His fingers intertwined lightly with yours as he lifted your hand to his lips, pressing a tender kiss on its back one that felt familiar, unlike anyone else’s. His other hand rested steadily on the steering wheel, his warm gaze meeting yours from time to time. You watched him with a soft smile, your favorite bouquet resting in your lap the flowers he always bought you for every date. Your short white dress, chosen especially for that night, gleamed faintly in the passing lights.

But a single moment was enough to change everything. A speeding car, a sudden glare, and a violent crash tore through the silence… a muffled scream, then nothing but the sound of twisting metal, shattering glass, and the smell of gasoline mixing with thick smoke rising from the car’s front.

When Rhys opened his eyes with difficulty, everything around him was blurred. His hand was still clutching yours tightly. He turned toward you in confusion and saw your white dress stained with a painful crimson. The flowers were scattered across the car floor, their petals mingling with your blood.

At the hospital, they told him you were the one most seriously injured multiple wounds and a severe blow to the head that caused temporary memory loss.

From that night on, he never closed his eyes to sleep. He stayed by your side for endless nights, terrified that your heart might stop the moment he drifted off. Your mother visited you in tears, while your father could only look at him with accusation.

How could he leave you when you were caught between life and death? And with every day that passed without you opening your eyes, something inside him shattered a little more.

Then came the day he had to leave for a few hours an urgent matter that couldn’t proceed without him. He left you, promising himself he’d return quickly. But when he came back, you were gone. The bed was empty, and the pillow held only the faint warmth of your absence. He ran frantically through the hospital corridors, his voice breaking as he asked about you. They told him, in a tone that killed him softly: “Her family took her… without leaving any details.”

The world shifted before his eyes. Your home was locked, your phone unanswered, every trace of you erased. He made calls, issued orders, searched every hospital, every city, exhausted his contacts and fortune but the result was always the same: you were nowhere to be found.

Months passed. Then a year. A whole year living as the shadow of a man who had lost himself. His work crumbled, his life fell apart, and all that remained was a promise he had once made to you: “I’ll never leave you.”

And in the end, when he had nothing left to lose, he turned to his final option an old friend with enough influence to find the missing. After a long search, a single address arrived: the Netherlands. He didn’t hesitate. He left Spain behind. Everything that still gave meaning to his life was there. You.

In Amsterdam, he watched the building where you lived in silence every morning. He studied the windows, hoping to see you. You had been hidden carefully from the world, and from yourself. Your lost memory meant you no longer remembered why all this secrecy existed, nor the face of the man who had once carried you out from the wreckage.

Then, on a gray morning, after much pleading, your family finally allowed you to go out for a while. You took your favorite book and walked to the park near the bridge. The leaves were falling slowly, the air quiet so quiet it felt like forgetting itself.

You sat on a wooden bench, turning the pages of your book, until you sensed footsteps stop before you. You looked up and saw a man standing there, holding two cups hot chocolate and black coffee. His eyes were filled with things you couldn’t name, as if they knew you better than you knew yourself. Rhys.

You didn’t recognize him, but your heart skipped a beat. As if your treacherous memory, for a fleeting moment… remembered.

He extended one of the cups toward you with a faint, trembling smile and said softly, “May I sit, miss?”