Contract Marriage with my Amnesiac Billionaire

03

NATHANIEL

I had been awake for two days now, and every morning felt like waking up inside someone else’s life. The doctors called it temporary memory fragmentation, which sounded like a polite way of saying my mind was full of holes. Some pieces of my past were clear, while others slipped away the moment I tried to grasp them. Faces I should have remembered felt distant, conversations blurred, and timelines twisted.

They told me I had been in a car crash. They also told me I was lucky to be alive. I believed both things, even though I didn’t remember the impact. What I did remember clearly, what stayed in my mind like a bright mark was the moment I opened my eyes in the hospital and saw a girl standing next to me, holding my hand like she had no intention of letting go. Or maybe that was my imagination.

Aurora.

My doctor said she was the one who saved me. The one who pulled me out before the car lit up. The one who stayed until surgery took me away. I remembered flashes, her trembling voice, her soft hands, her panic but everything else was a blur of pain.

Still, her presence felt real. Felt important.

Daniel stepped out of the car and closed the door behind him. We were parked near an art studio that looked clean and modern, all glass and bright white light. He had called earlier to confirm she was inside.

I watched through the windshield, my heart beating so fast. I didn’t understand why. I wasn’t afraid of anything, at least that’s what everyone kept telling me. Billionaire heirs rarely admitted fear.

But when she stepped outside the studio, it hit me hard.

She was exactly like the memory I held: soft hair pulled behind her shoulders, delicate face, eyes that looked gentle even from far away. She moved with this quiet confidence that made everything else fade around her. I felt my breath catch. My palms actually warmed. It made no sense, but nothing in my life had made sense since waking up, so I didn’t bother fighting it.

Daniel noticed.

“There she is,” he said quietly.

“I know,” I whispered back before I realized I said it out loud.

She walked with another girl beside her, laughing lightly about something. I wanted to open the door. I wanted to say something. Thank her. Explain. Ask why she stayed beside a stranger bleeding in a wrecked car.

But the words stuck in my throat. I hadn’t hesitated in boardrooms, negotiations, or at any point in my life that I could remember, but now I couldn’t even open a car door.

Maybe it was the memory loss. Or maybe it was the way she made my mind go quiet.

So instead of speaking to her, I made a decision that felt safer—anonymity.

“Donate to her gallery,” I told Daniel. “Make it clean. No names. No connection to me.”

Daniel blinked. “Sir, that’s….”

“Just do it.”

He didn’t argue.

I watched Aurora leave in a small, old car. She had risked herself for me and I couldn’t say two words to her.

Later, when I returned home, I tried to sleep. I tried to push her from my thoughts. But the memory of her hand holding mine felt stronger than the memory of the accident itself.

Two days passed like that, her face in my head, her voice echoing faintly, her kindness burning itself into whatever part of my memory was still functioning.

On the third morning, my mother arrived.

She entered my living room, her expensive heels clicking against marble. Eleanor Vale always looked perfect, and she expected everything around her to be the same.

She didn’t ask how I felt. She never did things like that.

“I need the weekly report from the company,” she said instead.

I stared at her. “Mother, I was in the hospital three days ago.”

“Yes, I know,” she said, already walking deeper into the room. “But you always handle the weekly briefing, even during stressful times. You don’t like people touching your responsibilities. It’s how you’ve always been.”

Something inside me tightened. That didn’t feel like something I would do. But she said it confidently.

“I’ve been running the company for three years,” I reminded her.

“Yes. And you’ve never let temporary issues slow you down,” she countered without missing a beat.

Temporary issues. That was what my memory loss was to her, a bump, an inconvenience, something that should not disrupt her expectations.

I sat up straighter. “I’ll handle it.”

She smiled, satisfied, and moved on.

“There’s also the matter of your future,” she added. “There’s a girl you need to meet. She comes from a good family. Well-raised. Connected. You’ll like her once you spend time together.”

My stomach twisted. Even with the gaps in my memory, I knew one thing: I did not want my life chosen for me.

“What if I don’t want that?” I asked.

She brushed it off. “You will. Trust me. It’s for your own good, Nathaniel.”

I didn’t answer. But her words pushed something solid inside me. Something stubborn.

I didn’t want a girl chosen for me.

I didn’t want a life pushed on me.

I didn’t want to walk into a marriage built on expectation, image, or business.

My mind kept drifting back to Aurora instead.

The girl who didn’t want anything from me.

And maybe that was exactly why I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

So I made a decision.

“Daniel,” I said later that day when he returned. “Keep watching her. Not in a strange way, just… make sure she’s fine.”

He nodded, though he looked curious.

That’s when the idea formed.

A marriage, one that was real on paper, not in emotion. A contract. A business arrangement that protected us both. Something she could walk away from one day with half the money, half the power, half the security.

It was the one thing she might accept from me.

A fair deal.

A clean agreement.

No expectations.

No manipulation.

No strings except the ones we choose.

If I didn’t want my mother choosing my life, then I needed to choose it myself.

I wrote the contract that night.

By morning, I was standing at the entrance of her gallery. My pulse was strangely fast again. I took a breath, straightened my coat, and stepped inside.

She deserved a thank you and she deserved the offer that might change both our lives.

I walked toward her as she turned around, her eyes widening slightly when she recognized me.

“Miss Aurora,” I said gently, heart pounding. “I’m Nathaniel Vale. I came to thank you… and to ask you something important.”