Forgotten Marriage, by Paula Roe

Full disclosure: I won my copy of this book in an author hosted contest; it has two of my personal hot buttons (aka plot devices that tend to irritate me), amnesia and a secret pregnancy; and at under 200 pages, it’s quite a bit shorter than I usually like.

Here’s the back cover blurb:

Memories of marriage

A tragic accident has erased pieces of billionaire Finn Sørensen’s memory. Including all recollection of his wife. But what wife? The one he’d been told had married him for his money?

Ally McKnight’s image was burned into Finn’s memory from pictures that captured the passion between them. It was time she received a surprise visit from her long-lost husband—the one who wouldn’t let her forget just what she owed him.

Finn and Ally have known each other for a little over six months when they marry. This impulsive decision haunts them both when they return to Denmark, Finn’s homeland. There, he is one of the golden few—the son and heir apparent of Nikolai Sørensen, of the famed Sørensen Silver. Paparazzi and bodyguards follow him around, and his life and heart seem to revolve exclusively around the company.

Ally is already struggling to understand Finn’s omission to explain his circumstances in detail before their marriage; the overwhelming stress of trying to learn to cope with all the trappings, restrictions, and expectations of this life only complicates matters further. Eventually, things come to a head, and she leaves him to return to Australia. He sends her back all her letters, photographs, and other mementos of their time together.

A few weeks later, Finn and his father are in a car accident. Finn suffers a head injury that damages his memory, and eventually Nikolai dies—but not before telling Finn that he has changed his will, disinheriting his current wife, and leaving Ally controlling interest in the company instead. Upon his death, however, no one can put his hands on that codicil—which means that the gold-digging wife can still ruin the company and leave quite a few thousand people unemployed. (more…)