Knight in Shining Suit (54 page)

I opened my eyes and found
her gone. I felt a deep sense of loss. Far worse than when the
doctor told me I lost a year of my memories.

***

I don’t know how long I
lied down on the bed, just staring at the ceiling, trying to get
the image of Astrid, as well as her scent and the feel of her skin,
out of my head.

What’s worse, I was trying
my damn best not to feel this… black hole inside my chest. This is
new to me. I don’t know why I feel like this, but damn! I hate
it.

I wondered if Astrid felt
like this now. Maybe even worse. And I wonder how she hasn’t
brought herself to hate me yet. I would hate me if I made me feel
like this!

I stood up from the bed
and put on a pair of pajama pants. I stared at the bed we laid in
last night. Images of the passion we shared flashed through my
mind. I remembered her scent again, her warmth, the way she
screamed my name…

When I came down, I found
that she had taken her box with everything of hers that was ever in
this house. Then her check was on top of the table, along with my
house keys and car keys.

I felt a stab of pain in
my heart again. Something I cannot name makes me want to
cry.
Shit! I’m becoming a girl!

She returned my money in
full. The whole nine yards. And that made me feel sad again, as if
I just severed another connection with her. Now more than ever, I
felt that pulling the plug on her was a bad idea. It was the wrong
decision. Janis was right. I would regret what I did.

She didn’t even take the
severance pay that was stated in my contract with her. It was not a
small amount. Most women would be happy to jump at that
opportunity. But Astrid… didn’t invoke it even though she will win
in every court she brings that paper to.

Instead, I remembered how
she squeezed my hand last night, and told me that she already owes
me for helping her get back up on her feet, and that was enough for
her.

I made myself a cup of
coffee and sat on my deck. I remembered how she looked last
night—sitting beside me, her hair being blown by the soft breeze,
her scent filling my senses.

I just couldn’t get her
out of my mind!

I was not usually like
this. Even after I have slept with a woman, I do not remember every
single detail that happened the previous night. And her scent does
not remain in my memory in the morning. Moreover, when I find her
gone from my bed, I would be more than happy. I never feel like
this. Lost… yearning… confused.

Just when I promised
myself that I would treat Astrid differently starting this morning,
she was gone.

I promised I would forever
turn off the ‘asshole mode’ as she would like to put it. Thinking
about that word brought a smile to my face again. She has a sense
of humor in spite of what I put her through.

I stared at the beach in
front of me. I thought about everything that happened the previous
night again. Every single detail is vivid in my memory. The woman…
her scent… the touch of her skin… the sound of her scream…
Damn! I need a cold shower again!

After showering and
changing into a pair of linen pants and a white button shirt, I
opened the vault that I kept in the house, just curious what I will
find inside. After all, I lost one year’s worth of my memories. I
don’t remember the password. Luckily, I had fingerprint
identification as a backup. The vault opened for me.

I found some papers for
Oil Rig and Rig Style. Contracts and investment data. I found about
four different expensive watches. A couple of diamond ear
studs.

I found the copy of the
contract I signed with Adam Ackers for Astrid’s company. He was
right, I signed it, flawlessly. The strokes of the signature didn’t
show signs that I had a gun to my head or I was high on
something.

Then I found a small black
box that said ‘Harry Winston’.

My heart hammered in my
chest as I opened it.
Why do I have a
Harry Winston ring?

It was a beautiful diamond
ring, at least two carats, surrounded by smaller diamond pieces,
set on a platinum band.

I brought my fingers to
it. A flash came through my head.

I walked inside the
jewelry shop and something bumped into me. Before I can even look
down, I felt arms wrap around my waist and I found a sobbing woman
in my arms. She hugged me. As if I was the only thing she needed to
ease her pain. And she doesn’t even know me, didn’t even see what I
looked like.

Warmth filled through me.
She smelled of strawberries. She felt like fine velvet in my
arms.

Then she looked up at me
and I found the face of an angel. She was so beautiful, my breath
caught in my throat. It took me a moment to compose myself and ask
her if she was fine. She apologized and then walked
away.

Even when she was gone,
her memory lingered. It was the first time in my life somebody
needed me… without even knowing who I was.

I took a deep breath. It’s
not my imagination. That was my first memory of Astrid coming back
to me, bringing with it unfamiliar emotions I could not
understand.

I stared at the ring
again. Somehow, I remembered the girl who hired me to pose as her
fake boyfriend and rent a diamond ring to give to her by the end of
the night. She wanted to get back at her ex-fiancé for giving her a
fake diamond ring. She wasn’t just in it to get even. She was going
for the kill.

I can’t believe her ex
proposed with a fake ring. What a loser! And my heart went out to
Astrid. She was so trusting; she didn’t realize that the ring that
was given to her didn’t hold any value. She didn’t care. She was
getting married to the guy and she was happy. She didn’t look much
on the ring to notice it wasn’t really a diamond. Some women would
have their rings appraised immediately after it was put on their
finger. But Astrid was different. She didn’t care. And she happily
planned her wedding.

So I thought I would give
her a real ring. I saw that ring in the shop and I immediately
thought that it belonged to her, that she deserved it.

But she returned it to me.
A thirty thousand ring and she wanted nothing to do with
it.

“
You’re not going to trick
me into wearing this ring,” she said. “You know I will be returning
the ring before I go.”

“
I’ll find a reason soon
enough. And after that, who knows? You won’t be taking that ring
off your finger ever,” I said.

I squeezed the skin
between my eyes, trying not to get overwhelmed by the memories that
were slowly flooding through me.

I guess I was really wrong
about her. Like what my mother, my sister, and my friends were
saying to me. I was very wrong about Astrid. I immediately assumed
she was like my father’s wives: gold-diggers.

Damn!
I called her a mercenary! She must have wanted to whack me in
the head when I said that. Well, I wanted to whack myself in the
head now that these pieces of my memories of her are slowly coming
back to me.

I tried to think harder,
trying to see if some more memories have been unlocked. When there
was nothing, I checked the vault again. Searching for more clues
that will help me get closer to waking up from this
nightmare.

I found some pictures in
the vault too. I am guessing these came from Janis. Once in a
while, she would send us snapshots of our moments
together.

One picture was of me with
Astrid, Jake, and Janis. I was holding Astrid in my arms and we
were both laughing. I looked at myself in the picture. I looked…
really happy.

I flipped the picture over
and there was a caption at the back.

Keep dreaming!
I looked at it closely. It was
my
handwriting.
Why would I write something like that?

I found the manual of my
house alarm. I have scribbled the password at the back page.
278743. That didn’t ring a bell at all and I wondered where I got
the number.

Then my eyes drifted to
the touchtone phone. I looked at the buttons. 2-7-8-7-4-3.
A-S-T-R-I-D.

Even my password is her
name? I must have been really in love with this woman.

I took a deep breath.
Maybe she’s not the one who needed something from me, like what I
accused her of. I was the one who wanted her in my life. Like what
my best friends were saying to me. She didn’t want anything. She
only wanted me.

Shit! What have I
done?

And even though I only
have fragments of my memories back, I cannot help feeling remorse
for what I did to Astrid. I treated her like shit. I insulted her
more than once. I wanted her to give up on me.

Even now, when my mind is
telling me to stay away, my heart feels like it’s breaking into a
million pieces. There was something missing in my life, and I feel
like dying. I didn’t know that I needed her… until last
night.

I dialed Jake’s
number.

“
Ryder.”

“
You’ve been holding off
information about Astrid… because you know I didn’t want to hear
it,” I told him. “I’m listening now.”

“
Why do you care?” Jake
asked.

I heaved a frustrated
sigh.

“
I don’t know, man. I
never felt like this before.”

Jake let out a humorless
laugh. “Funny, that was the same thing you said to me when Astrid
found out you were the investor in her business. You told me how
you cheated Janis and me on our bet. The whole charade you put up
with her and how that was the only way you thought you would be
able to get her to fall in love with you, because she doesn’t want
anything to do with Ryder Van Woodsen.

“
Had you been Ryder
Woodson, the bartender, you two would have been moving in together
by then. But since she found out who you were, she didn’t want you
as more than a friend. She said you were too complicated for
her.

“
Man, you were in trouble.
You were so crazy about her. And you hated the fact that she didn’t
like you because you were rich. You got your wish. A woman who
would love you for you, not because you were Ryder Van Woodsen. You
can’t change who you are. But you still wanted her. So much so you
would have renounced all your wealth that was given to you as an
option.

“
She wanted to be equals.
She didn’t want to be called a gold-digger. She was afraid that she
would be judged. She didn’t want that. But you wanted her to take
that chance. Because you would never let anyone hurt her. You would
protect her.”

I sighed in remorse. “And
the person I didn’t protect her from… was myself. You guys were
crazy about her. You accepted her. Defended her. I was the only one
who judged her, scrutinized her, and doubted her. I deliberately
insulted her.” I was silent for a long while. Then I said, mostly
to myself. “I don’t know her that well. I can’t be in love with
her…”

“
Ryder…”

“
But damn, why do I feel
so…
heartbroken
right now?”

“
Because it’s your brain
that got messed up, man,” Jake said. “Not your heart. And your
heart… knows her.”

I closed my eyes, taking
deep breaths one at a time. It was all I could do to keep myself
from screaming, or throwing the phone across the room. “How bad was
I?”

“
Before the accident? Very
bad!” Jake replied. “Man, you wanted to renounce your claims to
your family’s wealth. You hated being you, being
the
Ryder Van Woodsen.
All because she didn’t want anything to do with you. The only thing
that prevented her from accepting you is the fact that you were too
rich for her.”

“
And when she thought she
could trust me, the first thing I said to her in the hospital was…
I thought she was a gold-digger.” I said sadly.

“
Yep. You’ve screwed up,
man,” Jake said apologetically.

“
I have to fix this,” I
said. And I knew I meant that.

“
Why? Do you have your
memories back?” he asked.

“
No. At least not all of
them,” I replied. “But I know someday I will. And I don’t want to
wake up that day thinking I made the biggest mistake of my life. If
you say that I would have risked my whole fortune just to be with
her… and I feel like shit now even without completely remembering
her… I must have really loved her. And I want her to be there when
I finally wake up from this nightmare.”

“
Good luck, man,” Jake
said. “You’re going to do need it. Astrid is a hell of a
girl.”

“
She must be… for me to go
nuts about her,” I said. “She must have been really worth
it.”

I hung up. I went to my
room to change my clothes and then I quickly gathered my car
keys.

It’s going to be
difficult, but I knew what I needed to do. I would run after
Astrid, no matter what it takes. I would make up for every single
thing I said and did to her since I woke up in the
hospital.