“You knew who you were six months ago, and you can remember that,” I said, and I sounded accusing even to myself. She turned her face away from me, looking out the passenger window. She didn’t speak for quite some time, long enough for me to realize this conversation was over.
I’d packed all her clothes in bags at the mansion before I’d picked her up from the hospital, and I walked around to the trunk to get them out for her. She looked down at the suitcases in my hands when I met her at the front door.
“Is that all my stuff?” she asked.
“It’s the most important. I chose a couple of things for you.”
She looked upset about it. I didn’t care. She’d been living with me, dammit. I knew her. It was bad enough that she was refusing to come stay with me, without being upset about me choosing clothes for her. I braced myself for a fight, but it didn’t come. Usually she was quick to say something. At least, she used to be.
Was it my fault that it was gone now?
I shook my head, shook off the black mood that tried to creep up on me, and followed her to the front desk.
“The nurse will be here later this afternoon,” I said. “I called someone.” Grace looked around the room. It wasn’t the best place she’d chosen, I could have paid for better. But I didn’t interfere even though I wanted to. I wanted her to come back to me again. I wasn’t going to push until the opposite happened.
She turned to me.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
She shrugged, clenching her jaw, and her eyes welled up with tears.
“Oh, darling,” I said and touched her arm. She saw it as an invitation to step into me, and for the first time since she’d woken up she accepted me. She put her head on my shoulder, crying into my shirt. She wouldn’t leave makeup stains, she wasn’t wearing any.
“It’s going to be fine. A couple of days and you’ll be perfect again. The doctor said the memories will come back, and all this will be behind us.”
She nodded against me but her shoulders still shook with her crying. I let her lean against me a bit longer, and then I wrapped my fingers around each arm and held her at arm’s length. She looked surprised for a moment.
“Just keep it together,” I said. The emotion drained from her face like she was physically drawing it away, until the only proof that was left of her crying was the tears on her cheeks.
“That’s my girl,” I said and let go of her. She looked upset, but in a different way. I didn’t know what to do about it. I’d let her cry on my shoulder. That was about as much emotion as I was comfortable with. More than that, she had to deal with on her own. I wasn’t trying to be harsh, but the sooner she took the matter into her own hands, the sooner it could all be sorted out.
“I’ll check on you. Keep your phone on in case you need something.”
She nodded, and I left the room. Out in the passage, I paused mid-step and blew out a quick breath of relief. I’d managed to get all the way through it without getting angry with her. Even though she’d been an emotional mess. This was good. And she’d turned to me instead of pushing me away. She wasn’t even out of the hospital for an hour and already she was coming back. This was very good.
I took the elevator back down to the lobby and walked out into the heat of the day.
The black car had already heated up in the short time I was inside with her and it felt like an oven. I put the A/C on full and pulled into the road. I had an office to get to. I’d neglected my work, letting my secretary take over, cancelled all my appointments. I had enough money to last me, enough of a reputation to carry me through the past couple of days without worrying, but if I wanted to keep it up, I had to get back.
No matter how much it felt like I was losing my grip on things. No matter how much I wanted to stay with her and made sure she stayed. I had the horrible feeling that as soon as I turned my back I was going to lose her. I’d had that feeling for a long time, longer than we’d been officially dating. Longer than she’d been in my life as more than just an employee. In fact, for about just as long as she’d been getting things on with that damn Justin.
Speak of the devil, his green truck swerved in front of mine and I had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting him. The pickup was an ugly hard metal, painted the worst color, and my sleek BMW would crumple up against it like paper.
“What the hell is your problem?” I shouted, blasting the horn. I got out of the car. Justin had gotten out of his truck and slammed the door. He was pissed. His face was red and he stormed toward me. I spread my feet wider a bit and balled my fists. If it was a fight he wanted, I’d been wanting to break his nose for a while.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“You’re here running me down in the middle of the road to ask me where she is?”
“She’s been discharged. She doesn’t have a place anymore, and I know for a fact she didn’t want to go with you.”
The anger inside was building. Quickly. I took a deep breath in through my nose.
“And you know this, how? You’ve seen her once. The rest of the time you haven’t even set foot near the hospital...“
“I came to see her,” he cut me off. Oh right, the night I’d stopped him.
I shrugged it off and kept going, “I’ve been by her side since the moment the accident happened and you think you know how she feels about anything now?”
“You’re the reason she was in that fucking accident!” Justin screamed. That shut me up pretty quick. My vision was starting to blur, with white spots dancing in front of my eyes. I was about to lose it, I could feel it.
“Is there a problem here?” someone spoke to my left and we both snapped our heads around to look. A police car had pulled up. Deputy Kent stood there gripping his belt buckle, looking at us like we were delinquents looking for trouble.
“No problem here, officer,” I said. Justin grumbled something along those lines. His face was still red, with a thin line of white around his lips. He glared at me, hands in his pockets and through the material I could see they were fists.
“I don’t care if you got bad blood here, but ya’ll better take it out of the street. We have women and children walking around these parts.”
Justin glanced around. I followed his lead, and there were groups of people standing here and there, gaping at us.
“I’m done here,” I said and made to get back in my car, but I waited until the deputy was in his. He pulled off with a short burst of siren.
“If you really think she’s all that sure about who she is and who she wants to be with you can go on and call her.”
The anger drained out of his face and I didn’t what I had, but it was something. “If you’re so sure she’s not with me, you go on and be with her. I don’t want to be the one to rain on your parade, trying to be the valiant knight and all, but you lost her.”
I got in my car and slammed the door, but not too soon to hear him call me a bastard. I’ve been called worse things. I put the car in reverse and pulled away from the green truck, driving around it. He wasn’t going to call her, that much I knew. If he was so sure that she wouldn’t be with me he would have already done that and gone to her.
The fact was that he asked me because he thought I still had her. I wished that were true. Now the only thing I had to worry about was that if I didn’t do something soon, I wasn’t going to have her. Ever.
Chapter 6 - Justin
“I don’t know why she chose Elijah in the first place. He’s a hard, heartless son of a bitch, and everything he does is for his own benefit. He doesn’t love her. The only person he can ever love is himself. Why doesn’t she see that?”
Evelyn rolled her eyes and scribbled something in her book. I was supposed to help her with stock take. She sat in the middle of the storage room, counting and writing and nodding, not hearing a thing I was saying.
“You really have to get over her. You’re just hurting yourself, and you’re doing exactly what she’s been doing to you.”
“What?” I asked.
“Alice. Grace can’t remember that she was a bitch and now you’re dragging poor Alice along until Grace can decide what she wants. Again. I’m getting sick of hearing about this.”
“That’s not the same thing,” I said. But I knew deep down that really, it was the same thing. And she was right. And I had to stop doing it. But I didn’t want to let Grace go. I loved her too much to give up a second chance. And I didn’t want to let Alice go. What if things didn’t work out with Grace? I didn’t want to lose both of them.
The moment I thought it, I felt guilty. Evelyn was right, I couldn’t keep doing it. But I couldn’t stop doing it, either.
I sighed. Just when I thought my fate had been sealed, this happened. I bit my tongue, picked up a box of files and flipped through them. Evelyn glanced at me.
“Don’t bother, you’re not paying attention. You just keep talking, and I’ll keep doing this, and we’ll be done before midnight.”