Denial Read online

  “Your house? But what about Gallo? Won’t he come looking for me there?”

  “I told you. I have a plan.”

  “But—”

  His hands come down on my arms, and he backs me up and sets me on the edge of the tub. “The only thing I’m going to explain to you while we’re both half-naked is how easily I could fuck you until you don’t remember your name that you just remembered. And I don’t think either of us wants you forgetting anything more than you already have.”

  His hands fall from my arms, leaving me chilled in their wake, and I try to grab him, to pull him back and force him to talk to me, but he’s already exiting the bathroom, leaving me stunned and unsure of what just happened all over again. Holding the blanket around me, I listen to his movement in the bedroom, wishing I knew what to do next. But I don’t know what he wants from me. I don’t know what I want from him. Actually, maybe I do. I want to be able to trust him and he wants me to trust him. That’s why he shoved a gun into my hand at the church. I’m pretty sure he thinks it didn’t matter at all. But it did. I just can’t be a fool and pretend that couldn’t have been a gamble that went his way. I don’t know how to get to a place of true trust until I get my memory back.

  I stand up and decide I have to try to talk to Kayden again, though I really don’t know what to say. I walk to the open door, pausing in the archway to find him fully dressed and sitting on a chair to put on his boots. He stands at the sight of me, and we stare at each other, the look in his eyes downright chilly. He doesn’t speak. I think he’s waiting for me to say whatever I came in here to say, and I toss around possible ways to clear the air, discarding every option. I’m pretty sure anything I say will be wrong no matter what.

  Finally, he walks toward me, each step a loose-legged swagger, all confident, sexy male, every part of him lean, hot, and, right now, mean. He stops in front of me, towering over me, taller than I think I realized until this tension-laden moment. “You know,” he says, his voice a soft taunt, “since you’re so against putting clothes on, maybe I should just rip that blanket away and fuck you before you decide I’m him. Or maybe I need to fuck you to make sure you know I’m not him.” His lips thin. “Or maybe that’s exactly what he would do and why I need to just walk away.” He turns and leaves, crossing to the doorway, and disappears into the hallway. I straighten and consider going after him, but one look at my blanket and I turn toward the bathroom. It’s time to put clothes on and keep them on.

  Coloring my hair requires that I let a messy mixture sit on my head for forty minutes, giving me plenty of time to replay every part of my conversation with Kayden. I also have a conversation with myself, in which my good ol’ voice of reason returns and I promise myself that it, not my hormones, will dictate my interactions with Kayden. Still, by the time I finish rinsing my hair, I decide Kayden gave me a gun as an offer of trust, which earns him the cautious benefit of the doubt.

  Once I’m out of the shower, I bundle myself and my hair up in towels and kneel in front of the sink, opening the cabinet to find my clothes neatly folded, smelling of fabric softener, and nice and dry. With them is my Chanel purse, and a new toothbrush and toothpaste, both in unopened packages.

  “He got me a toothbrush and washed my clothes,” I whisper, and I can’t imagine the man in my flashback being thoughtful enough to do these things. At some point, though, that man in my flashback had to have been good to me or I wouldn’t have been shocked when he tied me up. And I am certain that night was the night he’d shown me he was a monster. Monster. It’s a word I used with Kayden last night, and I don’t like what this connection implies.

  Shaking myself, I grab the pile of my items, stand up to set them all on the ledge of the giant garden tub, and start to dress. I quickly tug on my jeans, only just now realizing a very slight heaviness in my skull, but it’s manageable for sure. I reach for the bra and stare at the label again, willing a memory of buying the fancy garment, but there just isn’t one. I put it on, and I’m pleased that even my tennis shoes have been dried. Fully dressed now, I give myself a once-over in the mirror and decide I’m too skinny. I need to eat, but I’m pretty sure, despite decent breasts, I’ll never be lucky enough to sport Beyoncé curves. I grimace. Right. I know Beyoncé but not my own last name. It’s infuriating.

  “Ella, Ella, Ella,” I murmur, willing my last name to come to me as I squat at the cabinet again and locate the blow-dryer, doing the best that I can with my hair with no styling products, and when I find myself hating the dark brown color, I know the reality here. I don’t hate my body or my hair. I hate looking at a stranger in the mirror.

  Giving up the struggle with my hair, I locate my purse, surprised at how well it survived the rain. Unzipping it, I set the ruined journal aside and freeze at the sight of the gun, not even sure how it and the journal fit inside in the first place. Wetting my suddenly dry lips, I remove the gun and set it on the counter, recalling the moment Kayden had drawn it and the blow it had been to believe he really was my enemy. I ran from Kayden last night because of Adriel, but if I’m honest with myself, I also ran from my fear that I’d trust him no matter what. A fear I still haven’t conquered.

  Leaving the gun behind, I snatch up the purse and move back to my spot in front of the mirror, and do a fast job with my makeup. I slide my purse strap over my head, wearing it cross-body, and then I have to face that gun again. Dread fills me at the idea of touching it, and I don’t know why. I just had it in my hand, and, impatient with all these weird feelings, I reach for it, only to jerk my hand back and grab the sink as my mind thrusts me into the past. And Lord help me, I am back in that room. His bedroom. I can see myself from above again. I’m dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and I’m pacing, tears streaking my cheeks. And then I’m there. I’m in the past, living the hell all over again.

  I stop pacing, my hand trembling as I shove my fingers through my long red hair, trying to calm myself, but I know that he’ll be back soon. If I’m going to do this, I have to do it now. “I have to do this,” I say, and my voice is strong and sure. I turn and stare at a tall mahogany dresser that matches the bed I so hate at my back. My chest expands on a huge breath, and I walk to the dresser and sink to my knees. I dig through lingerie, beautiful, delicate lingerie, and uncover a black box. And I don’t let myself think—I open it and display the gun I’m after.

  The image fades, and I gasp with the impact of what I just felt, shocked to find I’ve sunk to my knees, as if I was in front of that dresser all over again. And I’m trembling, like I was that night. I remember that night. What I felt. What I thought I had to do. I shove off the sink and reach for the gun, checking the ammunition chamber to ensure it’s loaded, and I do it with the ease of someone familiar with weapons. Someone who would know how to use one to kill if she so chose. Or needed to.

  I place the gun in my purse and zip it up, folding my arms in front of me, a burn in my chest as I look at the woman in the mirror, and I was right. I don’t know her. “What did you do, Ella?” I whisper, and then grab the sink again to yell, “What did you do?”

  eight

  I begin to pace the bathroom the way I had his bedroom that night, my hand pressed to my forehead. “I killed someone. I killed him.” I stop walking and face the mirror, reprimanding myself. “Stop saying that. You didn’t kill anyone.” I look to the ceiling. But what if I did? My knees go weak, and I sink to the edge of the tub and press my hand to my belly. It makes sense that it had to be something this bad for my mind to shut down as it has.

  I bury my face in my hands and think of Gallo and the fingerprints. My hands drop to the ledge of the tub. How does Niccolo connect to this? Did he know the man I think I killed? Is he hunting me for revenge? Or is he the man and I didn’t kill him? I just tried? No. I wouldn’t be with a gangster. Unless . . . did I not know who, and what, he was? No. I didn’t kill him. My stomach rolls. I might have killed him. I have to tell Kayden. Now. Before the truth is exposed and Gallo finds some way to take Ka
yden down with me. I push to my feet and stand there. I don’t want to tell him. I have to tell him. I have to tell him.

  Stiffening my spine, I face the door and start walking, and I don’t stop. I exit the bedroom and start down stairs that in daylight I can tell are some sort of frosted glass, the railing stainless steel. Reaching the bottom level, I step across shiny white tiles and enter a living area that feels modern and chic, with light gray furnishings. I step farther into the room, finding no one around, amazed to find a walkway running above my head and the entire length of the room, also made with the etched glass-looking material.

  There is another stairwell leading up to that second level, but I choose a door to my left that I’m gambling leads to the kitchen. Once I’m there, I consider knocking, but it’s a kitchen, not a bedroom, and Kayden did tell me to come down when I was ready. I push open the door, and, holding it open, I bring another white and gray room into view, with three men gathered at a round, all-white island.

  To my left, Nathan, Kayden’s doctor friend, sits on a high-backed gray bar stool, his brown hair styled neatly, his blue suit and tie obviously expensive. To my right sits a man who is his polar opposite, with wavy, longish dark brown hair, his features chiseled, the slogan on his obviously worn black T-shirt in Italian. And standing in the center, directly across from me and the only one of the three I truly care about right now, is Kayden.

  My eyes meet his, and I feel the connection punch me in the chest. His expression is tight, his eyes hard, and everything that happened between us an hour before is in the air between us now. The kiss. His hand on my breast. Him naked in the shower. But mostly, his anger. “Can I talk to you alone, please, Kayden?”

  “Nathan’s on a tight schedule,” he says. “He wants to check you out before he leaves.”

  “I’m fine,” I insist. “I feel a lot better.”

  “Not for long if we don’t get some additional medicine in you,” Nathan assures me. “And I need to evaluate you before I give you additional drugs.”

  That gets my attention, and I look at Nathan. “The pain is going to come back?”

  “Not if we keep you medicated.” He pats the stool. “Come sit.”

  My lips clamp together, and I bite back everything I want to say to Kayden and cross to the island, claiming the seat and giving Kayden my back in the process. “Let me get a few supplies out of my bag,” Nathan says, and I nod, glancing at the dark-haired man in the seat across from me.

  “Ciao,” he says, giving me a two-finger wave, surprising me with a fleeting glimpse of a box-shaped tattoo on his wrist, with script up his forearm. “I’m Matteo.”

  “Hi, Matteo,” I greet him, trying to figure out why he and Kayden have matching tattoos. And what do they mean? “Thanks for letting me stay here.”

  “Always happy to help a pretty woman,” he assures me, motioning to Kayden. “And as a bonus, now Kayden owes me a favor.”

  “You owe me at least ten,” Kayden reminds him.

  “At least it’s not eleven,” Matteo rebuts, winking at me, and I like him. Actually, I like Nathan as well, but neither of them feels even remotely familiar the way Kayden does.

  “Okay,” Nathan says, “I’m ready for you.”

  I rotate to face Nathan, who’s now to my left, which means I’d be eye to eye with Kayden if Nathan wasn’t standing between us, us holding up a small light. “I just need to check your pupils.” He flips it on and tilts my chin up, giving each eye a check and popping the light into his pocket. “They look good,” he says, his hands sliding to his hips under his jacket. “On a scale of one to ten, what was your headache like yesterday versus today?”

  “A ten yesterday. A one today.”

  “Excellent,” he says. “Let’s get some vitals and I’ll give you some more drugs.”

  “So as long as I take the drugs, I won’t relapse?” I ask, as he removes supplies from a leather briefcase.

  “Not unless you run through a church parking lot in a thunderstorm,” he says, a smile ghosting across his lips.

  I lean around him and point at Kayden. “Don’t even think about saying anything right now.”

  Kayden lifts his hands in surrender, his lips curving, a hint of the tension between us slipping away. “I wasn’t even considering it.”

  “Oh hell yeah, he was,” Matteo says.

  Kayden responds to him in Italian, and they start talking back and forth as Nathan finishes checking my vitals. “You need to learn Italian,” Nathan observes.

  “Yes,” I agree. “I do. Are you American too?”

  “Canadian,” he corrects. “I came here for a woman and fell in love with the country, and out of love with her.”

  “Ouch,” I say.

  “Better to find out sooner than later,” he says, returning his supplies to his bag and retrieving a bottle, which he sets on the counter. “Take one now with a full glass of water and then four times a day for five days.”

  “What are they?” I ask.

  “The same anti-inflammatory I gave you by injection before you woke up. I use it often for patients suffering from migraines. You should be feeling pretty darn good by the time you run out. If for any reason it stops working, though, Kayden knows how to reach me. I’ll stop by his place to check on you in a few days.” He slips his bag on his shoulder. “And now, I am a day late for Valentine’s Day and therefore have a date I can’t miss.”

  Valentine’s Day. The day for lovers, and I am pretty sure I killed the man Kayden called mine. “Thanks again,” I choke out, and then realize I haven’t asked about my amnesia, and he hasn’t brought it up. “Wait. Sorry, but how common is memory loss with a concussion?”

  “Rare to the extent you’re experiencing it, but it happens. The important thing to know is that it’s not life threatening or debilitating.” I grimace at that, and he holds up a finger. “I saw that look. I wasn’t dismissing your problem. I was simply trying to ease your mind. And you’re already remembering small things. You’ll remember the rest.”

  And I both wish for and dread that day.

  His hand comes down on my shoulder, a friendly gesture that is missing all the fire of Kayden’s touch. “We’ll talk more about this when I stop by to check on you at Kayden’s place.”

  I nod. “Yes. Thank you again, Nathan. I really needed help, and you were there for me.”

  He smiles. “And now Kayden owes me a favor.” He glances at Kayden. “Or ten.” He lifts a hand and heads for the door. Matteo says something to Kayden in Italian and takes off after Nathan, and just like that, I’m alone with Kayden.

  Desperate to get my confession over with, I rotate and say, “Kayden,” only to discover he’s already standing in front of me and I’ve just pressed our legs together. I tilt my chin up to look at him. “I . . . You . . .”

  He arches a brow. “I what?”

  The words don’t want to come out of my mouth. “About what happened upstairs—”

  “Matteo is coming right back.” He opens the bottle and pops a pill onto his hand, holding it out to me. “You need to take this now before you end up in bed again.”

  He’s right. The last thing I need right now is to turn into a mess like I was last night. I reach for the pill, my hand going to his palm, the touch electric, and his fingers close around mine. My eyes dart to his, and I try to read his still unreadable expression. I wait for him to say whatever he intends to, but he is silent. He just looks at me, his gaze probing, and I realize he’s waiting for me to say whatever I wanted to say.

  “I know you’re not him,” I say, my voice hoarse, affected in a way that is all about this man and what I have yet to tell him.

  The door opens behind me and Matteo enters, saying something in Italian to Kayden. Kayden responds and then refocuses on me. “Take the pill,” he orders.

  Frustrated at the interruption, I pop it into my mouth, and then accept the bottle of water and chug several long swallows. Kayden takes the bottle from me and sets it on the table. “
You need to hear what Matteo has to say.”

  “I have to have a conversation with you first.”

  “It has to wait.” He turns to his friend and orders, “Tell her what you found.”

  I want to shout at him that no, no, it does not have to wait, but Matteo is quick to demand my attention. “Let’s talk about Ella,” he says as he reaches under the island and produces a file he sets in front of him.

  “You mean let’s talk about me,” I correct.

  “Okay,” he says. “Let’s talk about you. Only you don’t exist. There is no missing ‘Ella’ that’s traveled from the United States, or anywhere else for that matter, in the past year.”

  “I took your fingerprints when you were asleep,” Kayden adds.

  I cut him an incredulous look. “You did what?”

  “Gallo is going to be at my doorstep looking for you,” he says. “I had to know what we were dealing with.”

  He’s right. I know he’s right, yet somehow those prints feel more private than the clothes he stripped off me. But I want answers, and I glance between the two men. “You ran them through the database?”

  “I did,” Matteo confirms. “And there was no match.”

  “That makes no sense,” I argue, convinced he’s made a mistake. “I’d have to have prints on file for a passport. How can you even run my prints? Isn’t it a government database?”

  “The right hacker can get anywhere he or she wants to get,” Matteo replies. “You have no prints on file.”

  My throat thickens. “Try again.”

  “I always double-check myself,” Matteo adds. “You could be an Italian-American who lives here.”

  “I don’t speak the language,” I argue.

  “You don’t remember speaking the language,” Kayden corrects.

  “I don’t speak the language,” I assure him. “I might not remember everything but I get strong feelings about things. I do not speak Italian.” I eye Matteo. “Do they fingerprint for driver’s licenses? Wouldn’t I be on file here if I lived here?”