Blank: Alpha Billionaire Romance (2 page)

That would be me one day. I could leave my shabby childhood and all its ghosts behind forever.

I was a few minutes from home now. I’d intended to stop and grab a small bite to eat, but Ava’s phone call had distracted me. Now I was hoping I had something left in the kitchen, otherwise, I’d have to run out tomorrow.

I waited at a red light, debating whether to turn left toward the all-night supermarket in a pre-emptive move, or turn right toward home. My stomach growled, loudly, making an argument of its own. It was after ten, but I knew I’d never get to sleep if my rumbling belly kept me awake. So when the light turned green, I stepped on the accelerator and turned left.

I never saw it coming.

There was no screech of tires, no honking horn. There weren’t even any headlights to indicate that another car was approaching. I barely had time to look up before I felt a massive, jarring impact. A boom, and a sound similar to nails on a chalkboard invaded my senses as the car jerked, then spun towards a wooden pole.

Chapter 2

Preslee

I was underwater, sinking. Something was pulling me down, something around my waist. No matter how hard I struggled against it, it kept dragging me further and further beneath the surface. I felt like my lungs were about to burst.

Then, all of the sudden, I wasn’t in the water at all. I was floating. It was night, and freezing outside. I was flying over a dark, unlit road. I saw a familiar silver car below me. It stopped at a light, then started to turn when, out of nowhere, another car sprang from the darkness and hit it violently, sending it spinning. The crunch of the metal made me flinch and put my hands over my ears.

A little girl in sky blue footed pajamas was flying beside me. “Come on, Pres,” she giggled. “Let’s have a sleepover.” She got into a floating twin bed and pulled a set of Barbie sheets up over her head. “Let’s pretend we’re camping!” she squealed. I got in beside her and she turned on a flashlight. I could hear yelling close by. The little girl put her hands over her ears and shut her eyes.

“It’s okay, Ava,” I said, trying to comfort her. “You can always come here when you’re afraid.”

Somebody pulled the sheets away from us. It was a lady, and she was crying. “All your fault!” she screamed, pointing at me.

I didn’t know who she was or why she was yelling. What was my fault? I reached for the girl, hoping she would protect me, but found she’d disappeared.

“You were a bad girl, and he left!” the woman repeated over and over again like a sick mantra.

I could hardly understand the words she was yelling at me, they were so jumbled together. She swayed back and forth in the dark bedroom, rocking with each word in a bizarre dance.

“He didn’t want a kid, but then you showed up and he left. Because of you! He left and my life turned to shit because of you.”

The woman went to a door in the room and pulled it open. She tore clothes and toys from the closet with a rabid, hungry force that shook me to my bones. Tears streaked down my cheeks, I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t look away from the madness. I held my pillow to my chest and sobbed. “Please, Mommy, I swear, I didn’t do it. I didn’t make him go. I miss Daddy too. Not my things, Mommy! Please… please,” I whispered so softly that I could barely hear myself.

Suddenly, I was sitting on Daddy’s lap and we were watching a baseball game. It was daytime now, and Daddy was drinking a beer. Daddy was almost as tall as the ceiling and could barely fit through our small doors. His rich brown hair was so different than my own ash blonde curls that I felt the need to pet it to make sure it was real. My eyes were glued to the screen, taking in the tight white pants stained with red clay and the speed with which the ball flew from mitt to mitt. I was asking him questions about the players, what their purpose was, how to score, why the silly man with the cage on his face was making weird hand gestures. Mommy was laying on the couch, an arm over her eyes.

“Will you shut up and watch the game already?” she said.

“Leave the kid alone,” Daddy answered, still focused on the game and taking a swig from the icy blue can at his side. “She wants to learn.”

“Well, maybe if she’d shut up and watch, she would,” Mommy whipped, oozing disdain. Mommy was sick again. She got sick a lot and would need to lay down and cover her eyes.

“Why don’t you go somewhere else?” Daddy said to Mommy. “Get the hell out of here if you’re going to be nasty. Just because you’re hungover doesn’t mean you get to talk to her that way.”

His huge, tan arm tightened protectively around me. I felt safe when Daddy was home, he’d never let Mommy be mean to me.

I strained to open my eyes. They felt weighed down, glued shut with cement. A steady beeping came from somewhere above me. I couldn’t move my arms. They felt stiff and heavy, like concrete blocks. My head felt the same way. I tried to turn my head to the side, and the effort was enough to nearly exhaust me. My energy felt like it was being syphoned from my body, and I didn’t know why.

Where the hell was I?

I was in bed. There was a window next to me. It looked bright and sunny outside. Next to the bed was a chair, but it was empty.

I turned my head, painfully slow, to the other side. Monitors attached to thin metal poles wrapped in tubes trailed back to my bed. I squinted to read the teeny words on the machine. I saw my blood pressure, my heart rate, and some other acronyms I wasn’t entirely sure about. Was this a hospital? Why was I here?

I skimmed my body and was shocked to find a bandaged IV in my arm, a monitor pulsing on my left index finger, and a blood pressure cuff on my upper right arm. I hesitantly lifted the crumpled, white hospital blanket to find cuffs around my calves that periodically tightened and loosened.

What the hell? Did I have surgery or something? Was I still woozy from the anesthesia? I frowned, fighting to recall how I got to the hospital. I couldn’t remember much of anything. I thought hard about what had brought me here…and drew a blank.

Nothing.

It took less than a minute for stark panic to set in.

“Help!” I tried to cry out, only my voice was hoarse and weak. “Help me, please!”

No one answered.

Was I alone? What had happened to me? A giant gray remote control sat beside me on the bed. The minuscule cartoon picture of a nurse next to a red button was a shining beacon of promise. I scrambled for the remote and jammed my finger on the button repeatedly, desperate for answers.

The door to the room swung open almost instantly, and a nurse flew in. “Doctor!” she shouted over her shoulder. “She’s awake!”

“Who are you?” My voice broke. “What’s going on?”

A gentle-looking man with dimpled cheeks and a wide smile strode into the room, “Miss Keats,” he grinned. “Welcome back.”

Welcome back? From where? The look on my face must have given away my confusion. A bright light was shone in my eyes while I was bombarded with a million and one questions.

How did I feel? Did I hurt anywhere? Did I know how I got here?

My reflexes were tested, my coordination checked out. Every inch of me was poked and prodded until, finally satisfied with the results of my physical examination, the doctor sat down on the edge of the bed.

“It’s wonderful to see those stunning eyes of yours, sweetheart, such a relief. I’m Dr. Edwards,” he ventured, “Now, I know this might be difficult, but do you remember your name?”

I opened my mouth…but nothing came out. The harder I tried to remember, the more frustrated I became. Nothing. What the hell was wrong with me? The question was something any child could answer, but I couldn’t. “You called me Keats when you walked in, right?” I asked.

“Well, her short-term memory seems to be working well enough,” the doctor observed, then nodded to a nurse who was taking notes. He turned back to me, “Yes, Miss Keats, I did. Do you remember your first name?”

“No,” I managed to say, eyes burning as the tears threatened to spill over. I gulped at the air, combating the urge to cry because I knew that if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop. What happened to me? “No, I don’t remember.” Dr. Edwards seemed concerned, but unsurprised. “And you have no memory of the events that happened before you came here?” he asked.

Again I shook my head. I didn’t understand what was happening. Why didn’t he just tell me?

He took my hand delicately in his. “Miss Keats, your first name is Preslee. Preslee Keats. You’re nineteen years old. You were on your way home from a night class when your car was struck by another vehicle.”

A car accident? I didn’t remember owning a car, let alone driving one.

He let that sink in for a moment, then continued. “The police haven’t been able to find the person who hit you, though they are still looking. You had no purse or identification in the car, so at first, there was no way of knowing who you were. Luckily, you were wearing a necklace with the name
Preslee
on it. A girl named Ava McCall reported you missing. Do you remember Ava?”

I wracked my brain, but it was like there was nothing inside except blank, white space.

“She told the police that she’d been on the phone with you earlier that evening, but that you hung up prior to the crash. When she couldn’t reach you the following day or the next, she reported you missing. The police contacted the major hospitals in the area and, with the help of your necklace, located you here. Ava identified you as Preslee Keats. She said the two of you have been friends since childhood.”

My head was spinning. Ava? I was at a loss for words. How could I confirm or deny anything when I had no memory of my life before the last half an hour or so? Ava. Ava. Ava. I repeated the name, hoping it would inspire something, a flash, a memory, her hair color, anything that could give me insight into our friendship.

The only thing that surfaced was a dense blanket of fog where my memories should have been. Dr. Edwards’ cornflower blue eyes crinkled with worry and something that bordered on sympathy. “When the EMTs brought you in, we weren’t sure you’d make it. Half of the ribs on your left side, and your left femur were broken. You had a punctured lung, numerous abrasions and contusions. Those have since healed. Your head injury was the most troubling.”

The way he said it made me cringe, picturing my brain rattling back and forth in my skull. “How bad was it?”

Dr. Edwards ran a steady hand through his styled salt and pepper hair. “We placed you in a medically-induced coma to wait for the swelling to go down, but even after we lifted the medication, you remained comatose. We’ve been waiting a long time for you to wake up.”

A long time? I suddenly remembered what he’d said. That my other injuries had healed. Broken bones and a punctured lung. I took a shuddering breath, anticipating pain, but there wasn’t any.

“How – how long?” I could barely ask the question.

“Preslee, today is March sixth.”

March? No. I shook my head. That didn’t sound right.

“You’ve been in a coma for four months.”

Four months? No. That wasn’t possible.

Dr. Edwards frowned, then seemed to think better of himself and lightly placed a hand on my shoulder, lowering his voice, almost as if he was talking to a small child. “Preslee, I know you’re shocked and confused. We had no idea how the injury to your brain would manifest when you woke up. It’s clear now that you’ve suffered severe memory loss. Do you remember your last name?”

“Keats,” I whispered.

He nodded, lips pulling into a satisfied smile. “Short-term still seems to be all right.”

“What about the rest?” My stomach was churning.

The doctor’s expression sobered. “We don’t know. It could be temporary, a result of the injury and then the trauma of having been in a coma for an extended period of time.” He glanced toward the door. “The nurse is calling your friend. Hopefully, seeing a familiar face will jog something, but if not, you’ll at least have someone around who knows your past.”

“Please, not today,” I said. “I can’t handle anything else today.”

“I understand,” he said. “This is a lot to take in. We’ll call to let her know you’re awake, but that you can’t have visitors just yet. Will that be okay?”

I nodded. A headache blossomed, sending pulsing pain to my temple and behind my eyes.

“We’ll bring the occupational therapist in later today to meet with you and make sure you’re able to perform all the basics. We’ll try to get you up and walking around as soon as possible. Sound good?”

I nodded again. I was too overwhelmed to do anything but mindlessly agree.

“As for the memories, don’t try to force them. If they’re going to come back, they’ll come on their own.”

When he left the room, I sank back into the hard hospital mattress, my mind whirling.

I had amnesia.

I’d spent the last four months of my life in a coma, but they weren’t the only months I was missing. My entire life before waking up here was gone. Vanished, as if it’d never happened. My memory was completely blank.

Chapter 3

Preslee

I hardly got any sleep that night, maybe because I had spent the past four months sleeping, but I knew that the real reason was because I couldn’t stop thinking about everything the doctor had told me. Was it true? If there was no identification in the car, how did they know the girl claiming to be my best friend was truly who she said she was? Why had no one else come forward to identify me? Didn’t I have any other family, or friends?