Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 3) (16 page)

102.7. Way too high for
a grown woman. Especially one with a persistent case of unexplained
amnesia.

I smiled at her. “Can
you get up?”

“Why?”

“We’re going to put
some clothes on you and take you to the doctor.”

“No, Drex,” she
said, trying to slide under the duvet.

That damn stubborn
streak. “Why not?”

“Because I’m okay.”

“I hope that’s true,” I said,
taking her hand. “But I don’t care if I have to bring you in over
my shoulder, you’re coming with me. Now.”

I sat in an orange
plastic chair in the ER waiting room, piped music drilling a hole
through my brain. Not even the teenage girl with the broken nose or
the expectant father wearing a hole in the carpet seemed as scared
shitless as I was.

This was my fault.

If I’d made Jane go
to the doctor sooner, it wouldn’t have happened. But I’d wanted
her too much, and tried to force the situation to be different. I’d
refused to see what was staring me in the face. She’d been through
something big, and neither of us knew what it was.

This was what happened
when I didn’t think.

If Jane got better, I’d
do what I should have done in the first place: take her to the
police, publicize her story, figure this the fuck out as fast as I
could. If I could keep the spotlight off me, so much the better. Once
Jane was gone – and she
would
be gone once we knew who she was – I had a business to run. There
were hundreds of people whose livelihoods depended on me, and I
wasn’t going to let them down by getting distracted by a woman.

Not that she was just
any woman. If she were, I wouldn’t be jumping out of my skin every
time somebody in scrubs walked in.

After what felt like
three days hanging from a crumbling cliff by my fingernails, a tall,
rail-thin doctor in his mid-forties motioned to me. In the few
seconds it took me to stand up, I went from worried sick to fucking
frantic. All for someone I’d known a week.

“It looks like a
virus to me,” the doctor said. “She’s got a fever and she’s a
little dehydrated, but everything else checks out – her blood
tests, her CAT scan. We’ll put her on a course of antibiotics in
case it’s a tick bite.”

My relief was shoved
aside by the need to know a lot more. “It
looks
like a virus, or it
is
a virus? How do we find out for sure?”

“Usually we don’t,
but her signs point to something that isn’t too serious.”

“What about her
memory loss?” I asked. “Does that have anything to do with it?”

“I don’t think so.
I can keep ordering tests but I doubt we’ll find anything. Whatever
happened to her – I’m not seeing it on the imaging. Amnesia’s a
tricky thing. It can happen because of an emotional shock, or some
kind of injury.”

It sounded like
something from a novel, but this was Jane’s life. And my life, too.
“An emotional shock? That’s actually possible?”

“It’s not unheard
of.”

I hated to ask, but I
had to. “What are the chances she could be…pretending?”

The doctor shook his
head. “It’s difficult to keep up a charade when you’ve got a
hundred-and-three degree fever. I asked her a lot of questions about
her past. She couldn’t answer any of them.”

“So – what now?
Does she need to stay in the hospital?”

“Not for what she’s
dealing with today. You can take her home after we’ve given her
some fluids. And when she’s feeling better, you should probably
talk to the police and see if they can tell you anything.”

There was no probably
about it. “I will, absolutely,” I said. “Thank you for taking
care of her.”

The doctor shrugged as
if he dealt with women like Jane every day. “Of course. And get her
to a good neurologist. I know her tests look okay, but with that kind
of memory loss she needs to see one soon.” He turned to go, then
turned back. “She said you’ve only known each other a week.”

“Less, actually,” I
said. “Six days.”

“She’s lucky she
ran into you. A lot of people…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

He had no idea. If he could only see
her standing outside The Dead End in her t-shirt and panties, he’d
never discharge her. “Believe me,” I said. “I know.”

Jane in my bed with a
fever was just as beautiful as Jane without, except her vulnerability
was magnified ten-fold. Her femininity, fragility, everything about
her that grabbed me was right there whenever I looked at her.

She lay back against
the pillows acting like a trooper with the TV remote and my laptop,
but that’s all it was – acting. She was in no condition to do
anything but rest, at least for a few days. And I hated myself for
liking that idea.

Of course I didn’t
want to see her sick. But I didn’t want her to let her go.

I’d never cooked for
a woman. I hardly cooked for myself, especially now that I had a chef
on staff. But as soon as we got back from the hospital, I sent
everybody home so I could be alone with her. She might not be with me
much longer. I wanted every minute of the time we had, even if it
meant taking more days away from the office.

It wasn’t like I’d
be out of touch. That’s what phones and email were for. And I
was
the boss, after all.

As soon as my chef and
housekeeper left, I made chicken soup. I made oatmeal and scrambled
eggs and squeezed ten oranges for juice. And while Jane slept, I did
something I hadn’t done in years – dishes. I did mounds of them
and enjoyed the hell out of it. On a normal day I was so consumed
with which space to rent and how quickly to expand that I couldn’t
even think about domestic chores. It turned out they weren’t so
bad. They were actually kind of relaxing.

It had been months
since I’d taken time off to do anything but search for my father.
But instead of lying on a beach or sipping Barolo in Rome, I was
waiting hand and foot on a woman with the flu. I wouldn’t have had
it any other way.

She wasn’t supposed
to look this sexy. But Jane always managed to defy expectations, even
while lying in bed in one of my threadbare old t-shirts, a cold
washcloth on her forehead and a thermometer under her tongue.

I waited two days,
until her temperature was normal and she was strong enough to sit in
the living room, to have the talk. The talk I’d promised the doctor
and myself I would have with her. Finally, almost nine days late.

“Listen,” I said,
sitting beside her on the couch. “Do you think you’re up for
leaving the house tomorrow?”

She smiled. “I was up
for it today, as you’ll remember, but somebody said hell no. In
those exact words.”

And so I had, quite
firmly. “Well, I think I’m ready to give you a furlough for the
afternoon.”

“I can’t wait. All
I want is to sit in the sun and breathe fresh air.”

“Which you’ll have
plenty of time to do. After we take care of something else.”

Her eyes glimmered for
a moment, then turned wary and dark. “What do you mean, something
else?”

“Well,” I said,
speaking in a soothing tone. “We need to find out if anyone’s
looking for you.”

Her mouth flattened.
“By going to the police, you mean.”

“That’s the only
way to find out,” I said. “We can’t avoid it.”

“We?” Fists balled,
Jane folded her arms. “Don’t I have a say in this? This is my
life, you know, the only one I have now.”

“It’s not about
having a say, it’s about taking care of you. On the advice of the
ER doctor, I made an appointment with a neurologist. She specializes
in –”

“I’m done with
doctors,” Jane snapped. “They can’t tell me anything.”

“Maybe this one can,”
I said.

She’d been starting
to get color back in her cheeks, but now she looked drawn and pale.
“Why are we going through this again? Doctors, the police --you
already went to the cops and they knew nothing about me.”

“That was days ago,”
I said. “Things might have changed.”

“I’ve done nothing
but watch the news since I’ve been sick. If things had changed, I’d
know.” She pursed her lips in a defiant pout. Her eyes flickered
nervously as if she were looking for a way out.

“What’s really
going on? Why are you so worried about the police?”

Her response was to
stare at me. Her eyes had never been bluer, or more afraid.

I put my hand on her
thigh. It felt tight and tense under my robe. “You can trust me,
you know.”

She looked as doubtful
as she had sitting in my truck that first day. “Can I?”

“Yes. Nothing you
tell me will leave this room.”

She pulled in a long,
ragged breath. “Do you promise?”

There weren’t many
things I could say for sure, but this was one of them. “I promise.
Now, talk to me, Jane. It’s time.”

If there was anyone in
the world I could trust, it was Drex.

Or so I wanted to
think. If he knew the truth, everything might change.
He
might change.

But I couldn’t lie
anymore. I didn’t have the energy, and Drex didn’t deserve
deceit.

After a long pause, I
forced myself to speak. “I told you I did some things. Those first
few days, when I was on my own.”

“Yeah,” he said in
a hushed voice. “So?”

“So, I got into
trouble with somebody.”

“Somebody? Who?”

I could feel my pulse
throbbing in my neck. “Well…a truck driver who picked me up about
a hundred miles from Chimayo.”

Drex’s eyes were like
a harsh spotlight on my face. “What happened?”

“He…” It made me
sweat to remember the icy grip of fear, the certainty that I would
never escape alive. “He got me into a hotel room. He said he’d
give me food and a place to sleep. He said he wouldn’t touch me.
It…didn’t work out that way.”

Naked rage darkened
Drex’s face. “Did he hurt you?”

“No. I got away.”

“Thank Christ, Jane.
It sounds like
he
should be worried about the police, not you.”

“Except that…” I
dropped my gaze.

“What?”

I remembered the sound
of the lamp against the trucker’s skull and shuddered. “I kind
of…hit him over the head. And tied him to the bed. And left him
there.”

When I could bear to
look up, I saw that Drex was smiling. I frowned. “What’s so
funny?”

“Nothing, it’s
just…Jesus. I didn’t realize you were such a wildcat.”

“I had to be, Drex.”

“I know, but…you
versus a truck driver. It’s a hell of an image in my mind.”

“Mine, too,” I
said, sliding a hand over my eyes. “I wish I could forget it.”

His hand was gentle on
my arm. “Is that how you lost your clothes?”

“Yes. I had to get
out of there as fast as possible. A patrol car pulled into the
parking lot and I still don’t know why. Maybe it was a coincidence,
or maybe somebody heard something.”

He stroked my hair back
from my damp forehead. “You must have been terrified.”

“I was. Do you
understand why I can’t go to the police?”

“Jane, you had to
defend yourself. And there’s not much chance of them putting you
and that trucker together in the same room.”

I realized that I was
tearing a tissue to pieces in my hands. “But what if they do?”

“If they do, I’ll
back you all the way.”

“You say that now.
But if the story got out, just imagine the scandal.”

He gave me a confused
squint. “Are you saying you won’t go to the police because of
what some reporters might do?”

My throat was tight
with the tears I refused to cry. “I don’t want to cause a
publicity disaster for you. People saw me walking into that motel
room. They’ve probably described me to the police.”

As excuses poured from
my mouth, I knew it was crazy. I was putting off the inevitable,
choosing a short-term fairy tale over reality.

Drex gripped my hands
in his. “I understand your worry, but it doesn’t change anything.
I told the doctor I’d go to the police. I should have done it two
days ago.”

My resistance flared as
if he were trying to drag me off a mountain. “Wait a little
longer,” I said. “Until I’m ready for what might come next.”

“Jane…”

“Whatever you want me
to do, I’ll do it. Just give me time.”

He sighed. Everything I
wanted was against his better judgment, and mine, too. But I wasn’t
ready to be thrown back into the world. Not yet.

“Please,” I said,
hating that he was making me beg.

“We can’t avoid
this forever,” he said firmly. “You know that.”

Though I tried to stop it, a hot
tear fell over my cheek. “I’m not asking for forever. I’m
asking for now.”

Jane asked for now, and
that’s what I gave her.

Not because I was a
pushover, but because I wanted it, too. Oh, hell, I wanted more than
now. I wanted to keep her locked up in my apartment forever, a
willing, erection-inducing slave.

I waited until she was
completely well before I went back to the office. I walked into
headquarters on a Wednesday morning to open stares from the women in
junior positions and internships. Young as they were, they should
have known better than to gawk at the boss, even if he had just taken
vacation for the first time in two years.

I could hardly blame
them, though. After all, I
was
the city’s most eligible workaholic, if those words made sense
together. I had a high-profile ex and a job I loved like a wife, but
that didn’t keep women from thinking I was trappable.

I knew what they saw
when I entered a room: the perfect sperm donor. Happily-ever-after, a
closet full of expensive shoes, and babies, babies, babies.

That’s what Brooke
saw, even now, three years after we’d broken up and two years after
we’d last slept together.