“Xander? Are you okay? I’ve been worried sick—”
“I’m going upstairs to get changed. Then you’re going to take me to where I’ve been living,” he said bluntly.
“To where—?” Her throat closed up tight again.
He meant to his apartment. She couldn’t refuse him as much as she wanted to.
“To my house, apartment. Whatever. Where I’ve been living. You know where it is, don’t you?”
She looked up and met the accusation in his stormy eyes. She nodded slowly. “Yes, I’ve been there once, before you came home.”
“Let’s not call it home,” he said bitterly. “It obviously hasn’t been my home for a while.”
She swallowed back the plea that she wished she had the courage to make to him. It could be his home again—it had been these past weeks. Why couldn’t he just let them start afresh? She knew why. Xander was the kind of man who did nothing without weighing all the options, without being 100 percent certain of whatever he did. He didn’t like surprises, and this morning had definitely been a very unwelcome one.
“Okay, let me know when you’re ready.”
“I’ll be right down,” he said and left the room.
Olivia took her mug to the sink and tipped out the congealed contents. Even thinking about the dash of milk she’d stirred into her coffee made her stomach lurch in protest.
The prospect of taking him back to his apartment terrified her. What if he remembered everything? The anger, the lies...the grief?
She had to face the truth. He may not want to even see her again after today. In fact, if he remembered the rest of his lost memories, he very likely would get on the phone to his lawyer and tell them to continue with the proceedings she’d requested a halt to. There was nothing she could do about it, and the helplessness that invaded every cell in her body was all-consuming.
Olivia found her handbag and car keys and went to the entrance hall to wait for him. The keys to his apartment were in the bottom of her bag, exactly where she’d left them the day she’d brought him home from the hospital. It felt like a lifetime ago.
Xander was dressed in a smart pair of dress trousers and a business shirt when he came back down. He’d obviously had a quick shower, and his hair was slicked back from his face. He’d trimmed his beard to a designer stubble. Now he looked far more like the corporate Xander who’d walked out on her two years ago.
“Ready?” she said, needing to fill the strained air between them with something, even something as inane as the one word she’d used.
Of course he was ready. He was here, wasn’t he? Impatience rolled off him in waves.
“Let’s go,” he grunted and held the door open for her.
Even in his fury he couldn’t stop being the gentleman he intrinsically had always been. His courtesy, however, brought her little comfort.
The drive toward the harbor bridge and into the city seemed to take forever in the frigid atmosphere in her car. Once they hit Quay Street, Xander shifted in his seat.
“Where are we going?”
She could tell it frustrated him to have to ask. “Parnell. You have a place on the top floor of one the high-rises.”
He nodded and looked straight ahead, as if he couldn’t wait to get there.
By the time Olivia pulled into the underground parking garage and directed Xander to the bank of elevators nearby, her nerves were as taut as violin strings. She felt as if the slightest thing would see her snap and fray apart. The trip up to Xander’s floor was all too swift, and suddenly they were at the front door.
She dug in her bag and drew out the keys, holding them up between them.
“Do you want to do the honors?” she asked.
Xander took them from her and looked at the key ring. “I don’t know which one it is,” he said, a deep frown pulling between his brows.
She pointed to the one that would lead them inside and held her breath as he turned it in the lock and pushed the door open. Olivia followed him as he stepped inside. The air was a little stale, and there was a fine layer of dust everywhere after a month with no cleaning service. She almost ran into Xander’s back when he stopped abruptly and stared around the open-plan living area off the entrance hall.
“Do you...is it... Is anything familiar to you?” she tentatively asked.
Xander simply shook his head.
* * *
He hated the place. Sure, it was functional—beautiful, even, in its starkness—and heavily masculine. But it didn’t feel like home. The lack of a feminine touch, with not even so much as a vase on display in the built-in shelving along one wall, confirmed that he lived here alone. Of course, if he’d had a new partner, she’d have been the one at his bedside after he woke up, not Olivia.
He walked around the spacious living area and clamped down on the growl that rose in his throat. This place should at least feel familiar in some way. These were his things. His recent life. Yet he didn’t sense even the remotest connection to anything, not like he did to some of the things back at the house across the harbor.
The anger that had buoyed him along since he’d overheard Olivia on the phone left him in a rush, only a deep sense of defeat remained in its wake. He looked around one more time. Still nothing. A hallway beckoned, but he found he lacked the energy to even want to push himself down that corridor and see what lay beyond it. A bedroom, no doubt. It would almost certainly feel as foreign to him as the rest of the apartment already did.
Weariness pulled at him with unrelenting strength. He didn’t belong here, either.
“Take me back,” he said roughly. “Please. I’ve had enough.”
Olivia came to stand at his side. Everything about her seemed to be offering refuge, from the expression on her face to the arms she gingerly curved around his waist.
“Maybe losing your memory wasn’t the worst thing, Xander. Have you stopped to consider that? We’ve been good together. Happy. It’s proof we can do better together—be better together. Can’t we just take that and build something great with it now all over again?”
He wanted to say yes, but some unnamable thing held him back. They started toward the door, then stopped abruptly at the sound of the doorbell, swiftly followed by the sound of a key being inserted and the door being opened.
* * *
Olivia’s eyes opened in shock as a petite young woman let herself into Xander’s apartment. She recognized her instantly. The woman had been an intern at Xander’s office shortly after their marriage. Olivia knew she’d worked her way up since then. But what was Rachelle doing here, and why did she have a key to Xander’s apartment? Her shock at seeing the woman was nothing to what came next.
“Rachelle, how are you?” Xander asked with a smile on his face that had been missing for the better part of today.
Olivia couldn’t help it. She felt an immediate pang of jealousy. There’d always been something about Rachelle that had grated on her—a familiarity with Xander even when their marriage was at its best that had made Olivia feel as if she was operating off her back foot around her all the time.
Rachelle came forward and gave Xander a welcoming hug and kiss on the cheek. Olivia wondered if her eyes were turning an unbecoming shade of green as a wave of possessiveness swept through her. It was all she could manage to stand and smile politely, especially when what she wanted most was to drag the other woman off her husband and push her out the door. She took in a steadying breath. That wasn’t her. She’d never been the jealous type, but Rachelle brought out the feral in her, always had.
“Xander! It’s so good to see you,” Rachelle gushed, still hugging him. “We were all so shocked at your accident. I’d have come to see you at the hospital, but they restricted visitors to immediate family only. But I called the hospital regularly and stayed up-to-date with your progress. Until re
cently, that is.”
Rachelle finally looked at Olivia, who bit her tongue to keep from replying. The obvious reproach was there in the younger woman’s words. Olivia lifted her chin, accepting the challenge.
“I’ve been in touch with Ken to let him know Xander was recuperating at home,” she said firmly.
“Of course you have,” Rachelle said with a slight curve of her lips. She turned her attention back to Xander. “I just thought I’d call in to see how Xander was and to see if there was anything he needed. This is his home, after all, isn’t it? I didn’t realize he was staying at your house.” She turned to face Xander. “So, are you returning soon?”
Olivia held her breath. Was he?
Xander shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway.”
Olivia fought to hold herself upright. No easy feat when she wanted to sag in relief.
“In fact,” Olivia said with a forced smile, “we were just leaving.”
“Oh,” Rachelle said, disappointment clear in her face. “That’s a shame. I’ve been looking forward to catching up.”
Before Xander could respond, Olivia spoke again. “Perhaps another time.”
She maintained eye contact with Rachelle, neither woman backing down from the silent challenge that hovered between them. Rachelle was the first to break.
“Of course,” she muttered.
Xander excused himself to use the bathroom, leaving the two women alone in the foyer. Rachelle waited until they heard the bathroom door close before wheeling to face Olivia.
“He doesn’t know, does he?”
“Know?” Olivia remained deliberately evasive.
“About you two. About your divorce. About Park—”
“He knows that we’re separated and we’re working through that. The doctors have said not to try and force anything.”
“Olivia...”
“No.” Olivia put up a hand as if she could physically stop the younger woman from doing anything she wanted to. “If his memory comes back, it will do so in its own good time.”
“But what about when he comes back to work? Everyone there knows about his past. People will talk to him.”
“But he’s not fit to return to work yet anyway, so that’s a bridge Xander and I will cross when we get to it.”
Rachelle looked at her in disbelief. “I can’t believe you’re lying to him like this.”
“I’m not lying,” Olivia replied emphatically. But I know I’m not exactly telling him the truth, either. “Look I think it would be best if you leave. I’ll take care of the plants before we go. You can leave your key with me.”
Rachelle shook her head. “No. Xander gave me this key and if I give it back to anyone, it’ll be to him.”
Olivia didn’t say anything, not wanting to push the issue and definitely not wanting to explore the idea of why Xander would give one of his colleagues a key to his apartment.
“You’re going to have to tell him sometime,” Rachelle continued. “If you don’t, I will. He deserves to know. You can’t just reclaim him like a lost puppy. He left you, Olivia. He had his reasons.”
A sound down the hallway made both women turn and look. Xander—something was wrong, Olivia thought and quickly headed in his direction.
* * *
Xander stood at the basin in the bathroom, his hands gripping the white porcelain edge in a white-knuckled grip. A headache assailed him in ever-increasing waves. He had to lie down, to sleep, but he couldn’t do that here. This place was all wrong. As angry as he was with Olivia, he needed her right now—needed to go back to their home. He must have called out, made some noise or something, because she was suddenly at his side, concern pulling her brows into a straight line and clouding her eyes.
“Another headache? Here,” she said, rummaging through her handbag. “I brought some of your painkillers, just in case.”
She pressed two tablets into his palm and quickly filled the water glass on the vanity with water and handed it to him.
He knocked the pills back with a grimace. “Take me back to the house, please.”
“You don’t want to take a rest here?”
He shook his head and immediately regretted it as spears of pain pushed behind his eyes. “Just get me out of here.”
She slid a slender arm around his waist and tucked herself under his shoulder to support him. Slowly they made their way out of the room and down the hall. Rachelle still stood in the living room. He caught a glimpse of the shock on her face.
“I have to take him home,” Olivia said with a proprietary note in her voice that even he, in his incapacitated state, didn’t miss. “Please make sure you lock up behind you.”
“Do you need me to help?” the other woman asked, stepping to his other side.
“We can manage,” Olivia replied firmly and guided him to the door.
“Xander, I hope you’re better soon. We miss you at the office...I miss you,” Rachelle called out as they left the apartment.
The door swung closed behind them, and Xander winced again as it slammed. They made it down to the car and Olivia adjusted his seat back a little so he could recline and close his eyes. Throughout the drive back to Devonport his mind continued to whirl around the stabs of pain that continued to probe his skull.
He’d thought the apartment would bring him answers. Instead it had only brought him more questions. Nothing had felt familiar or right or as if it truly belonged to him. Not the furnishings, not the clothes in the wardrobe he’d gotten a glimpse of before heading into the bathroom—not even the cups and saucers he’d seen in the kitchen cupboards when he’d looked there.
And then there was Rachelle. She’d been so familiar with him, as if they were far more intimately acquainted than mere work colleagues. Had he moved on from his relationship with Olivia so quickly? It seemed almost impossible to believe. Yes, Rachelle was attractive—if you liked petite brunettes with perfect proportions. But he had a hankering for slender redheads, one in particular—even if she had been holding out on him about them living apart.
But Rachelle. He’d recognized her. She was a part of his past, although he couldn’t remember all of it. She was deeply familiar to him, more so than could be accounted for with his memories from six years prior. Did that explain why, when she’d come into the apartment, she’d gone straightaway to hug him and kiss him? The fact that her kiss had landed on his cheek had been a result of him moving slightly at the last minute; otherwise he knew she’d have planted one right on his lips. Judging by Olivia’s reaction to the other woman, he doubted very much that she’d have been pleased about that happening.
Still, it made him wonder what his relationship with Rachelle was. She was more than just a work acquaintance. He knew that much from her behavior, not to mention the fact she had a key to his apartment.
Had he gone from one failed whirlwind relationship into another? It didn’t seem right, not likely somehow.
If only he could remember!
Twelve
Olivia lifted Xander’s feet up onto the sofa and drew the drapes in the sitting room to block out the afternoon sunlight. He hadn’t even wanted to tackle the stairs when they’d arrived home. His headache must be bad, she thought, checking to see that his chest continued to rise and fall as he slipped deeper into sleep.
But she had him back here; that was the important thing. He could so easily have told her to leave him at the apartment. Maybe even leave him with Rachelle. The very thought painted a bitter taste on Olivia’s tongue. She’d tried to like Rachelle on the occasions she’d met her at company functions, back before her marriage had ended. Had even attempted once or twice to be friendly. But the other woman had always carried herself with an air that implied she believed she was several notches above Olivia on the totem pole of life. How co
uld she not be when Olivia had been, first, a schoolteacher, then, second, a stay-at-home mother while Rachelle was actively and successfully pursuing a high-flying career?
Rachelle had never made a secret of the fact she found Xander attractive, and Olivia had felt threatened by her confidence, not to mention the increasing number of hours in a week Rachelle spent with Olivia’s husband. But Olivia had never once believed that Xander would embark on an affair. That simply had never been his style. But then, he’d changed so much after Parker’s death. Maybe he had picked up with Rachelle after he’d moved out. Goodness only knew the woman hadn’t been subtle about her attraction to him.
In the two years of their separation, Olivia had been working so hard just to keep herself from falling apart over the loss of both her son and her husband that she’d never stopped to consider that Xander might have gotten himself a girlfriend. Hadn’t wanted to consider it, more like, she forced herself to admit. In fact, the idea hadn’t even occurred to her when she’d brought him home from the hospital. Why should it, when the doctors had never mentioned Xander having any visitors other than his mother? Surely a girlfriend would have had some visiting rights?
She pushed the thought out of her head, preferring not to allow her mind to stray down that path. But she couldn’t help it—she kept seeing Rachelle insert herself into Xander’s arms and kiss him. And not only had Xander recognized Rachelle; he hadn’t exactly pushed her away.
Olivia forced herself to do the math about just how far back in his memory Rachelle could be found. Rachelle had started at Xander’s firm before Parker had been born. Did his memory loss stretch back that far or was he actually beginning to recall things and people from his missing years?
She checked on Xander one more time; then, satisfied he was deeply asleep, she went to the kitchen to make herself coffee. As she automatically started the machine and poured milk in a mug, her thoughts kept straying back to Rachelle and Xander—and how at home the woman had seemed in Xander’s apartment. Just how large of a role did she play in Xander’s life outside work, and how long had she been there? A year? Two years? Longer? Had she been hovering in the background even during Xander’s marriage, just waiting to snatch him up as soon as he was free? And had Olivia herself furthered the woman’s plans by not being the wife she should have been? Had her focus on her newborn son and then her developing little boy been so singular that it had driven her husband away from her and into the arms of another woman? It wouldn’t be the first time in history that had happened.
The Wife He Couldn't Forget Page 10
