by Lexie Ray
Jonathan stood slowly besides me, his hands clenched at his side. He was studying Amelia’s face, almost as if he were trying to place it, and my heart went out to him. How terrible not to know your own mother. My eyes filled with tears for him.
But just as he started to approach her, another woman pushed around Amelia. I thought at first that it was Jonathan’s sister, but Jane had dark hair in the family portrait, like him. This was a leggy, beautiful blonde.
“We were so worried,” the blonde gasped, throwing her arms around Jonathan and holding him tight.
“I’m sorry,” he said, prying her off of him and holding her away from him. “But who are you?”
The blonde’s lush lower lip trembled for a few seconds before she burst into tears. They made black streaks down her face from her heavy mascara.
“Please don’t take it personally,” I said, edging toward them. “He’s been in an accident. He’s lost his memory.”
“That’s what the investigators told us,” the blonde wailed. “But I would’ve thought you would at least remember your fiancée.”
Both Jonathan and I seemed to puzzle over that for a few minutes. Of course he remembered his fiancée. We’d met after his accident. And I was standing right here.
“I don’t understand,” Jonathan said slowly, threading his fingers through mine. “Are you talking about Michelle?”
The blonde took a look at our hand holding and launched into a fresh gale of weeping.
“But I’m your fiancée,” she sobbed, clasping her hands together. “Your fiancée, Violet.”
Chapter Fifteen
In shock. This was what being in shock felt like. The whole world slowed to a crawl. I felt each breath that I took inflate and deflate my chest, hurting my ribcage with their intensity. I tightened my hold on Jonathan’s hand finger by finger, crushing him to me.
Big, fat tears rolled down the blonde’s face, her lips trembling as she stood in front of us. In any other situation, she would’ve been gorgeous—a knockout wearing all the latest fashions. I recognized her skirt as something I almost bought during my shopping spree, and felt some kind of stupid relief that I hadn’t. But with her gray eyes watery and red, the tip of her perfect nose a matching hue, her grief tainted her beauty.
Grief at Jonathan not remembering her. Not remembering that she was his fiancée. Grief at him apparently replacing her with me.
I looked past the blonde—Violet—to the other people who had entered the room. Jonathan’s mother, Amelia, stood at the doorway, her mouth agape in a refined sort of horror. She had dark, styled hair and was tastefully dressed in a pencil skirt and matching blazer. Beside her, clutching her shapely arm, was a woman a couple of years younger than Jonathan. I recognized her from the family portrait downstairs—Jonathan’s sister, Jane. She had the same horrified look on her face as her mother, only she was staring in open disgust at me. I shrank into myself, pressing into Jonathan’s side. This wasn’t how I’d pictured meeting his family. I thought we’d have a nice, sit-down dinner, taking the time to get to know one another pleasantly and civilly. I’d do my makeup just like the beautician at the makeup supply store had shown me, and though I couldn’t completely hide my scar, at least I’d be presentable.
That quaint little vision, however, had been before I knew that Jonathan had a fiancée who wasn’t me.
The man with the kindest smile in the portrait downstairs entered the scene—Jonathan’s father, Collier—but that smile was now absent. Collier looked more concerned than horrified, his eyes darting from person to person, seeming to assess the situation. He looked very much the businessperson, observing before he leapt to judgment. He was also probably really good at poker. I couldn’t tell what he thought of his horrified wife and daughter, the weeping blonde, or his missing son, now found and damaged and dragging along a monster of a girl he wanted to marry.
What was I doing here? I should’ve fled back to the wilderness when I still had the chance. The beautiful engagement ring on my finger that Jonathan had presented me with just yesterday seemed unreasonably heavy, weighing my hand and my heart down like a cement block tied around my feet. I was sinking. I was drowning. Who was going to save me?
I looked to Jonathan for succor but realized that he was just as deep as I was, struggling to keep his head afloat. His coloring was from his mother, but his looks came from his father. I bet they were doppelgangers when they both grinned, but Jonathan seemed to be the furthest away from a grin that I’d ever seen him. He looked pale, a deep line marring his brow, his jaw set.
These people were strangers to both of us, but they belonged to Jonathan’s former life. Sympathy cut through my shock. Jonathan was suffering, and I needed to be there for him. As floored as I was, he needed an ally.
I finally squeezed his hand so hard that he blinked and glanced down at me. He gave me a small smile before setting his shoulders and looking back at Violet, who hadn’t stopped crying.
“I’m sorry,” he said, using a calm and even voice that I imagined him using in the boardroom at Wharton Group meetings. “If you’ve spoken with the investigators, you’ll know that I suffered a head injury. I’ve consulted with a neurologist, who tells me that I have extensive memory loss. I know that this is a difficult situation for everyone.”
Everyone in the room had different reactions to Jonathan’s words. Violet erupted into a fresh gale of tears. Amelia and Jane clutched at each other even tighter, distraught. And Collier looked faintly proud.
“Maybe you could introduce us to your friend, son,” he said kindly, his gravelly voice strangely comforting.
“This is Michelle,” Jonathan said, looking down at me and squeezing my hand, a reassurance in the face of everything falling apart. “Michelle saved my life in the woods. We lived together for nearly half a year. And we fell in love. I’ve asked her to be my wife.”
I didn’t think Violet could be crying any harder, but she surprised me with enough wailing that even Winston, the head of the family’s staff, came up to investigate.
“May I be of any assistance?” he asked, his face impassive. “Can I fetch some beverages? Perhaps a light meal for everyone?”
I remembered the first time that I met Winston. Jonathan had introduced me as his fiancée, and Winston’s professional façade had crumbled for one moment. It dawned on me in a terrible rush that he’d known that Jonathan was already engaged to be married—to Violet, not to me. Why hadn’t Winston said anything? Was it the famed staff discretion, protecting the man that Jonathan was now—without his memories—from himself, from his past?
If Winston had seen fit to tell us about Violet, maybe some of the waterworks could’ve been prevented. I didn’t quite know how I felt about the man’s discretion.
“I think it would be beneficial to everyone if we sat and spoke calmly,” Collier said, taking control of the situation. “Winston, we’ll take tea and coffee and perhaps some sandwiches in the dining room downstairs as soon as you can get it together.”
“Right away, sir,” Winston said, disappearing out of the doorway.
“I don’t understand how anyone could think of eating at a time like this,” Amelia said, giving Collier a disapproving stare. I could’ve described her voice as musical if it had just been a little friendlier. She sounded like she’d spent a good deal of time in England.
“I think it makes all the sense in the world,” Collier said. “No use talking about such serious matters without some food in our bellies. Come on. Let’s all go and have a seat and get this all figured out.”
I didn’t know I was shaking until Jonathan took my other hand, the one with the ring on it, and squeezed it.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice soft.
“I could ask you the same question,” I said, tilting my head up to look at him. Neither of us was okay, it seemed.
“Why isn’t he asking me if I’m okay?” Violet sobbed. I’d wonder how a person could have that many tears in them, but I’d c
ried like that before, too, when I woke up in the hospital and the doctors told me that my parents were dead.
I knew where all those tears came from.
As Violet raised her hands to cover her face in her grief, my heart stopped at the glitter on her left hand. She was wearing an engagement ring, and, for better or worse, my eyes gobbled it up. It was round cut and massive, a pink diamond gleaming on her ring finger. Mine was nowhere near as flashy as hers, and I wondered at that. I loved my ring, loved that Jonathan had picked it out for me. Did he pick Violet’s out, too? Had he been a fan of the flashy setting, the rose gold that surrounded the diamond? Or was it Violet’s own taste reflected in the sparkling pink stone?
I didn’t know what to do or how to feel. I loved Jonathan, of course, but the fact that his family was here—with his other fiancée—changed everything, didn’t it? What would be the right thing to do? It was obvious that Jonathan had been promised to another woman before I found him in the woods. Would the right thing for me to do be to slip away, out of the city, and return to the cottage? Maybe that would make everything easier.
“Let’s all go down to the dining room, where we can talk like civilized people,” Collier said, glancing at Violet, whose sobs hadn’t abated. “Jane, help Violet, please.”
Jonathan’s sister detached herself from Amelia and took Violet’s hand.
“Come on, sweetie,” she cajoled. “Let’s go downstairs and get some nice, hot tea.” Jane’s eyes flicked up to meet mine, and I resisted the urge to recoil. Her look was more curious than hostile. I couldn’t blame honest curiosity.
Jane ushered Violet away, and Collier did the same for Amelia. I looked up at Jonathan again. The line that wrinkled his brow hadn’t disappeared.
“Maybe I should go,” I suggested.
“Of course you’re going to go,” Jonathan said, putting his arm around my shoulders. “You’re a part of this.”
“No, I mean go back to the cottage,” I said. “This is family business, and I’m complicating matters.”
Jonathan’s arm tightened around me. “You’re going to be a part of this family,” he said, “and this definitely concerns you. Is it complicated? Yes, and I’m sorry for that. But between you and me, it’s this Violet that complicates matters. Not you.”
Whether his statement was fair or not, I loved him for it. Jonathan was fighting for us. I had to throw myself into the ring, too.
I just couldn’t shake the feeling that Violet had been there before me and that she was a victim here. It was just a really difficult situation. Jonathan loved me and didn’t remember her. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them to try to rekindle that flame if Jonathan had no memory of Violet or why he had loved her in the first place.
Still, it was easy to see what was lovable about her. When she wasn’t crying, I bet she was beautiful—maybe even a model. He would fit better with her than me. He was equally gorgeous.
Not for the first time, the old insecurities bubbled to the surface. That Jonathan only felt obligated to love me because I’d saved his life. Because he had no other choice. Because who would want to be with someone who looked like me, someone whose face was disfigured? I couldn’t hide my scarring no matter how much makeup I put on it.
Violet, on the other hand, was perfect. Why wasn’t Jonathan choosing to be with her? They were rightfully together, weren’t they? I was the one who was crashing the party.
“Let’s go join everyone downstairs,” Jonathan said, sounding about as eager as I felt.
“Or we could elope,” I said, only half joking.
“We can do this, Michelle,” he said, kissing me on the forehead. “We have to do this.”
It wasn’t right to run away from this. I knew that. It was just that facing it head on was so difficult.
In the dining room downstairs, Winston and other staff members had laid out a full spread of lunch. Fancy, multi-tiered silver trays dotted the long table, weighed down with fruit and tiny little sandwiches of all different types. There were several tea services, as well as carafes of coffee.
Violet had finally stopped crying and was clutching a steaming teacup with both of her hands. She was seated in the middle of Amelia and Jane, almost as if they were protecting her. Collier sat on Amelia’s other side, leaving the entire other side of the dining room table for Jonathan and me. I didn’t like that at all. I realized we were going to have a discussion about everything, but it was too much like us versus them.
It made me feel like Jonathan and I were the only ones on our team.
We sat down, and Winston instantly materialized, pouring coffee for both of us. He seemed to always anticipate what we wanted and needed. I wouldn’t have said no to a glass of wine at that point—something stronger than the hot beverages that were supposed to give us comfort—but I knew it would be inappropriate.
I managed one sip of the coffee before Collier cleared his throat.
“Why don’t you all tell us everything you know?” he suggested. “Start from the beginning.”
I fought the urge to squirm under the four pairs of unfamiliar eyes by turning and looking at Jonathan.
“I woke up on a couch in a cottage in the woods,” he said, “but it starts before that. Michelle, why don’t you begin?”
And with that, I found myself thrust into the spotlight. I gripped the edge of the table to try to hide my shaking hands, and wet my lips.
“I found Jonathan after a terrible storm,” I started, telling his family about the flash flooding, the wound on his head, how I’d carried him back to the cottage. I didn’t exaggerate the heroics or try to make myself look good. I simply told what I knew as simply as I could.
“And so when I woke up on the couch, I was in pain and scared,” Jonathan said. “I didn’t know who I was. It was only because Michelle found my broken cell phone with my first name engraved on the back that I even knew that. My memories were completely gone, as if my mind had been wiped clean.”
Amelia gasped softly as a single tear rolled down her cheek. We all looked at her, waiting for her to speak.
“I told them that I wanted to find my son,” she said finally, her voice trembling. “They’ve brought me a stranger.”
“Amelia, please,” Collier said. “That’s not helping.”
“What am I supposed to do?” she demanded. “Sit here and watch my stranger of a son stumble over himself, unsure of who he is? We are Whartons. We have resources at our disposal. We need to get a new neurologist. Maybe even a psychologist who specializes in hypnotism. We’re a pharmaceutical conglomerate, for Christ’s sake, and we’re just sitting around here and talking.”
As Amelia paused to suck in a breath after her diatribe, Jonathan took the opportunity to cut in.
“I think that you all should know that the neurologist I saw when the investigators first found me said that it is entirely possible I will never regain the memories I lost,” he said.
“I refuse to accept that,” Amelia said, her breathing harsh. “I refuse to accept the fact that I have lost my son.”
“Your son is sitting right in front of you,” Collier said. “He is alive, Amelia.”
“The man sitting across from me looks like Jonathan, but he is not,” she said. “He’s just a shell of my son. A stranger occupying my son’s body.”
I swallowed dryly, not daring to lift my coffee mug to my lips. Amelia’s words were harsh and hard to hear, but they held a kernel of truth. The Jonathan sitting at the table beside me wasn’t the Jonathan they used to know. He and I had talked about that. And I could tell by seeing photos of Jonathan before the accident, the video that we had watched of his speech just minutes before his family had arrived, that the previous Jonathan was a stranger to both of us.
Collier inhaled sharply after Amelia’s words, but Jonathan cut in before his father could retort.
“I know this is difficult for everyone,” Jonathan said. “Please trust me. I definitely know. I’m sorry to cause all this pain for eve
ryone, but I have found it useless to dwell in the past. I’m trying to move forward and make the best of this. Maybe I don’t have my memories. Maybe I’ll never have them. But that doesn’t change the quality of my character. Whoever I was before I hit my head was good enough to be the CEO of Wharton Group. I still intend to do that. And I intend to marry Michelle. My fiancée.”
Several things happened at once. Violet burst into heartrending sobs. Amelia set her teacup down so hard that it broke. Jane spat out a curse so vivid that it would’ve made a sailor blush—and gave me insight into Jonathan’s subconscious proclivity for language.
But Collier’s reaction was the most interesting of all. His chest swelled with what looked suspiciously like pride, and the tears that welled in his eyes didn’t seem to be of sadness. They were of joy.
I didn’t have time to puzzle over that. As Winston materialized to mop up Amelia’s mess and pick shards of china from the table, Jonathan’s mother spoke again.
“You’re not marrying that gold digger,” she hissed, pointing at me. “I want her out of here.”
Chapter Sixteen
My first inclination was to laugh. I wasn’t a gold digger. I had money of my own. If anything, Jonathan’s wealth—and the fact that he wanted to spend it on me—made me uncomfortable. He’d practically had to force me into going shopping for new clothes when we first got to Chicago. Besides, we’d fallen in love before either of us knew that he was one of the wealthiest men in America.
“Michelle saved my life,” Jonathan said, his voice remarkably even. “I live for her. She is here as my guest and my fiancée. You will be civil to her.”
The last directive was given in the cold boardroom voice I’d heard before, and I imagined the Jonathan with the slicked back hair issuing it.
“I concur with Jonathan on this,” Collier said. “Michelle has done nothing wrong, unless saving our son’s life and loving him are wrong. I don’t believe they are. She is to be treated with respect, Amelia. That goes for you, too, Jane.”
