“Are you alright?”
I shook my head and pulled one leg up into my chest, forming a protective shield.
“What’s wrong? You look frightened.”
“Your cologne. It triggered a memory. You told me once about it. What is it again?”
“Um. Tom Ford I think. Tuscan Leather.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Scarlet bought it for me. She said it’s her favorite.”
I clutched my knee to my chest as Dirk slowed down to turn the corner of another switch back turn. He hugged the inside corner before we entered another straightaway.
“What memory?”
“What?” Deep in thought, I barely heard his question.
“You said my cologne triggered a memory. What memory?”
I glanced up and focused on Dirk’s face, fighting through the fog of memory.Am I suffering from a concussion?
The events from last night were still fuzzy. Dirk came over and spent the night. I told him as much as I remembered through the brain fog of my pounding skull. He wanted to take me to the hospital. To file a police report.
For whatever reason, I refused, and he didn’t force it.
In fact, Dirk had sat with me until I drifted off to sleep. I woke up in my bed—carried there by Dirk—with Dirk asleep beside me.
With day came a sense of distance from the events of the trauma from the previous day and a lingering sense of fear and danger.
Now, though, in this moment, the fear and danger had been triggered and had me in full-blown panic mode. Dirk’s cologne usually triggered lust, but now it triggered fear. I had smelled that scent, though, from someone else.
Dirk navigated a couple more switchbacks as we descended into the valley below us.
“Tuscan Leather. Scarlet gave it to you?”
“Yes. She said it turns her on. She said she likes her lover to wear it. I really should stop using it, though. Especially if it triggers…”
“Is it expensive?”
“Yeah. I think so. Scarlet has expensive tastes.”
“Would she give it to members of your security team as a gift?”
My mind raced now, trying to figure out this puzzle, and why his cologne had triggered me.
“Knowing Scarlet, I would say no. She said this is a private label custom blend. It goes for about three-hundred-fifty dollars.”
So, why would I have smelled it on Stu?
“Plus, she said she reserves it for her lovers. She can barely resist it.”
The memory of Stu’s cologne. There were hints of wood and leather, but there was something else. Something fruity. A hint of jasmine.
I had smelled something like that before, too. It was a perfume though, and not a cologne. Everything made sense now. I knew who wore that perfume. It had been worn by…
Descending a steep section of road, Dirk started tapping the brakes, which brought me out of my thoughts. He pressed his foot down firmly. No matter what he did, he could not slow the vehicle down.
