Chrysander paced back and forth at the foot of Marley’s bed while the hotel physician administered the sedative. She was beyond distraught, and the doctor had moved immediately to prevent further upset.As the doctor stood and backed away from the bed, he looked at Chrysander, a grim expression on his face.
Fear tightened Chrysander’s chest. “Is she all right? Is the baby all right?”
The doctor motioned him across the room and away from where Marley now quietly lay. “Her injuries are not physical. If they were, perhaps I would be of use. Her distress is mental. If it is as you said, and she has regained her memory, it is that which has caused her immeasurable pain.”
Chrysander stirred impatiently. “What can be done? She cannot be left as she is. There must be something we can do.” The sight of her pale face and her eyes, so huge with devastation, twisted his gut painfully.
“You should return her to your home, to a place that is more familiar. She needs a doctor, not for her physical well-being, but one who can help her mentally.”
“A therapist you mean?” Chrysander asked grimly.
“This is a very delicate time,” the doctor warned. “She is extremely fragile, and remembering such traumatic events could cause an emotional breakdown.”
His face twisted in sympathy, and he reached out to grasp Chrysander’s shoulder. “This will be hard, but perhaps it is for the best. It is good that her memory returned, even if it causes her such distress.”
Chrysander wasn’t so sure of that. With her memory regained, she also knew that he’d tossed her out of their apartment, basically put her into the hands of her kidnappers. She would also recall the cruel words he’d thrown at her. And she would remember her own part in the whole mess.
He ran a hand wearily through his hair. Part of him wished she would have never regained those memories. They had started fresh, without past deceptions and betrayals. Something niggled at him even as those thoughts passed through his mind.
Wouldn’t she have greeted her memory’s return with guilt? All he’d seen in her eyes was hurt. Deep and horrific hurt. There was no guilt, no embarrassment over the fact she’d stolen from him. Just distress so keen that he still felt the knife deep in his chest from the tortured sound of her cry and the memory of her stumbling away from him.
An uneasy sensation took hold of him. He couldn’t help but think that there were things buried in Marley’s memories that he wasn’t going to like.
Fourteen
M arley was only vaguely aware of the things going on around her. After that first pass into oblivion, she registered being carried into a car. She heard Chrysander’s worried voice as he murmured to her, but she closed herself off from him, folding inward.
When she next awoke, she knew she was in a bed. As she looked around the room, recognition sparked, and with it, a surge of fresh agony, hot and raw, seared through her body and robbed her of breath.He wouldn’t do this. Surely even he could not be so cruel as to bring her back to the place they’d shared and the place he’d brutally shoved her from.
She reached for the tears, expecting them to come, but curiously all she felt was an odd detachment, a void of nothingness coupled with the need to get out of this place.
When she sat up, her gaze flickered to a chair by the window occupied by Chrysander’s sleeping form. He was slouched against the arm, his clothing rumpled and the stubble of over a day’s beard shadowing his jaw.
She waited for the rush of anger, of fury, but again, she felt nothing but overwhelming numbness and a need to escape.
She got out of bed, not paying attention to her own rumpled clothing. It occurred to her that maybe she should change, but she couldn’t risk waking Chrysander. No, she needed to be away. She couldn’t look him in the eye knowing that he’d made such horrible accusations and then left her to the mercy of her kidnappers.
Her thumb brushed across the thin band of her engagement ring, and she wrenched it off. It felt cold in her hand. She gently laid it on the nightstand beside the bed then turned and walked away.
On bare feet, she walked out of the bedroom and to the elevator. Her stomach churned as she relived the night she’d gotten on this elevator as her world crumbled around her, Chrysander’s accusation ringing in her ears. How could he? It was the only thought that played over and over in her mind until she wanted to scream at it to stop.
When she reached the lobby, she paused, realizing that not only would Chrysander’s security people likely be manning the front entrance but that also the doorman would never let her walk out as she was.
She turned and hurried for the back entrance. To her dismay, one of the men she recognized from Chrysander’s detail was standing at the door. She quickly ducked into a service entrance and made her way down the hallway that housed rooms for laundry and building maintenance. A few minutes later, she opened the door and walked out into the pale, predawn light.