Amnesia?
Why had no one mentioned that to me before?
My focus flitted between the two women in disbelief, as though the answers would come from gawping alone.“What do you mean, he can’t remember?”
I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that Harper—the man who’d saved me and put his entire career on the line in the process—had lost his memory.How could he not remember me?The way we’d fled and everything that had happened to us since we left Britain?
He wouldn’t know our shared history, what we’d sacrificed for the other to get to that point, and critically, that we adored each other.Without that bedrock of understanding, there was nowhere for me to go and no means with which to go anywhere.
I was, quite literally, nothing without him.
“His memories are coming back slowly.”The nurse threw Kaspar a disparaging look as she joined our conversation.“We all just need to be patient.He needs time.”
“Oh, God.”Panic surged through my body, prodding at my disbelief and morphing it into despair.
I’d been so fucking relieved when I’d heard that Harper was okay, yet it appeared that the original diagnosis was relative.If he couldn’t remember me, then was he even the same man I recalled?
“Come on.”It was the nurse who wrapped a supportive arm around my shoulder and guided me toward the door.“I’ll take you to him.He wants to see you.”
“I can manage,” Kaspar added indignantly.
“I’d say you have managed enough, Officer.”The nurse offered Kaspar another withering expression.“What these people need is compassion.”
I didn’t fight as she steered me past Kaspar and opened the door, but my belly clenched with concern when we finally entered the room.The small, clinical space was just as I’d expected, but my focus fell immediately to the man in the bed at the center of it.
“Adam.”The nurse employed the same soft tone as she coaxed me close to the edge of his bed.“This is Miss Craness.”
“Caroline.”My voice was croaky as I corrected her.“I’m Caroline.”
“Caroline.”His brow rose as he tried my name for size, the tiny tug at his lips the only sign that he recognized me at all.
“I shall leave you.”The nurse looked from one of us to the other.“Press the button if you need me, Adam.”
“Danke.”His gaze followed her out of the door before it landed back on me.“You were with me when I was arrested, Caroline.”
“Yes.”I wanted to reach for his hand and feel the weight of those long, graceful fingers on mine, but somehow, I didn’t dare.If he hardly knew me, what would he make of such an overt sign of affection?
“And the officer tells me that we love each other.”He nodded toward the end of the bed, and I turned to find Kaspar waiting sheepishly by the closed door.
Catching her eyes briefly, I glanced back to the man who’d systematically turned my entire life upside down.From his part in the architecture of Jackson’s evil plans, to the way he’d plucked me from Mitchell’s clutches, everything he’d touched had irrefutably changed me.
“Do you often need other people to tell you when you love someone?”Sir.
I bit back on the final word, knowing its ramifications would be meaningless on a man who didn’t fully know who I was to him.Instead, I took his signature gesture and used it against him, arching my eyebrow at him until he responded.
“No.”The chuckle I’d heard a thousand times reverberated over me, reminding me that the man I loved was still there, even if he’d taken a temporary hiatus.“This is the first time.Sit down.”
He motioned to the edge of his bed, the authority in his voice making my feet move even before my brain had time to engage.In that one simple request, he reminded me of the man I’d first fallen into the orbit of; the one who’d captured me in more ways than one.The man in the bed was still the Adam Harper I loved.
Perching beside him, I swallowed down my anxiety.“So, aside from your arrest, you don’t remember me?”
“I hadn’t,” he hesitated, an uncharacteristic show of self-doubt glinting in his fabulous blue eyes.“But having you here is helping.I do remember more.”
“What do you remember?”
My heart hammered at both the reality of his memory loss and the prospect of helping him to regain the precious recollections.In that moment, all of our prior challenges seemed less serious; being on the run, being taken into Swiss custody, and even our uncertain future.All that mattered was helping him to connect the dots and know me again.
His lips curled.“I recall what I called you.”
