It stung to have to say it out loud. “No.”
“So you pay her to do a lousy job?”
“I pay her because that was the deal. And it seemed like a good one at the time.”
“At the time – the time you were fucking her?”
Pierce. No detail was too salacious or unnecessary to share. “Yes. Okay? She knew I wanted to start a business and she introduced me to her father. With my background – well, he was the only guy who would give me a shot. I didn’t have an MBA and I’d been in a lot of scrapes in my life. I had to agree to his terms or walk away.”
Jane was so calm it was almost scary. “So, why isn’t she good at her job?”
“Because she’s never even made her own bed. She couldn’t survive on her own if she were down to her last ten cents. Which of course will never happen.”
I ran a hand through my hair, wishing I could punch a wall instead. “Believe me, I’d love to fire her. But there are strings attached that affect my business.”
“Pierce said she was your first big love.”
“I was younger then, let’s put it that way.”
Jealousy flashed in Jane’s crystal eyes. Cavalier as she tried to act with me, deep down, she cared. This conversation proved it.
“So you feel nothing for her now? Pardon me if I find that hard to believe.”
I snorted. “I feel something for her, all right, just not what you think. Her father’s been trying to push us back together for two years and it hasn’t worked. That should tell you something.”
Jane walked toward the window. She stood with her back to the room, her head held high. “Your brother said you do this a lot. It’s not just stray dogs. It’s not just me.”
“He said what?”
My temper flared so hot, I felt like I’d been drinking gasoline. I wasn’t pissed off at her, or even my brother. She was right, and worse, Pierce was right, too. I liked to say I’d changed, but I hadn’t.
It wasn’t just Jane’s beauty and brains that had sucked me in. She needed me, and Christ knew I liked to feel needed. I needed to feel needed, or I didn’t know what my purpose was. It had been that way since I was a kid. Without my father around, I’d been the man of the house at ten years old, taking care of my mother and doing my best to help raise Pierce. It was a role I’d never really stopped playing, because God fucking help me, I didn’t know how.
But with Jane, it was about a lot more than that.
“I’m not your charity case, Drex,” she said in a cool, distant voice. “I don’t know who I am, but I do know I’m not another Brooke.”
Another Brooke. As if Brooke even deserved to stand in the same room with this woman. Jane was strong, resourceful, proud – everything Brooke wasn’t, or wouldn’t make the effort to be.
“Of course you’re not. And that’s not why you’re here.”
“Really, Drex?” she said, turning to face me. “Why am I here? I’m still not clear on that. If you look at this situation objectively, it doesn’t make much sense, does it?”
“When I fucked you tonight, it made perfect sense and you know it.”
“Yes, sex with you makes sense. It’s everything else I wonder about.”
“Look, whatever Pierce said –”
“I don’t care what Pierce said. Pretty soon you’re going to get tired of this. Of me. You’ll want to get back to real life.”
“This is real life, Jane.”
She tossed a glance at the ceiling. “Jane? Even my name isn’t real, Drex. The way Pierce reacted tonight? Imagine that with everyone you know.”
I imagined it, and felt more determined than I had in a very long time. “We won’t tell them.”
“So we’ll live a lie? How long will that last? Reporters won’t leave you alone as it is. If they’re interested in what your father does, they’ll be vultures when it comes to me.”
I knew it was true but I didn’t give a shit. “Let them try. I’ll be happy to destroy the careers of some worthless idiots.”
“But what about your business?” she said. “You’ve already told me how important it is to you. It’s your life. It’s everything you’ve worked so hard for.”
Yes, the deck was stacked against us. I was reckless and stupid, and a sucker for a woman who needed me. But I didn’t care about the odds. I couldn’t walk away, not from Jane.
“My business will survive,” I said. “This isn’t like my father. We’re not breaking any laws.”
Her face contracted in a slight wince. “As far as we know.”
“As far as we know,” I said. “And that’s good enough for me.”
It was almost dawn by the time we got to bed. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually slept with a woman in this room, or wanted to. It was a true bachelor’s sanctuary: modern and spare but comfortable, decorated in shades of dark brown and cream. There was nothing floral or feminine about it, and even seeing a woman here always gave me a jolt. But tonight, a woman in this room looked just right.
After a day like today, I just wanted to wrap my arms around Jane and feel her heart beating against my chest. By some stroke of luck, she was still with me, and I was going to savor every second.
I turned off the light and stroked her hair until she felt limp and heavy in my arms.
During the night, she was hot and restless. I could almost see the dreams racing through her head as her eyelids twitched and her gorgeous mouth trembled. Every dream might be a memory that would take her away from me. She only had to remember one thing – a husband, a boyfriend, the city she lived in – and I’d lose her forever.
When I woke up just before nine, she was sitting beside me, her back against the leather headboard. I’d forgotten to close the drapes, and the room was bathed in sunshine. As soon as I could focus, I looked for Jane’s hand and found it, lying stiffly on top of the covers. With a stab of alarm, I glanced up at her face. Her cheeks were flushed and quick breaths moved in and out through her parted lips.
“Jane?” I said, suddenly alert. “You okay?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice sounded weak and shaky.
A shot of adrenaline went through me. “You don’t know?” I put a hand to her warm, dry forehead.
“I think I might have a fever,” she said.
I threw back the duvet. “You’re damn right you do,” I said, heading for the bathroom. “It’s just a matter of how high it is.” I dug through the medicine cabinet for a thermometer, finally finding one behind the shaving cream. As soon as I sat down on the edge of the bed, Jane opened her mouth obediently. After ten seconds under her tongue, the thermometer beeped.
102.7. Way too high for a grown woman. Especially one with a persistent case of unexplained amnesia.
I smiled at her. “Can you get up?”
“Why?”
“We’re going to put some clothes on you and take you to the doctor.”
“No, Drex,” she said, trying to slide under the duvet.
That damn stubborn streak. “Why not?”
“Because I’m okay.”
“I hope that’s true,” I said, taking her hand. “But I don’t care if I have to bring you in over my shoulder, you’re coming with me. Now.”
I sat in an orange plastic chair in the ER waiting room, piped music drilling a hole through my brain. Not even the teenage girl with the broken nose or the expectant father wearing a hole in the carpet seemed as scared shitless as I was.
This was my fault.
If I’d made Jane go to the doctor sooner, it wouldn’t have happened. But I’d wanted her too much, and tried to force the situation to be different. I’d refused to see what was staring me in the face. She’d been through something big, and neither of us knew what it was.
This was what happened when I didn’t think.
If Jane got better, I’d do what I should have done in the first place: take her to the police, publicize her story, figure this the fuck out as fast as I could. If I could keep the spotlight off
me, so much the better. Once Jane was gone – and she would be gone once we knew who she was – I had a business to run. There were hundreds of people whose livelihoods depended on me, and I wasn’t going to let them down by getting distracted by a woman.
Not that she was just any woman. If she were, I wouldn’t be jumping out of my skin every time somebody in scrubs walked in.
After what felt like three days hanging from a crumbling cliff by my fingernails, a tall, rail-thin doctor in his mid-forties motioned to me. In the few seconds it took me to stand up, I went from worried sick to fucking frantic. All for someone I’d known a week.
“It looks like a virus to me,” the doctor said. “She’s got a fever and she’s a little dehydrated, but everything else checks out – her blood tests, her CAT scan. We’ll put her on a course of antibiotics in case it’s a tick bite.”
My relief was shoved aside by the need to know a lot more. “It looks like a virus, or it is a virus? How do we find out for sure?”
“Usually we don’t, but her signs point to something that isn’t too serious.”
“What about her memory loss?” I asked. “Does that have anything to do with it?”
“I don’t think so. I can keep ordering tests but I doubt we’ll find anything. Whatever happened to her – I’m not seeing it on the imaging. Amnesia’s a tricky thing. It can happen because of an emotional shock, or some kind of injury.”
It sounded like something from a novel, but this was Jane’s life. And my life, too. “An emotional shock? That’s actually possible?”
“It’s not unheard of.”
I hated to ask, but I had to. “What are the chances she could be…pretending?”
The doctor shook his head. “It’s difficult to keep up a charade when you’ve got a hundred-and-three degree fever. I asked her a lot of questions about her past. She couldn’t answer any of them.”
“So – what now? Does she need to stay in the hospital?”
“Not for what she’s dealing with today. You can take her home after we’ve given her some fluids. And when she’s feeling better, you should probably talk to the police and see if they can tell you anything.”
There was no probably about it. “I will, absolutely,” I said. “Thank you for taking care of her.”
The doctor shrugged as if he dealt with women like Jane every day. “Of course. And get her to a good neurologist. I know her tests look okay, but with that kind of memory loss she needs to see one soon.” He turned to go, then turned back. “She said you’ve only known each other a week.”
“Less, actually,” I said. “Six days.”
“She’s lucky she ran into you. A lot of people…” He trailed off, shaking his head.
He had no idea. If he could only see her standing outside The Dead End in her t-shirt and panties, he’d never discharge her. “Believe me,” I said. “I know.”
Jane in my bed with a fever was just as beautiful as Jane without, except her vulnerability was magnified ten-fold. Her femininity, fragility, everything about her that grabbed me was right there whenever I looked at her.
She lay back against the pillows acting like a trooper with the TV remote and my laptop, but that’s all it was – acting. She was in no condition to do anything but rest, at least for a few days. And I hated myself for liking that idea.
Of course I didn’t want to see her sick. But I didn’t want her to let her go.
I’d never cooked for a woman. I hardly cooked for myself, especially now that I had a chef on staff. But as soon as we got back from the hospital, I sent everybody home so I could be alone with her. She might not be with me much longer. I wanted every minute of the time we had, even if it meant taking more days away from the office.
It wasn’t like I’d be out of touch. That’s what phones and email were for. And I was the boss, after all.
As soon as my chef and housekeeper left, I made chicken soup. I made oatmeal and scrambled eggs and squeezed ten oranges for juice. And while Jane slept, I did something I hadn’t done in years – dishes. I did mounds of them and enjoyed the hell out of it. On a normal day I was so consumed with which space to rent and how quickly to expand that I couldn’t even think about domestic chores. It turned out they weren’t so bad. They were actually kind of relaxing.
It had been months since I’d taken time off to do anything but search for my father. But instead of lying on a beach or sipping Barolo in Rome, I was waiting hand and foot on a woman with the flu. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
She wasn’t supposed to look this sexy. But Jane always managed to defy expectations, even while lying in bed in one of my threadbare old t-shirts, a cold washcloth on her forehead and a thermometer under her tongue.
I waited two days, until her temperature was normal and she was strong enough to sit in the living room, to have the talk. The talk I’d promised the doctor and myself I would have with her. Finally, almost nine days late.
“Listen,” I said, sitting beside her on the couch. “Do you think you’re up for leaving the house tomorrow?”
She smiled. “I was up for it today, as you’ll remember, but somebody said hell no. In those exact words.”
And so I had, quite firmly. “Well, I think I’m ready to give you a furlough for the afternoon.”
“I can’t wait. All I want is to sit in the sun and breathe fresh air.”
“Which you’ll have plenty of time to do. After we take care of something else.”
Her eyes glimmered for a moment, then turned wary and dark. “What do you mean, something else?”
“Well,” I said, speaking in a soothing tone. “We need to find out if anyone’s looking for you.”
Her mouth flattened. “By going to the police, you mean.”
“That’s the only way to find out,” I said. “We can’t avoid it.”
“We?” Fists balled, Jane folded her arms. “Don’t I have a say in this? This is my life, you know, the only one I have now.”
“It’s not about having a say, it’s about taking care of you. On the advice of the ER doctor, I made an appointment with a neurologist. She specializes in –”
“I’m done with doctors,” Jane snapped. “They can’t tell me anything.”
“Maybe this one can,” I said.
She’d been starting to get color back in her cheeks, but now she looked drawn and pale. “Why are we going through this again? Doctors, the police --you already went to the cops and they knew nothing about me.”
“That was days ago,” I said. “Things might have changed.”
“I’ve done nothing but watch the news since I’ve been sick. If things had changed, I’d know.” She pursed her lips in a defiant pout. Her eyes flickered nervously as if she were looking for a way out.
“What’s really going on? Why are you so worried about the police?”
Her response was to stare at me. Her eyes had never been bluer, or more afraid.
I put my hand on her thigh. It felt tight and tense under my robe. “You can trust me, you know.”
She looked as doubtful as she had sitting in my truck that first day. “Can I?”
“Yes. Nothing you tell me will leave this room.”
She pulled in a long, ragged breath. “Do you promise?”
There weren’t many things I could say for sure, but this was one of them. “I promise. Now, talk to me, Jane. It’s time.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
If there was anyone in the world I could trust, it was Drex.
Or so I wanted to think. If he knew the truth, everything might change. He might change.
But I couldn’t lie anymore. I didn’t have the energy, and Drex didn’t deserve deceit.
After a long pause, I forced myself to speak. “I told you I did some things. Those first few days, when I was on my own.”
“Yeah,” he said in a hushed voice. “So?”
“So, I got into trouble with somebody.”
“Somebody? Who?”
I could f
eel my pulse throbbing in my neck. “Well…a truck driver who picked me up about a hundred miles from Chimayo.”
Drex’s eyes were like a harsh spotlight on my face. “What happened?”
“He…” It made me sweat to remember the icy grip of fear, the certainty that I would never escape alive. “He got me into a hotel room. He said he’d give me food and a place to sleep. He said he wouldn’t touch me. It…didn’t work out that way.”
Naked rage darkened Drex’s face. “Did he hurt you?”
“No. I got away.”
“Thank Christ, Jane. It sounds like he should be worried about the police, not you.”
“Except that…” I dropped my gaze.
“What?”
I remembered the sound of the lamp against the trucker’s skull and shuddered. “I kind of…hit him over the head. And tied him to the bed. And left him there.”
When I could bear to look up, I saw that Drex was smiling. I frowned. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, it’s just…Jesus. I didn’t realize you were such a wildcat.”
“I had to be, Drex.”
“I know, but…you versus a truck driver. It’s a hell of an image in my mind.”
“Mine, too,” I said, sliding a hand over my eyes. “I wish I could forget it.”
His hand was gentle on my arm. “Is that how you lost your clothes?”
“Yes. I had to get out of there as fast as possible. A patrol car pulled into the parking lot and I still don’t know why. Maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe somebody heard something.”
He stroked my hair back from my damp forehead. “You must have been terrified.”
“I was. Do you understand why I can’t go to the police?”
“Jane, you had to defend yourself. And there’s not much chance of them putting you and that trucker together in the same room.”
I realized that I was tearing a tissue to pieces in my hands. “But what if they do?”
“If they do, I’ll back you all the way.”
“You say that now. But if the story got out, just imagine the scandal.”
He gave me a confused squint. “Are you saying you won’t go to the police because of what some reporters might do?”
Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 3) Page 12
