And then they were kissing each other. And Jeremiah was doing his best to put every single thing he felt for her into that kiss.
Ten days passed after Jeremiah had arrived on Islehaven. Then fifteen. His life took on a rhythm he liked. His time was his own. Remy was safe here. He was safe here. It was quiet, without pressure or demands. ButwithRemy. Hanging out with her. Holding her. Kissing her.
In time, his stress level dropped so low that his amnesia seemed to decide it was safe to let in a wider range of memories.
He recalled many of the trips he’d taken with his family before his parents’ divorce. Ski trips to Aspen. Beach trips to Turks and Caicos. Trips to visit his mother’s grandparents after they’d moved to California to escape the winters in Maine.
He recalled his years at school in Groomsport and his years in the karting circuit in Europe. While other kids his age had been attending normal middle schools and high schools back in the USA, he’d been completing his classes with a tutor in between training sessions.
Jeremiah was on a walk with Remy one morning, glancing to the side at the ocean, when he remembered steering theCamdenballacross the waves. He’d swiveled in the captain’s chair and looked over his shoulder. Sitting on the deck’s sofa, wearing a large hat, sunglasses, and a strapless dress . . .
Was Alexis.
Recognition bolted through him. He kept walking, slower now, on the trail on Islehaven. But he was seeing Alexis more than his actual surroundings.
She was stunning. Photos of her hadn’t fully prepared him for the power of her appearance in 3D—long legs crossed, picture-perfect dark hair, one hand supporting a champagne flute.
The emotion he’d felt toward her on that particular day? Love.
Gradually, another memory rose, of when he’d met Alexis. One of the women on the team who’d handled press had introduced them. Alexis had been worldly and flirtatious, and he’d immediately experienced a jolt of strong attraction. He’d used the double barrels of charm in his arsenal.
They were snowboarding. She looked like a model in her knit cap, her hair falling down either side of her fashionable snowsuit. He saw the two of them touring Appleton. Except that it wasn’t his house as he knew it now. It had been filled with someone else’s furniture and art. This was when they’d taken their first look at it. From across the room, she met his eyes from where she stood listening to the real estate agent. She gave him a knowing smile that clearly communicated,This is the one for us.
He envisioned himself, Alexis, Anton, and Camille sitting at a restaurant table overlooking a view of the French Riviera. Alexis threw her head back to laugh. Her elegant throat was white, the three gold necklaces around it slightly tangled.
Her personality began to take shape. She’d been intelligent. Ambitious like his mother but not nearly as forthright as his mother. It had been hard to get to know who she was down deep, below her persona. There he’d eventually found kindness, insecurity, willpower, competitiveness.
He was competitive, too. But only on the racetrack. Her competitiveness had no borders. He’d come to realize it was rooted in her need to be loved and her need for security. He’d determined to give her those things.
He’d proposed with a five-carat teardrop-shaped diamond ring because that’s the one she’d asked him to buy. They’d honeymooned in Fiji. The sex . . . The sex had been great—
They were standing in the bedroom of their Monaco apartment. She was wearing a negligee and screaming at him. Picking up a lamp, she threw it at his head.
On the path here on Islehaven, his head split with pain as if that long-ago lamp was connecting with his skull.
Right away, the memories of her ended.
ChapterTwenty-Two
On his eighteenth day on Islehaven, the real world came for Jeremiah in the form of a knock on Leigh’s door at ten in the morning.
He straightened from his spot at the kitchen table.
Remy never knocked when she came by, so he had no reason to think it was her. Even so, he couldn't stop himself from hoping as he crossed to the door.
Felix waited on the threshold.
His father wore a suit beneath a formal wool coat. He was dressed very much like he’d been dressed the only other time Jeremiah had interacted with him—that day at the hospital.
“Hello,” Felix said with relaxed ease, as if him showing up here was commonplace.
“Didn’t I ask you to stay out of my life until I reached out to you?” Jeremiah’s tone was more interested than accusing. Unlike at their first meeting, he did have memories of his dad now. Good ones. Some not-so-great ones.
“I was patient for a month and a half. That’s a record for me.” Felix arched a golden brow. “May I come in?”
In answer, Jeremiah opened the door farther.
Felix strode in like a king, looking around with interest. “Not your usual style of accommodation.”
