Underestimated Too (31 page)

‘I don’t know who this is,’ she assured the doctor,
pulling her hand away from mine.

‘Morgan, it’s me. Drew. Your husband,’ I persuaded
with raised eyebrows.

‘No, I don’t think that’s right,’ Morgan said with a
look I’ll never forget. I thought for sure it was all a hoax. It was too
dramatized. I just knew she was faking it.

Morgan groggily answered a few questions, asked what
was wrong with her, and dozed in and out of consciousness.

‘Let’s let her rest,’ Dr. Tharp suggested. ‘She’s
showing real progress and the activity in her brain is showing impressive
results. I’m very optimistic about a full recovery.’

I relayed the information to Callaway, and he
insisted on seeing her himself. She, of course, didn’t wake and continued her
charade of not knowing who I was. I wasn’t buying it, and my new found repentance
I’d gained over the past five weeks was replaced with anger. She was playing me
for a fool.”

“I wasn’t, Drew,” I responded.

“I know, baby,” Drew smiled. “Morgan spent another
week in ICU and was finally moved to her own room where I continued to visit her
daily. She still played the amnesia act, pretending not to remember me or
anyone else. The next three weeks were spent in rehab. Morgan had to
practically learn to walk again. Her muscles needed to remember how to work
again after being still for so long. Her broken pelvis caused a great deal of
pain while she learned the—taken for granted—skill all over again.

I didn’t spend as much time there once she was in
the rehabilitation center, stopping in every day or so. I had a business to run
and to be truthful about the whole thing; I was having a hard time stomaching
the whole contriving amnesia bullshit. Day after day after day, she insisted
she didn’t remember me. She even asked questions about her childhood, her
parents, our wedding. It was all a hoax. She was afraid of coming home with me.
She knew. She knew exactly what was in store for her. If she didn’t, she’d soon
find out.”

A cold chill ran clear up my spine, hearing Drew describe
what he had planned for me once he got me back to the house.

Drew said, rubbing his eyes, “I remember Derik,
trying to convince me that she wasn’t faking it.

‘I don’t know, man. I don’t think she’s faking it,’
Derik voiced his opinion while we tried to work up a proposal. I couldn’t
focus. I was too worked up about picking her up, bringing her back here and
resuming our roles as husband and wife.

“She’s faking it, Derik. I can tell. I saw her wipe
away a tear the other night when she thought I was sleeping in the chair. What
would she be crying over if she didn’t remember? I’ll tell you what. She knows
she’s found. She knows she’s coming back here. She knows I’m going to teach her
one hell of a lesson for the last two years,’ I angrily yelled at Derik.” Drew
paused in his thoughts and turned to look at Deidra.

I shivered, hearing Drew’s vindictive tone. “I
remember crying a lot, Drew. Not because of what I remembered at all. I cried
for what I didn’t remember, not knowing who I was or where I was going.”

“You cried a lot?” Drew asked, turning to face me.

“Yes, you have no idea what it’s like to wake up and
not remember who you are.”

“No, I don’t know what that is like Morgan. I’m
sorry.”

“It’s okay, go on,” I nodded.

Drew resumed his story, recalling his conversation
with Derik, “Derik tried convincing me, ‘Or she could just be scared shitless
because she’s coming home to a world she really doesn’t remember.’

‘No, that’s not it. I think she’s trying to pull a
fast one. She thinks she’ll come here, pretend to not know me so I won’t show
her what her place is, and sneak out never to be seen again. I guarantee that
won’t happen. She is not to go anywhere without you or me. You got that?’

‘No problem, I’d gladly take her wherever you want.’
Derik smiled maliciously.

‘What the fuck does that mean? You ever fucking
touch her, and I’ll kill you with my bare hands,’ I vindictively threatened
Derik.           

 ‘Damn, dude. Chill out. I didn’t mean anything by
it. Come on. Let’s go bring your wife home.’

Once again Callaway insisted on the limo. He wanted
Morgan brought home as comfortable as possible.

I spent the next few days observing her every move.
If she was faking the whole amnesia, she was doing a damn good job at it. I
fought urge after urge to go to her room, fuck her, and put her right back in
her place. I didn’t do it for whatever reason. She was different than she was
when she’d left, sort of strong, I guess. Morgan wasn’t a strong person, she
never was. She bowed her head and submitted to me. That’s what Morgan did.”

“Morgan still does that,” I confirmed.

Drew looked at me with a frown. “You do not,” he
argued.

“Okay, whatever, Drew. Continue.”

“No. You do not bow down to me.”

“What was our conversation the day Nicholas started
walking?”

“I don’t know. We talked about a lot of things that
day.”

“What did we talk about when you were going out the
door? You made me promise that I wouldn’t go anywhere. That’d I’d stay home.
Remember?” I wanted to hash this out now, see what Deidra thought about him not
letting me out of his sight.

“Are you referring to us having a couple drinks?”
Deidra asked.

“You didn’t have a couple drinks,” Drew accused.
“She was out until almost three in the morning.”

“Yeah, and she was in good hands. She had a good
time and got a little drunk. What upsets you about that? You know marriage
can’t be one sided, Drew.”

“Oh, and now she decides to be a doctor,” Drew spat,
waving his arm at Deidra.

“Sarcasm noted, Drew. So is the problem Morgan going
out with me, your therapist, or is it more, Morgan going out period? You would
have been okay if it would have been Morgan and Alicia? Is that what you’re
saying, Drew,” Deidra gave it right back.

“No,” he honestly spoke in a quieter tone.

“Thank you, let’s move on, we’ll come back to this
later,” Deidra remarked, looking at me for permission to move on from this
subject. I took a deep breath, nodding that I was fine with it. I really
wasn’t. I wanted to go more into Drew’s control issues, but Deidra evidently
did things a certain way, her way.  

“You were saying how you observed her behavior,”
Deidra offered.

“Yeah, I watched her every move over the next few
weeks, mostly at night. It did something to me when she woke having horrific
nightmares. She’d wake panicked, gasping for air. I wondered what they were
about. Did I cause the bad dreams? Was it the wreck maybe? Did something happen
to her while she was gone? Was she remembering something? I wanted in her head.
I wanted to know why. Why did she wake in a panic, holding her chest, out of
breath, and sometimes crying? I needed to know, although I was sure it was me.
I didn’t want it to be because of me.

She wasn’t bowing down to me at all. She did
whatever the hell she wanted. It was really starting to annoy the hell out of
me: the bursting into my office unannounced, walking around in shorts and
t-shirts, bare feet. And her bold comments towards me made me want to strike
her right across her face. Part of me wanted her to submit to me and the other
part found her very amusing. I wasn’t sure what to think about the whole
theatrical scene. I mean, she did act like she didn’t remember things, but I
was still skeptical.

I nagged and nagged about her new attire. She didn’t
even bother to ask me before jumping in my desk chair and ordering clothes. She
laughed about it and thought it was funny. I guess I did a little too, and to
be honest, I kind of liked her walking around in short, shorts with her
midsection exposed. I even liked her bare feet pitter patting across the marble
floors.

I tried my best to stay home and not travel. I sent
Derik instead, unless it was something I needed to handle myself, and that was
a day or two at the most. I hated not being there when she woke from having a
nightmare, not that I had the balls to go to her, but at least I was there.”

“You did come to me when I had nightmares, Drew?” I interrupted
again.

“Sometimes, not always,” Drew commented before continuing,
“I got rid of both nurses as soon as I could. Morgan was becoming a little too
close to them for my comfort. Marta on the other hand seemed to put me in my
place as much as Morgan was trying to do. I never had the talk with her like I
had Rebecca. I hired Rebecca. She knew she was to keep her mouth shut and mind
her own business. Marta on the other hand was hired by Callaway. She was hired
to take the best care of her, and she did. Whatever Morgan wanted, Marta saw to
her getting.”

“Marta was pretty quick to put me in my place too,”
I said, looking to Deidra and not Drew. “She wouldn’t let me lay around and
feel sorry for myself. She made me get up and live.”

“But she still gave you everything you wanted,” Drew
challenged. “Like sneakers of all things. My wife didn’t wear sneakers. She
wore thousand dollar stilettos. And the jeans, well, I guess I liked the jeans
a little, especially when she wore them with heels. Morgan had turned into
quite the beauty right before my eyes, and I’d missed it. I was seeing her for
who she was for the first time since I’d first met her. I didn’t like it. I
didn’t have feelings like this, I didn’t do feelings. It wasn’t my thing.”

“I sat alone in my office for over an hour,
contemplating what Derik was saying. He was right. I was being stupid and
needed to get Morgan back to a place where she knew what was expected of her. I
wouldn’t hit her, not for a while anyway. I didn’t want her to end up back in
the hospital or anything. We needed to have sex. I needed to get that out of
the way, show her how things really were. That’s what I’d do. My cock twitched
at the thought of it. I didn’t know how many more nights I was going to be able
to jack off in my hand before I went nuts. I’d go to her after she showered, be
waiting for her on her bed.”

“Jesus, Drew, too much,” I said, rolling my eyes and
shaking my head.

 Drew ignored me, talking about me like I wasn’t
sitting right there. “Derik warned me, ‘You’re screwing up. Mark my words, this
is all going to come back and bite you in the ass. You watch,’ before leaving
my office for the day. Morgan had just barged in with a cup of coffee. I think
maybe he was more pissed off that she didn’t bring him one.

It didn’t work out the way I’d planned. I hadn’t
planned on having such a good time with her. I’d taken her shopping for a new
dress to wear the following night with Callaway. Right off the bat she defied
me and picked a dress that I said no to. It didn’t make me mad like it once
would have. I found it a little amusing, and the way she was looking at me and
smiling, was driving me crazy. I’d never felt that way before. She was flirting
with me, and I didn’t know how to handle it. Morgan was flirting with me, and I
was liking it.

‘I don’t think I like wine,’ she admitted over
dinner.

I laughed. ‘You love wine. You always drank wine.’

‘I did?’

‘Yes, I think your taste buds are injured too.’

‘Maybe or maybe I liked something else, and you’re
taking this opportunity to get me to like what you want me to like,’ she
teased, sipping the wine.

‘Could be. Maybe I’m trying to get you a little
drunk,’ I teased in a low tone, trying to flirt back. I really didn’t have a
clue how to do this. We’d never really don’t that before. She was full of
surprises. I kind of liked this Morgan. She stood, bent to my ear with her hand
flat on my chest.

‘Maybe I don’t need to be a little drunk for that,’
she whispered hot words to my neck and ran one finger through the gap between
buttons. Jesus, I had no idea what to do with this woman.”

I loved it. I loved the thought of him not knowing
how to handle me.  

“Walking into the house, hand in hand, I stopped her
at the door. She was fighting too, not knowing what to do with me either. That
part was true. I didn’t have any idea what to do. I remember wondering if that
was how I felt when I was a virgin, the first time I had ever had sex.

 She stopped just before the door and leaned into
me. It was the strangest situation I’d ever been in. We both wanted to cross
that line and give into each other. Neither of us knew how.

‘Goodnight, Drew,’ Morgan quietly spoke. I didn’t
want to let her go.

‘Night, Morgan.’

Watching her disappear up the stairs I went to my
office to watch her. Smiling, I watched her unzip her dress and slip it over
her shoulders.

‘You’re an idiot, Drew Kelley. I gave you an open
invitation and you chickened out,’ she spoke into the mirror.

I
was
acting like a coward, and didn’t know
why. I took what I wanted, I didn’t wait for it. It was the Callaway way. I’d
been taught it from an early age.

Morgan slid on a pair of shorts, more like men’s
boxers, and a cotton shirt. Pulling down the covers she opened the nightstand
drawer.