by Rita Hogan
“Not at all. It isn’t necessary to keep it a secret.” She paused. “Well, I know you both have a lot to do.” Looking back at Tomas, she added, “It was nice meeting you.”
“I hope you are better soon,” Tomas offered.
Landon could tell that his right hand man was reluctant to leave Brooke. He knew male appreciation, interest, lust—however one wished to label it—when he saw it.
When they were seated at the dining room table, Landon took his legal pad and wrote in big letters across the top of the blank page, Don’t even think about it.
Tomas read the words his boss had scrawled on the canary yellow paper. He took his pen from his pocket and penned his response, I’ll challenge you for her. Best man wins?
If looks could kill, Tomas would have been six feet under at that moment.
Chuckling, the vice president wrote, Okay, okay.
Assured because Tomas was a man of his word, Landon began the meeting. “Have you gone over the profit margins for each of the properties? If so, what are your thoughts?”
“I’m concerned about the Lake House in Chile. They barely made any money last quarter, but their revenues are high. Expenses went up across the board, but they seem unusual.”
“They get their fuel from Brazil,” Landon interjected, “and they have raised their rates. Increased fuel costs affect the price of everything.”
“The increase went into place only two months ago. Most suppliers don’t hike rates until a few months after fuel costs change, especially price leaders. It’s too soon.”
“So what are you saying, Tomas?”
“I think we potentially have someone or some people at the Lake House who are taking advantage of the rate increases.”
“Excellent!” Landon exclaimed. “I’ve already contacted Meyers and Peterson to conduct a full scale audit. I’d like for both of us to be there. I hope we’re wrong, but if not, I want whoever is stealing from us to feel the heat from corporate. The audit has been arranged to take place three weeks from now. Is your schedule free?”
Tomas nodded.
“Good, I’ll have Camilla make our flight arrangements.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Brooke was fascinated as she listened to Landon’s meeting. His words sparked a barrage of data in her mind. She knew numbers intimately. Words and terminology of accounting practices tumbled into her awareness. Had she been more than a photographer? Later, she would discuss her thoughts with Landon; perhaps he could show her some of his accounts. It would be a good test to see if the knowledge she had was practical.
Halfway through the meeting, she concluded that Landon Gray was impressive, and a force to be reckoned with in the business arena. He was tenacious but effective, never lacking the graciousness she had already come to appreciate in him. It pleased her to see this aspect of his nature affirmed in his day-to-day tasks. She appreciated the approach he took with his vice president. Rather than tell him what he already suspected about the Lake House accounts, he had asked questions to see what Tomas concluded on his own. It was the mark of a good leader.
Brooke’s mind drifted to what he had told her about the accident on their way home from the hospital. He had mentioned his involvement in a horrific incident and his search for forgiveness. She had been in too much pain to think about it; but last night as she lay in bed, she couldn’t help wonder what could be the cause. She was unable to reconcile the kind and caring man she knew with something horrible he had done. It didn’t seem possible.
Unable to sleep, she had used her phone to search the internet for anything she could find on Landon Gray. What she read was very interesting, but nothing scandalous. Surely, someone with his status would have prominent news reports if he had done something terribly wrong.
What also puzzled her was her reaction to what he had told her the night of the accident. Why had she become visibly distraught because of the name he had given his ship? It didn’t make sense, unless she had developed such strong feelings for him and couldn’t bear the thought of him having done something so terrible. Brooke didn’t buy into that line of thinking. She felt confident she would have reserved her judgment until she heard the specifics. From what she was able to gather, Landon had not shared the details. If they continued to be friends, perhaps she would ask him and hope for his confidence. When and if he did divulge the details to her, maybe her reaction would make more sense.
One thing she would inquire about was the exchange of written notes that took place between Landon and Tomas when they first sat down for their meeting. Brooke couldn’t help wondering if it had to do with her. The way the vice president looked at her when he entered the apartment spoke of keen interest. The lingering of his touch when he shook her hand had sent a pulse of awareness through her. She had not been moved by the contact; however, she could tell he was.
She blushed at his compliment about her beauty because she thought he was extremely handsome, even more so than Landon. Until this morning, she wouldn’t have believed that it was possible for someone to be more attractive than the man who was caring for her, but Tomas certainly was.
Interestingly, Brooke had felt nothing more than a simple awareness of the executive’s physical appearance. Hopefully, he didn’t use his looks to his advantage. Landon, on the other hand, seemed to fill her mind and every one of her senses with thoughts and feelings that surprised her upon so short of an acquaintance.
He elicited reactions in her that she sensed were out of character for her, like how she had held his hand while he slept in the chair. Rather than speak his name to wake him, she had an overwhelming urge to touch him. Without a point of reference from her blank mind, she wouldn’t know for sure if her reaction was out of step with her nature; but it felt that way.
The other thing she perceived from deep within was that her memories held a great deal of pain. She could almost picture in the dark, murky waters of her mind a tragic history lurking in the shadows. It frightened her more than the prospect of never remembering.
Landon’s words soothed her fear. He would help her deal with whatever had broken her heart, if she would let him. If she never remembered, he promised to help her build a new life. Faced with both possibilities and experiencing the wonder of Landon, Brooke voted for the second option, never remembering the inevitable pain of her past. Something propelled her toward the notion of having a new life. If that meant her kind and handsome caretaker would be a part of it, all the better.
* * *
“Is the café part of the Grand Vue or independent?” Brooke asked as she perused the menu.
“It’s one of the hotel’s eating establishments. We wanted to offer guests a different venue and atmosphere for meals. This is more casual, whereas the dining room is more elegant and formal. We also have a bar where meals are served, which is even less staid. Is anything catching your eye?”
“How is the French onion soup?”
“I’m going to tell Gaston you asked me that,” he said with a wink.
With mock indignation, she retorted, “You wouldn’t.”
He laughed. “I might. They say King Louis XV created the dish in the eighteenth century. If Gaston is making it, you’ll never taste anything better.”
“Then that’s what I’ll have.”
He stood, reaching for the menus. “Very good, I’ll go place our orders.”
When he returned, Brooke worked up the nerve to ask him about the notes he and Tomas had exchanged earlier that morning.
“I didn’t realize you had noticed.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. It’s none of my business. I couldn’t keep from wondering . . .” She didn’t finish.
“Wondering what?” Landon gently insisted.
Still hesitant to share, but unable to retreat, she told him. “This will sound like I’m speaking straight out of a high school playbook, but I was wondering if the notes were about me?”
He decided to clue her in on the contents of the exc
hange. “I wrote, ‘Don’t even think about it.’”
Brooke felt embarrassed at having assumed it was about her. “Now don’t I feel silly? I guess it wasn’t about me after all?”
Landon reached for her hand, which rested on the table. “It had everything to do with you.”
The heat that brightened her cheeks was a combination of the embarrassment she felt and the pleasing sensation his touch caused. “I don’t understand.”
“What did you think of Tomas?”
“Is this a trick question?”
“No, simply give me your honest first impression,” he encouraged.
“Well, he’s an extremely gorgeous man, a real head turner . . .”
“And. . .” Landon interjected, obviously wanting her to move off of the subject of how wonderful Tomas looked. Brooke smiled inwardly.
“He was attentive in his greeting to me. I was flattered that he thought I was beautiful, especially coming from someone as handsome as he is.”
Landon arched his eyebrows at Brooke’s reference to his looks again. I wonder if he wishes he had evaded my inquiry, she thought.
“I suspect he ‘dates’ a lot of women. Unfair of me to say and I hope I’m wrong about that. But I didn’t think anything more about him.” I could only think about you, she wanted to add, but thought better of it.
“What if I told you he rarely gives women the time of day because they are always throwing themselves at him? He will only say what is absolutely necessary to the opposite sex unless someone manages to strike a chord with him, which you obviously did. As cautious as he’s been, Tomas has been unlucky in love. Does that cause you to change your mind about him?”
Brooke was being put through some test. She wasn’t entirely sure why, but she decided to follow suit and answer honestly. “No. As I watched the two of you and reflected on his attentive greeting, all I could think about was you.” There, she had said it.
The look in Landon’s eyes changed, but she couldn’t read the expression. Pressing on, she added, “In a few short days you’ve managed to hold captive nearly every one of my thoughts. It’s easy to blame the amnesia; I have no one else to think about. But there’s more. I feel as if I’ve always known you. You have struck a chord with me.”
Whether it was a conscious or subconscious action, Landon was rubbing his thumb over the top of her hand. “Tomas wrote, ‘I’ll challenge you for her. Best man wins.’ The look I gave him caused him to reconsider. You don’t belong to me, Brooke, but I meant what I said yesterday about being there for you and giving you new memories. Will you let me?”
Brooke was overwhelmed by his words and the emotional storm they caused; all she could do was nod.
He smiled at her, giving her hand one final squeeze. “The food will be here any minute. Do you want to start looking at pictures of The Absolution now or after we eat?”
“We can start now.”
* * *
The next two days went by faster than either Landon or Brooke wanted. After their working lunch at the café, Landon continued to tackle tasks at the dining room table, while Brooke downloaded and organized the pictures of The Absolution into files onto her laptop. When she was done, she emailed them to Landon, and then began working on the lasagna dinner she planned to make for their evening meal.
Finished with her creation, she proudly placed the casserole on the table. It looked good. Even Landon commented on the nice golden color of the cheese. When Brooke sliced into it and attempted to spoon a serving onto his plate, instead of a solid mass of perfectly layered pasta, cheese, and meat sauce, she discovered a wet, gloppy, pooling mess.
Landon encouraged her to put it on his plate. He waited until she had served herself some before taking a bite. She couldn’t look at him as she took her first taste. Brooke could barely swallow the gelatinous morsel. With mirth in her eyes, she glanced at Landon, telling him she must be Irish. Her one and only reward for all her efforts was the burst of laughter which erupted from his perfect mouth. Brooke stood. While picking up their plates, she begged him to call for room service. He thanked her profusely for saving him, for he would have been honor-bound to eat the whole serving. Landon’s comment made her laugh.
The following morning she braved the bright light of day with the sunglasses he had purchased for her before leaving the hospital. Without the medication, the pain was extreme. Each morning she continued to awake with the jackhammer pounding in her head. She took her medicine and then lay back down again for another thirty to forty-five minutes, until the throbbing once again began to feel like hummingbird’s wings.
The couple took a leisurely stroll through the resort’s blooming garden with the view of the Andes mountain range in the background. She asked him about his family life and was sad to discover that while his parents were both kind and caring, they had been very busy with their own lives and not as vested in their children as they should have been. Hearing him talk about the love he had for his sister, Natasha, and her family caused her to feel odd things—emotions that had no rhyme or reason. She kept her thoughts to herself.
Late in the afternoon of her third day, Landon stood at the doorway of his guest bedroom, watching Brooke as she packed her belongings.
He didn’t want her to leave. He was on the verge of begging her to stay with him forever, but reason grabbed hold of him. They needed time. No matter how she felt about him and whether she realized it or not, it was too soon. Brooke’s words at the café had given him unadulterated hope. No matter the intensity, he couldn’t help feeling a flicker of fleetingness, like a murmur causing the heart to beat off rhythm. She would remember, and the pain would come. He would stand by his offer to help her through it, but would she let him?
Brooke turned and noticed him leaning in the doorway. She gave him a small smile. Is she disappointed to be leaving too? he pondered.
“Come in and have a seat. I’m almost done.”
Landon sat on the bed next to the bag she had used to pack a few things for the three day stay in his apartment. “Were you planning to come down to my office tomorrow to look at some of the hotel’s financial reports?” Earlier that morning she had mentioned to him the accounting facts that came pouring through her mind while Landon had been talking to Tomas about their Chile property.
He had been happy to agree to her idea of looking at some statements. He would do whatever he could to help her remember; he had no choice.
“I was planning to, if it’s all right with you.”
“Go to Chile with me?” The invitation was suddenly expressed. “We’ll stay a day longer and I’ll take you on some roads not taken.”
“Frost,” she said.
There was a look of expectancy on his face. “Do you remember Villa La Angostura?”
She shook her head. “I know the poem The Road Not Taken. What happened in Villa La Angostura?”
Landon reached for her, pulling her down on the bed beside him and told her details of that day up to the time they re-boarded the ship.
“It sounds like a lovely day.” She sighed.
“It was, and so will the one in Chile be, if you agree to go with me.”
“Of course I will! New memories, remember?”
How could he forget?
“Good, it’s settled then. Are you ready for this to be closed?” he asked pointing to her suitcase.
Brooke nodded with trembling lips. “I don’t want to remember my past, Landon.”
He saw how afraid she was. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. It’s normal to be scared of what we don’t know. What is concerning you the most?”
“The pain. I have a clean slate, nothing to cause me sorrow. Yet, I feel it lurking in the dark.”
How many times had Landon wished for a clean slate, to wake up one day with the ability to forget what had happened to Jacob Nelson.
Brooke was living his dream, but not remembering all of the things that were good about her past life would be tragic. He wouldn’t give up the last two we
eks with Brooke, nor the lifetime of memories with his family, for a clean slate, and he wouldn’t let her do the same.
“There is always pain, Brooke, but there is also good. There are people in your past whom you loved that come with a trove of wonderful moments. You will want to remember them.”
Searching his eyes, she asked, “How can you be sure? What if I was abused and neglected? What if I had no one to love or to love me?”
“Everyone always has someone. If you could remember whom that someone was and how happy they made you, you wouldn’t want to ever forget, no matter how painful the rest of the remembering is. Trust me, Brooke.”
She did trust him. His words gave her hope, something she clung to as she felt the sorrow of leaving Landon’s constant presence these past seventy-two hours. She would miss being with him every waking moment.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The following day, Brooke met Natasha for the first time. It was Sunday, and after reviewing the Grand Vue’s financial statements that she deciphered with ease, Landon invited her to join him for family dinner at his sister’s house.
She had been reintroduced to Gaston on Friday when she and Landon had dinner in the dining room. Before taking their seats, they had stopped by the kitchen to say hello.
As they drove to his sister’s house that afternoon, Brooke was able to admire the scenery for the first time. Even through the dark lenses of her sunglasses, she could tell it was stunning.
“I must have been an accountant at some point,” Brooke said to Landon as she faced the window.
“From the sound of things, I imagine you were a CPA. You knew higher level accounting practices. It’s probably what you did to support yourself while you did what you loved.”
Brooke turned to look at him. “Do you do what you love?”
He nodded. “I’m blessed to have the opportunity, but I had to work for it. Before I became the head of the company’s South American Division, Natasha was the president. She put me through the paces, making me earn my right to take the reins.”