Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 4) (11 page)

Friends I didn’t know
hugged me and made me promise to get together. Everyone said they
were here for me, so many times it was like a cheerful nail in my
brain.

When I finally escaped
into the office with my name on the door, I felt drained and shaky. I
shut the door, leaned against it, and breathed.

I’d get through this.
I had to. The choice was to stay home all day, waiting for David and
trying not to lose my mind.

For one stressful hour,
I’d managed to be the lawyer I was supposed to be. I’d worn her
clothes and talked to the people she knew, and now I was sitting in
her chair with a pile of her work in front of me. But inside I was
another woman. And that woman would forever be hopelessly in love
with Drex.

Unfortunately, I had an
important case coming up and couldn’t waste time living in the
past. That was what Drex was to me now – the past. An amazing love
affair that was officially over and done with.

With my assistant,
Christine, by my side answering questions, I worked all afternoon. I
tried not to panic when I struggled to remember a term or a brief I’d
written the month before. Everything would take time. Yes, it was
hard work, but this was my life now. And damnit, I was going to live
it.

Stay
positive
, I thought, flipping through court documents.
You’ll be okay
. The
doctor had made it clear: my memory could come back at any time. It
was much too early to give up hope.

But anything might
happen. Worry gripping my mind, I stared at the transcript in front
of me. What if my memory did come back, but it was months from now?
What if I left David for Drex, only to discover after my memory
returned that I was still in love with my husband? Was I ready to
throw aside my marriage for feelings that might change when I started
remembering things?

Not that I believed
they would. I couldn’t imagine ever wanting Drex less, even if I
could recall every minute I’d spent on Earth. But I couldn’t know
for sure. I couldn’t know who I’d be. I didn’t even know who I
was now.

Panic building in my
chest, I got up abruptly from my chair. I could feel Christine
staring at my back.

“Just taking a
break,” I said.

I stood at the window
overlooking the Boston skyline and took deep breaths. Bleak as life
seemed right now, I needed to be patient. This, too, would pass.
Eventually things would change, and they would get easier.

God knew they couldn’t get much
harder.

Briefcase loaded with
files, I drove home at six that night. If it weren’t for my car’s
navigation, I’d be hopelessly lost. Boston was still new, a maze of
brownstones and narrow streets. Had I really lived here for eighteen
years?

I was a few blocks from
my house when I saw a familiar car on the other side of the street. I
slowed down.

It was David’s Volvo.
He was sitting at a red light with a woman in the passenger’s seat.

Lily Barlow.

I’d seen her
photograph on the university website and from pictures taken at our
house. She was dark-haired and thin, almost as tall as David.
Everything about her said “old money” – classic wool blazer,
neat chignon, patrician features. She was also five years older than
he was, but in a way that made her seem intelligent and interesting.
Unlike the younger lawyer he was married to.

Maybe that was why we
never seemed to have anything to talk about. Not because of my memory
or disappearance, but because we had nothing in common. Ivy had said
as much.

I pulled up to the
curb, put the car in park, and watched them. This was the woman we’d
gone on vacation with. The woman who’d planted the seeds of my
alleged affair in David’s mind. She waved her hands around when she
talked, as if she were making an important point. He sat listening,
nodding, staring at the red light.

They’re
colleagues, nothing more.

There was no touch, no
tender glance, no kiss. No visible chemistry. Just two people in a
car having an intense conversation.

Like the intense phone
conversation I’d overheard the week before.

I was suddenly sure
that David had been talking to her that night, about me. What had
they been saying, and what did it mean?

The light turned green
and I watched them drive away. I remembered nothing about her, but I
hated her. Hated the way she seemed to hold my husband in thrall. If
only he listened to me that way when I spoke, as if I had something
to say.

My memory wasn’t the
only problem in our relationship. More than the lack of attraction
and awkwardness, something else was keeping us apart.

Somehow, I had to find out what it
was.

The invitation came the
next morning, slid neatly into the inbox on my desk by Christine. She
was no Ruby, but she was a hard worker and knew not to ask personal
questions. Like, what the hell I’d done for three weeks in Texas
and why that handsome, successful guy always showed up on television
in stories about me.

I might have thrown the
invitation away if the words Cougan Group hadn’t caught my eye.

It was from
him
, the man I couldn’t stop thinking about for more
than an instant. Fingers trembling, I tore the envelope open.

Inside was a piece of
card stock printed with the Cougan rattlesnake logo and the date of
his latest club opening. Underneath that, written in his neat, sexy
hand, was a personal note.

Would
love to see you if you can make it. Drex.

Heart plummeting, I
closed my eyes. I couldn’t possibly go.

I’d barely gone back
to work. I couldn’t take off for a long weekend, not now.

But what better way to
prove to the world that I had nothing to hide? I could go to the
opening with David’s blessing – if he would give it to me. He
might actually see the logic in it. Everything would be public and
above board. I could see Drex and we’d be friends before the whole
world. And in reality. We’d had our last fling and put it behind
us.

Sure, there might be
some lingering feelings, but I was an adult with a life of her own. A
little infatuation wasn’t going to derail me. I wouldn’t let it.

Besides, if he still
cared about me, wouldn’t he have called or sent an email? My law
firm had been all over the news, so it would have been easy to track
me down.

But no. I’d gotten a
form invitation, with the same kind of note he’d probably sent to
everyone on the guest list.

I crossed my arms and
exhaled sharply. Well, that was even more of a reason to go. I would
be just another person attending a club opening. I was over him. We
had both moved on.

If I repeated those
words often enough, maybe someday I’d start to believe them.

It was supposed to be a
big night, a sign of how much I’d accomplished and overcome.

I hadn’t let bad
press or a fugitive father stop me, and all of Houston society would
be there. It would have been perfect except for one thing. I could
hardly bear to say her name.

It hadn’t taken much
convincing on Ruby’s part to send out an invitation. My decision to
forget Jane and focus on work had lasted about eighteen hours, give
or take a few hours of fantasizing about her while I lay in bed with
the world’s biggest and loneliest erection. And now the joke was on
me, because all I’d gotten back was radio silence.

I should have called.
But every time I’d picked up my phone, I saw Celeste’s face. I
saw the face of a mother who considered me competition for the
daughter she’d almost lost.

A form invitation
seemed like the least offensive way to contact Jane. But she hadn’t
RSVP’d, called, or sent a message. And I understood.

If I’d been in her
shoes, I’d probably be doing the same thing. Putting the past
behind me. Keeping it in perspective. Avoiding temptation at all
costs.

But I wasn’t in her
shoes. Not even close.

I kept trying to make
the past the present, and tempting temptation. I was the worst thing
for Jane and myself, and I didn’t give a shit. I just wanted her. I
wanted to kiss her, fuck her, and own her completely.

“Here,” Brooke
said, reaching up toward my collar. “Let me fix that.”

What was she doing in
my office anyway? And why had I agreed to go to the opening in the
same limo with her and Scott? We’d already killed the story about
our reconciliation, but rumors would fly all over again when we
arrived together tonight. Now that I was officially a bachelor, she
saw an opening in my schedule for a wife, or at the very least, a
woman to share my bed on a regular basis.

“I can tie my own
ties,” I said, failing to keep the annoyance out of my voice.

“Most of the time you
can, but not tonight. Your mind is somewhere else.” She slid the
knot to the right and patted my shoulder. “Now you’re ready for
the red carpet.”

The red carpet, which I
should be walking with Jane on my arm.

She wouldn’t have
knotted my tie, she’d have ripped it off me before I left my
apartment and held out her wrists to be tied up. We’d have shown up
a little late, a little wrinkled, and grinning wickedly. We wouldn’t
have cared who suspected or how inappropriate we were.

At least, we wouldn’t
have three weeks ago. But a lot had happened since then.

Every night I lay in
bed, consumed by thoughts of her, sifting compulsively through the
facts I’d gleaned from news reports. There wasn’t much to go on.
Jane had disappeared from a Mexican resort after lunch. Security
cameras had footage of her starting down a trail toward a river dock,
where she was supposed to meet David’s colleague. She wasn’t seen
again until she woke up in a park almost two days and two-hundred
miles later.

Plausible enough story,
sure, if a gap in time of forty-eight hours and nobody seeing
anything qualified as plausible. One news anchor speculated that
she’d gotten rides between Mexico and the United States. I could
buy that. I just couldn’t figure out how Jane had lost her memory
somewhere between lunch and a park in Texas.

It irked me. It kept me
awake. I hated details that didn’t add up, especially when they
concerned the woman I loved.

If only I were seeing
her tonight. I’d be beside myself, grinning from ear to ear. And
Brooke would think it was all about her, because everything was,
right?

I got into the limo
downstairs with her and Scott and sat back with a huff. Fuck this
night, fuck this tuxedo, fuck the whole club opening nightmare. The
sooner we got it over with, the sooner I could be home ruminating
over an incident that didn’t make sense, and a woman I couldn’t
change.

“I’ll take a beer,”
I said, waving away Brooke’s offer of champagne. “Tall and cold.”

“Coming right up,”
she said.

She smiled her bright
white smile and handed me a frosty bottle. Hadn’t I done this about
three hundred times? Gone somewhere with Brooke and pretended to be
excited about it? If Jane weren’t seared into my mind, it could
have been two years ago and I wouldn’t have known any better. I’d
been going around in the same worn groove that long.

When we stepped out
into the glare of flashbulbs, I had the urge to get right back in the
limo. But I couldn’t bail out now. My employees had worked hard to
make this happen. I wouldn’t let them down even if it killed me.
And I kind of hoped it would.

Brooke shook back her
hair and grabbed my arm. Later tonight, I would remind her again, in
very clear terms. I wasn’t available. My heart was locked up on a
permanent basis by a woman I couldn’t have. The truth sucked, but
there it was.

I felt Brooke’s hip
against mine and smelled her dark, spicy perfume. Once upon a time,
I’d actually found her attractive in spite of the fact that she was
entitled and spoiled. What a different man I was now. It was amazing
how a few years could change a man.

“Smile,” she
whispered.

“I am.”

“Smile bigger.”

I was blinded by
cameras and images of Jane. Jane with her back to me, panties pulled
to her knees, letting me lick her ass and pussy until she screamed
with pleasure. It was one of my last memories of her, and one of the
most vivid. Sweet Jane, the love of my life. The only woman I wanted
to be here, and the only one who wasn’t.

“You’ve outdone
yourself, Drex.”

“So impressive.”

“I hear you’re
hosting the next World Series of Pool. Congratulations.”

Blah,
blah, blah.
I said thank you a hundred times and shook
more clammy palms than I could count. Cheek kisses, hugs, drinks,
cameras – they all blended together into one deafening dream
sequence I couldn’t wait to wake up from.

And by my side every
minute was Brooke, directing me this way and that and holding my arm
as if she’d fall over if she let go.

“You remember Susan
Richards, Drex? Walter Hammond? John Nash?”

No,
no, and no.
The bar. Point me toward the bar.

“Excuse me,” I
said. “I’ve just seen an old friend.” Yeah, an old friend named
Grey Goose on the rocks.

Just as I made a
concerted beeline for the lighted wall of liquor bottles, I saw
something. Not something, someone.

I’d only had two
drinks, so I wasn’t drunk. Not even close.

Maybe it was Brooke’s
perfume combined with a stuffy roomful of really loud people. I was
hallucinating, about to pass out, or both.

I took a deep breath
and my vision cleared.

It was her.

Goddamnit, it was
her
.

I might be a little
delusional of late, but this was not my imagination. Martini glass in
hand, she was smiling her brilliant smile and talking to Ruby.