After Amnesia, I Took Back Everything I Gave My Football Star Boyfriend Chapter 12

After Amnesia, I Took Back Everything I Gave My Football Star Boyfriend Chapter 12

We sat together in the living room, exchanging gifts.

Leon had drawn my name for Secret Santa that year.

Everyone else had finished exchanging presents, but he still hadn’t appeared.

I finally ran out of patience.

Just then, every light in the house went out.

A tall Santa carrying a gift box emerged from the dim hallway.

My friends cheered at once.

“Surprise!”

Dressed in a Santa suit, Leon slowly walked toward me.

Nora smiled.

“Time really flies.”

“Leon dressed like this to cheer you up back in college too.”

“All you cared about then was beating him in the startup competition. You even complained that he had wasted time planning a surprise instead of putting all his energy into the contest.”

I frowned.

“When did he ever do that?”

Nora’s smile disappeared.

“You don’t remember?”

“It was Christmas during our sophomore year.”

I tried desperately to remember.

Suddenly, the memory barrier in my mindscape cracked open.

A blurry figure in red, a frosted cake, and the scent of cedar all flooded back at once.

The Leon standing before me slowly merged with the Santa from my memories.

A violent headache struck without warning.

As my friends cried out in alarm, I lost consciousness.

Then came a long, chaotic rush of returning memories.

The version of me in those memories was nowhere near as strong as I was now.

She would hide alone at the end of a hallway and cry because her father favored her younger brother.

And because she was too afraid to admit she loved someone, she turned him into her rival instead, insisting over and over that she would beat him one day.

That Christmas in college, Chicago was bitterly cold.

Determined to defeat Leon in the startup competition, I spent nearly every day going back and forth between the lab and the library.

I wanted to prove myself to my father.

I was no less capable than my brother or Leon, the man my father called “the finest Alpha.”

But Leon hadn’t devoted all his time to the competition.

He appeared in front of me wearing a bulky Santa suit and carrying a cake he had made himself.

Two uneven little cartoon figures covered the top.

I asked why he wasn’t preparing for the competition.

He only smiled.

“Erin, when it comes to you, I’ll always put you before winning.”

I should have been happy that the man I loved valued me so much.

Instead, I suddenly realized that what lay between us was no longer just competition.

My wolf had recognized him during my Awakening, when I came of age.

Leon was my fated mate. Neither of us had ever completed the mate mark.

Then I remembered what my father had once told me.

“You can be ambitious, but you’ll still have to marry eventually.”

“The Winter inheritance must go to your brother. Once you marry into the Carter family, your duty will be to give them a suitable heir.”

I refused to let marriage decide the course of my life, and I wouldn’t abandon my career for any family.

I was convinced the Carters would never allow Leon to choose a woman who refused to have children or play the role of a traditional mate.

After that day, I began deliberately suppressing my wolf and distancing myself from Leon.

I kept forcing my wolf down until my feelings were buried in the deepest part of my soul.

Leon seemed to notice me pulling away.

Not long afterward, he began allowing the media to photograph him with different women, deliberately tarnishing his own reputation.

Several years later, I attended a business event at Soldier Field.

A young backup player dressed as the team’s mascot handed me a piece of candy.

The bulky costume reminded me of Leon in that Santa suit.

I watched the player remove the mascot head and sit in a corner of the hallway, struggling to catch his breath.

That man was Caden.

Later, I gave him my card, provided him with training and commercial resources, and turned him from an undrafted player into a star wide receiver.

Nora had once told me that loving someone meant getting jealous, losing control, and ignoring the consequences.

So I followed that script with Caden.

I fought for resources on his behalf, went after anyone who stood in his way, and defended him in public, as though I were playing the role of a mate who had lost all judgment because of love.

But only I knew that my wolf had never truly responded to Caden.

I had simply projected the feelings for Leon that I was too afraid to admit onto a man who reminded me of him.

I denied my real feelings for far too long, and that denial led me to make far too many terrible choices.

Then the car accident happened.

To protect me, my wolf severed every distorted memory connected to Caden.

My real feelings had also fallen dormant, buried beneath the amnesia and years of suppression.

Now, I finally remembered everything.