hand.

Ethan was already a few steps ahead when he glanced over his shoulder. “Natalia?”

“Coming.”

I turned away from Maximo and followed Ethan, the bouquet of roses pressed against my chest. The scent was sweet, almost overwhelming, but instead of reminding me of the man beside me, it only made me think of the one I had just left behind and that was when I knew something had changed.

I could still feel Maximo's fingers against mine even after I stepped into Ethan's car.