“I knew it,” she hisses in disbelief. A tear streaks her cheek, leaving a wet trail behind. “You were acting so weird before. I should have known it was weird I couldn’t remember you at all. Why… Why would you do this? Were you trying to hurt me because you couldn’t get the inheritance money?”
“What? Fuck no, Charlie. This has nothing to do with– Okay, I’ll admit I came to the Cayman Islands to try to convince you one last time, but I didn’t think any of this would happen. All I wanted to do was to talk to you. But then that pipe hit you on the head and–”
“What?” Molly shrieks. “A pipe hit you on the head?”
Charlie nods. “There was some sort of construction accident while I was walking back to the hotel. I … I wound up losing my memories as a result.”
Molly’s already reaching into her pocket to pull out her cell phone. “I’ll call Mister Maloney. We’ll sue the construction company and everybody involved. Don’t worry about a thing, Miss Pace. I’ll have everything taken care of.”
Charlie shakes her head violently. Her nose is running, and her face is completely red. “No, that’s not– That’s not what fucking matters right now, Molly.”
“You could have died, Miss Pace. Of course it matters. Do you have any idea how much it’ll cost Bliss Media if something happened to you? Something did happen to you. You’ve been away two weeks, and stocks have tumbled because shareholders are worried about your sudden absence. What’s going on here? Has he been holding you hostage or something? That’s the only way I can explain what’s going on. This so isn’t like you.”
“I don’t–” Charlie pinches the bridge of her nose. “We’ll deal with that later. Right now, I need to talk to my husba– Fuck. Not my husband. I mean, I need to talk to Roman. Alone.”
Molly seems to get the message because she nods once, glaring daggers into my skull as she leaves the room. “I’ll be out in the hall making phone calls,” she says before the door clicks shut behind her.
There’s only a foot or two between Charlie and I, but it feels way longer. Charlie’s face has become unreadable and cold. She’s shut me out, just like she always used to, an air of indifference about her. In a split second, the walls I’ve spent the last few days breaking down have suddenly resurrected. I can’t get past them, no matter what I do.
Like we’re strangers.
“You son of a bitch,” she seethes.
“Charlie, I–”
She raises a hand and cuts me off. “No. Not a fucking word, Roman. Not a fucking word.” She’s crying angry tears. “You lied to me. You lied. How long did you plan on keeping this up, hm? What were you going to do when we got back to Chicago? Why would you do this?”
“I didn’t plan for any of this, Charlie. The staff at the hospital all thought I was your husband, and I didn’t have time to correct them. I was just concerned about you and–”
“Don’t pretend to be the good guy, Roman. Lying’s one thing, but this is downright pathetic. Fuck. I can’t believe you let me get a fucking tattoo.”
“Look, I know this looks bad–”
“You think? Oh my God, we slept together. Were you just trying to get in my pants? What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t,” I snap. “I wasn’t thinking. I admit total wrongdoing here. I never meant to hurt you, Charlie. I swear to God I was going to tell you the truth.”
“When? When were you going to tell me the truth? After you made a fool out of me? After you made me fall in love with you and–” Charlie wipes at her eyes and takes a huge breath in through her nose. “Fuck. I really … I really fell in love with you. How could I have been so stupid? I should have known you were too good to be true. I remember everything now.”
“Charlie–”
“Was any of it real? Or was this some twisted form of revenge because you lost the inheritance? What about all those stories you told me? About our childhood together. How am I supposed to believe that anything you told me is real?”
I swallow hard, but it only ends up making me dizzy. There’s a pressure behind my eyes and a shakiness in my very marrow.
“I never lied about how I felt,” I say gently, slowly. “I really do love you. I just… I didn’t tell you the truth because I was scared you’d remember how much you hate me. But I’ve always loved you. I’ve been in love with you for such a long time. I thought… I thought maybe this could be like a second chance. You could barely stand to be in the same room as me. But then you lost your memories, and I knew I couldn’t just let you be alone. I wanted to take care of you, and I knew you wouldn’t let me if you knew the truth.”
Charlie presses her lips into a thin line and tilts her chin up slightly, looking down her nose at me. “Well, you got that last part right.”
“Charlie, please–”
“Get out.”
Her words are heavy enough to crush me into the floor, grind my bones to dust. I can’t breathe. My mind’s blank. My pulse is racing so fast I can feel it vibrating my teeth.
“Get your things,” she says lowly. “And get out. Get out of my sight. Don’t even think about trying to contact me again. Make things easier on the both of us and get lost.”
Neither one of us makes a move.
The air is thick and heavy, bearing down on my shoulders like a punishment.
I want to throw up, but there’s nothing in my stomach to heave. I’m stunned, but not surprised. Charlie’s right. My hopes of being together once we got back to Chicago had been nothing more than a dream, a long shot.
Leaving is the best thing I can do right now. It’s the only thing I should do right now.
But I don’t want to. I can’t leave things like this. She needs me.
I need her.
“Charlie, I–”
She turns away and refuses to look at me.
I have no choice but to grab my things. Everything’s already tucked away in my sad excuse of a backpack, stuffed full with wrinkled and worn clothes.
It’s the silence that hurts me the most. This is probably the last time she’s ever going to let me within a foot of her. It’s better than I deserve, but it’s excruciating knowing I’ll probably never hear Charlie laugh again. I’ll never get to see her smile. I’ll never hold her again.
And I deserve it.
“I’m sorry,” I say in a last futile attempt to speak to her.
Charlie doesn’t respond.
I leave and find myself in the hotel hallway, which is completely empty save for Molly and the incessant click, click, clicking of her phone. She’s tapping out a message to someone, not even looking at the screen as her thumbs fly over the screen.
“I can’t believe you,” she mutters. “Taking advantage of her like that.”
“I wasn’t taking advantage of her.”
“That’s not what we’re going to tell the judge. You’ve effectively committed fraud, you know.”
Fraud.
The word echoes around in my head. My gut reaction is to tell her she’s wrong. Fraud implies I had something to gain, that I wanted something from Charlie. All I wanted was to take care of her. Lord knows she wouldn’t have let me if she knew the truth.
I don’t say anything. My past dealings with Mister Maloney has taught me never to speak unless absolutely necessary. That madman of a lawyer has a fantastic talent of using my own words against me, so I refrain from answering.
The elevator ride down to the lobby is long. There’s no upbeat elevator music to alleviate the tension in my shoulders. I don’t think it’d help if there actually was any, but still. It’s better to listen to cheesy tunes than all of this dead air and the nagging voice in the back of my head that constantly reminds me that I’ve screwed up big time.
And there’s no fixing any of it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Charlie
Chicago’s a grim, gray concrete jungle where the rain always has a cold bite to it that stings my cheeks and makes the tips of my fingers swell. My office used to be my happ
y place. It provided me with a spectacular view of the skyline, made people walking down below look like ants beneath me. I normally don’t have time to people watch. I care very little for the bumper to bumper traffic that I can see down on the gridded streets. Time is money for me, and every wasted second is another thousand dollars I could have earned by being productive.
Ever since the Cayman Islands, though, I can’t seem to find the same drive.
I want to watch people go about their lives from up above in my glass fortress. I admire the flock of birds huddled together for warmth on the ledge of the skyscraper across the street. There’s something fascinating about watching the dark clouds over head morph and shift on the wind’s breath, changing shape every so often and even breaking to let the sun peek through for a few minutes.
There’s a huge stack of documents sitting on my mahogany office desk that I’ve largely ignored the whole day. I used to be the kind of worker who got everything done the second they were assigned to me. Now? Now I can’t find the focus or the heart to actually sit down and put my nose to the grindstone. It’s just one giant pile that keeps growing and growing, a never-ending stream of work that I don’t understand how I used to manage.
My spark’s gone.
I feel empty.
In fact, the whole office feels empty.
I look around the space and take in my surroundings. I used to be a fan of the minimalistic style. Huge office with glass walls and floor-to-ceiling windows to let all the sunlight in. Polished white floors and cream-colored wallpaper. There are two identical shelves—likely from an Ikea catalogue—against the far wall full of awards and plaques that really don’t hold that much value. They’re better off as paperweights. There isn’t a whole lot of furniture, just one big empty area near the door with two armchairs next to a glass coffee table. It’s etched with a pretentious gilded rose design.
I’ve had to turn up the heat several times since getting home to Chicago. I miss the feeling of the warm sun on my skin, the sea salt in the air. Everything about this place is wet and murky and awful. I used to look down from my office and see an endless possibility to expand my media queendom. Now it’s just boring and plain, lifeless blocks of cement and metal and glass without personality or flair.
There’s a timid knock at my door.
Molly pokes her head in. “Hello, Miss Pace?”
“Hm?”
“I have the head of accounting on line two waiting for you. I tried buzzing you over the intercom, but you didn’t answer.”
“Oh,” I mumble. “I must have zoned out.”
“If you’d like, I can have him call back at a later time when you’re feeling… Well, better, I guess.”
I nod. “Yes, please go ahead and do that. I don’t much feel like discussing quarterly reports right now.”
“Okay, Miss Pace. Is there anything else I can do for you? I can grab you a nice cup of tea from the staff room, if you’d like.”
I manage a small smile. Molly’s always been super helpful, I just didn’t ever have the time to acknowledge it before. She’s always been neat and organized and on top of things so I don’t have to worry about the little things like scheduling my own appointments, replying to non-urgent emails, arranging my rides seamlessly so I don’t have to spend too much time out on the curb where nosy business journalists can unleash an avalanche of questions on me.
Somewhere along the line, I think I started to take Molly and everything she does for me for granted. I came to expect these things of her, accepted them as a norm when she’s actually going above and beyond. What makes me feel terrible, though, is the fact that I haven’t been appreciative of her efforts. The memories of me scolding her on numerous occasions about truly miniscule issues makes me cringe.
“Thank you, Molly,” I say earnestly. “Keep up the great work.”
She flushes, eyes widening a little in surprise. “O-oh, uh… You’re welcome, Miss Pace. It’s my pleasure.”
“You sent me a vacation request a couple weeks back, didn’t you?”
Molly shrugs a shoulder and tries to smile politely. “I… I did. My little brother’s graduating from college, and I wanted to attend. But you said you needed me, so it’s totally fine.”
I pick at my fingernails, move to rub at the red line tattooed around my ring finger. It’s healed over now, a bright red reminder of everything that’s happened.
“You know what?” I say. “Go ahead and take that vacation. Double it, actually.”
“R-really?” she asks, squinting at me in confusion. “Are you sure? Is this a test?”
I feel bad that she has to ask such a question. I really wasn’t the best boss I could have been. My default excuse is to blame Uncle Charles and his strict mentorship, but I know I only have myself to blame. I’m not the same as him. I could make different and better choices so that I’m better, not as good as him.
“It’s not a test,” I assure her. “How about you take the rest of the day to get things on your end organized and you can head out tomorrow?”
Molly beams. “A-alright. If you’re sure, I mean.”
“I’m sure. Don’t worry. You’ve kept things running in my absence. I’m sure I can do the same in yours.”
“You really should take some more time off, Miss Pace. What with your head injury and all.”
“My doctor’s already given me a lookover. He says I’ve made a full recovery. There’s no need to be overly cautious anymore.”
Molly eyes all of my untouched work and nervously bites her lip. “Are you sure? You don’t… Don’t take this personally, Miss Pace, but you don’t seem like your old self.”
I rub at my tattoo again, doing my best to ignore the sticky lump slithering its way down my esophagus. “I’m … I’m totally fine,” I lie unimpressively.
She tosses her chin in the direction of the big fat yellow A4 envelope sitting on my desk. “I see you haven’t looked over the restraining order Mister Maloney organized for you.”
I bite my bottom lip. “I don’t really think I need it.”
Molly furrows her brows. “I know it’s ultimately your decision, Miss Pace, but what that guy did to you–”
“I don’t feel like talking about it.”
She promptly shuts up and nods. “I understand. I’ll get going. If you need anything between now and before my vacation starts, please don’t hesitate to call me.”
I smile at her, a real smile. “Thank you, Molly. I’ll do that. Tell your brother congratulations for me.”
Molly smiles, looking genuinely pleased. She leaves just as quickly as she came.
I lean back in my leather office chair and sigh heavily, lifting the yellow envelope to slip the contents out. There are stacks on stacks of official looking documents, print so small it hurts my eyes to look.
Why do they not double space these things?
After I came back from the Cayman Islands, Maloney and Molly insisted that I draft up and file an official restraining order against Roman. They argued that if he was willing to fly all the way to a different country to try to get to me, more formal action needed to be taken in place of a stern word.
But he didn’t actually do anything to me.
I haven’t stopped thinking about Roman, much to my chagrin. The accident left me in an incredibly vulnerable place. He could have been so much more malicious, so much more vengeful, and I would’ve been completely at his mercy. Roman could have had me sign legal documents actually stating that we were married, and as such would be entitled to half of all my possessions. As far as I and Maloney can tell, nothing was ever signed.
Which tells me Roman didn’t plan any of this. At least, not in the beginning.
I mean, it’s not like he could have predicted a metal pipe would hit me directly on the head. And the Roman I know doesn’t exactly have a penchant for scheming. He’s always been too honest, too good of a man to even consider trying to manipulate me, even for personal gain. It wasn’t even personal gain.
Even if he did manage to get a hold of the money again, Roman probably would have used the money for his charity because that’s just the kind of selfless guy he is.
Stop it.
Stop praising him when he tricked you, Charlie.
I can’t help it. Even though I’m angry beyond belief, enraged to the point that my heart’s about to burst, I can’t stop thinking about our time together.
All of the sweet words, the gentle and fleeting touches, the way Roman’s very presence instilled calm and patience that I’d rarely ever been able to find all by myself. Would a guy with malicious intent bother holding me whenever I was on the verge of panic? Would a guy who was after my money waste time planning romantic outings and taking me to nice dinners? No. No, that just doesn’t make sense no matter how I try to see the bigger picture.
His voice was comfort.
His smell was like home, the only familiar thing I could grasp onto on an island hundreds of miles away.
And that’s exactly why I can’t bring myself to even read his stupid name on this stupid restraining order. Every time I try, I think about our time on the island enjoying wonderful dinners, beautiful scenery, laughing with one another without a care in the world. On our honeymoon that wasn’t actually our honeymoon.
I hate myself for missing him. It’d be an easy thing to pick up the phone and call him. It’d be super easy to call Tommy and have him take me to Phoenix House to speak with Roman in person. There are a million and one things I could do right now so I don’t have to mope in my office. My office that’s beginning to feel more and more like a prison of my own making.
But what he did was inexcusable. He tricked me. Lied to me again and again. Every fond new memory we created together is now tainted by a sharp and splintered layer of hurt. When Roman told me he loved me, did he mean it?
Did I mean it?
I don’t understand Roman’s motivations. He says he wasn’t trying to hurt me, but I’d be too much of a fool to fall for his lies again. I trusted him wholeheartedly, opened up to him, relied on him to be my anchor. After losing my memories, I was glad to have someone by my side, someone to hold onto.
Forgotten Inheritance (Inherit Love Book 6) Page 12