Chapter 8 Zoe
ZOE
To say I’m worried about being left alone in the house with Tomas is an understatement.
I know he’s not keen on me being here. Although he’s been polite to me during my stay, he hasn’t been as warm as Mateo is.
It could be the differences in their personalities, or maybe he just takes a while to warm up to people.
It’s not like this is a normal situation we find ourselves in. Guess I’m going to find out today.
I’ve kept myself busy lazing by the pool while Tomas has busied himself inside, but it looks like it’s time to break the ice between us.
My stomach flutters with nervousness as he walks toward me.
He’s wearing a pair of navy board shorts, his white collared shirt unbuttoned and flapping in the breeze, showing off his spectacular abs.
Tomas is an extremely good-looking man. He’s leaner than Mateo, but he looks just as fit.
They probably work out in the gym together.
Why did that sound hot? Shut up, Zoe. I roll my eyes at myself behind my sunglasses. Gosh, I’m pathetic, these two men have been nothing but gracious toward me, opening their home to a virtual stranger, and here I am leering at them like some goddamn creeper.
“Hey,” Tomas greets me, a smile spread across his perfect face as he takes the sun bed beside me, throwing his hands behind his head and making his toned biceps flex.
“Hi.” My greeting comes out in a whisper.
“I’m sorry I’ve been so busy with work and haven’t been around much. I’m supposed to be on holiday.” He chuckles, turning his head to look at me.
“There is nothing to apologize for. I’m so thankful to you and Mateo for opening your home to me. For feeding and clothing me. You have gone above and beyond anything anyone else would do for a stranger.”
My first night here, Mateo excitedly showed me the walk-in wardrobe filled with designer clothes. Seriously, I feel like I’ve woken up in some alternate universe.
“Mateo, he feels responsible for you because you were found on our property.”
Obviously, Mateo is the champion of my cause, and I’m guessing Tomas isn’t happy about it.
“Well, I’m so thankful. I don’t know how I can ever repay you both.” I don’t know what else I can say.
Tomas gives me a curt nod.
Feeling kind of awkward, I lay back on the sun bed, and we sit in silence for what feels like an eternity. I hate awkward silences.
I have to break the ice, my anxiety is beginning to spike. “What is it that you and Mateo do for a living?”
Tomas is quiet for a moment before sitting up. Turning his attention to me, I notice his brows are pulled together with a look of confusion on his handsome face.
“What? Mateo hasn’t told you who he is?” he asks seemingly surprised.
“No.”
“What have you been talking about then?”
“Um, just things like world events, news, anything to help jog my brain.”
“He really hasn’t told you anything at all about who he is?” he asks again, seemingly surprised by this bit of information.
I shake my head. Now I’m worried about who Mateo could be.
Tomas bursts out laughing, and the serious face he once had is gone. “Come with me, let me show you.”
Kind of weird but okay. I follow Tomas back inside, feeling naked walking around the house in my bikini. Tomas moves inside to the living room. He turns the large TV on. He then pats the sofa for me to take a seat beside him.
I take a seat wondering what he is doing. Then some sort of soap opera-ish music blares through the speakers.
“I’ve started with the first episode; you need to watch it from the start,” he explains to me.
Weird.
Maybe this is Tomas’s favorite TV show, and he wants me to watch it with him. I’ll do it if it means we can be friends.
After we’ve watched for ten minutes, I’m still confused about why I am here.
Then I see him.
He looks like a baby, but I’d know that face anywhere.
“Mateo!” I squeal, looking at Tomas, who is smiling. “He’s an actor?” I turn and ask him.
Tomas chuckles. “Si, he is Spain’s biggest heartthrob.”
“Wow, no way.” I’m in shock. I mean, I understand why he would be Spain’s biggest heartthrob because Mateo is hot. I can only imagine the women that would be throwing themselves at him.
“He gets mobbed everywhere he goes,” Tomas states as if reading my mind.
“Really?” I guess it must be hard being best friends with a heartthrob.
Tomas nods.
“Are you an actor as well?”
This makes Tomas chuckle again.
“I leave the dramatics for Mateo. I’m a property developer: hotels, luxury homes, commercial buildings, those sorts of things.”
Ah, that explains a lot. “That’s why your phone is glued to your ear.”
“You sound like Mateo,” he says with a smile.
I like seeing Tomas like this, relaxed and carefree. He hasn’t really shown that side of himself to me yet.
“You’re so young.”
He gives me a devilish smile. “Youngest luxury property developers in Europe. I own the business with my brother,” he says proudly.
That’s impressive.
I wonder if I have a sibling but when I push my mind back to find them nothing but darkness appears.
“Do you remember what you did?” he asks.
I shake my head as nothing springs to mind.
Tomas nods in understanding, and I can see the frustration he’s trying to hide over my answer.
Then a flash of something filters through my mind, giving me pause as images of brick buildings, chairs, and books shuffle through my mind.
“What is it?” Tomas asks.
“I see something. I might have been a student. I see books and desks, a library.”
“Can you tell where?” He looks at me hopefully.
I shake my head as disappointment slides across my body.
Tomas then jumps up, grabs a picture frame off the TV cabinet, and hands it to me.
“This is my graduation photo.”
I look at the photo of a fresh-faced Tomas, with what looks to be his parents and his younger brother. His parents are both stony-faced, but Tomas and his brother have wide grins. I study the photo, willing it to reveal some secrets of my own past.
“That is my parents, we don’t get along. And that is my brother, Dario. We run the company together.” He points out.
Hot tears prickle my eyes.
What about my family? Do they know that I’m missing? Do they even care? What happens if there’s no one looking for me? Am I an orphan? Am I all alone in this world?
A sob catches me off-guard, then I feel Tomas move and wrap his arms around me, surprising me.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” he whispers into my ear, his warm breath tickling my skin.
I look up from the wet patch I left on his shirt where I buried my face into him. “I wish I knew who I was.”
Tomas’s hazel eyes soften upon hearing my words.
“I wish the police would hurry up and find me,” I grumble.
“Actually, I spoke to the police last night,” Tomas confesses.
This stems my tears for a moment.
“And?”
Hope rising in my chest.
Tomas’s face falls at my question.
That doesn’t seem good. I move out of Tomas’s arms giving us some space.
“I wanted to wait to talk to you about this when Mateo was here.”
“Please tell me, Tomas, I can handle it.”
He takes a deep breath. “They say you don’t exist.”
“What do you mean I don’t exist? I exist, I’m right here in front of you.” Panic grips me, my heart’s racing. What does he mean?
He puts a reassuring hand on my bare knee.
“I can see that you exist.” His eyes drop for a fleeting moment to my chest before he looks back into my eyes.
“Most people have an electronic presence, but you seem to have none. They can’t find any trace of you.
There are no missing persons reports here in Spain or the rest of the world. ”
A headache is starting at the base of my skull. I don’t understand. “How can that be?”
“Someone has made you disappear,” he states matter-of-factly.
“What? Someone just deleted me from everything in the world as if I don’t exist?”
Why?
Why would they do that to me?
I bring my hand up to massage my temples trying to abate the headache that is starting to throb.
“Hey,” Tomas says, grabbing my hands. “We’re going to find out who you are, okay?”
I wish I had his enthusiasm.
“Mateo and I will not stop till we do.”
I look into his hazel eyes, and my tears start again. I hate feeling this lost and alone. “What … happens … if … you … can’t?” I hiccup through my tears.
Tomas pulls me into his arms again to comfort me. “The police are working on it; I promise we will find you.”
We’re silent for a moment while I get myself under control again.
Tomas brushes the hair from my face tenderly. Then gives me a weak smile.
“Maybe your memory will come back before then.”
I can only hope.
“You don’t know what it’s like to not know anything. The very essence of who I am is gone. I’m walking around in a fog of loneliness.”
Tomas looks surprised by my confession, and I see his eyes are a little glassy from my words. He then grabs my face with his warm hands.
This feels intimate. It’s the closest I’ve been to him.
“You’re not alone, Zoe. You have Mateo and me. You have us.”
Hearing Tomas’s kind words breaks me as I dissolve into tears again.
Tomas’s hands fall from my face as he pulls me into his hard chest again and I snuggle against him, enjoying the security his arms are offering me. We stay like that for a while until I’m calm.
I inhale his citrus scent.
The smell feels familiar.
I smell him again.
Flashes of scenes fly through my mind.
I inhale deeply hoping to make the images clearer.
“I’m guessing you like my cologne?” Tomas chuckles.
“Yes, it smells familiar. It … it’s making me remember something.”
Tomas stills.
He doesn’t move a muscle as he lets me smell him.
Flashes of a boy kissing a girl rush through my head.
The feeling of being sad slides across my skin.
Then there is blood and anger. I inhale again, hoping my mind gives me more than this jumbled mess.
This time I see a dorm with things scattered around. I see myself on a bed, crying.
Fuck.
I sit up.
“What is it?” Tomas looks at me with concern on his face.
“I remember something.”
His face lights up.
“I’m a student in a dorm. A boy and a girl made me cry. There was blood, and I was angry.”
Tomas’s brows raise.
“There’s a calendar, it’s in Spanish. It says March of this year.”
Then my stomach sinks as the image slowly begins to vanish.
“No, no. I was so close. So fricken close and now it’s gone. Stupid brain. Why the hell don’t you want to fucking work,” I curse, frustrated with the situation.
“It’s going to be okay,” Tomas tries to reassure me.
“Is it though?” I get up off the sofa and answer him angrily.
“What happens if it never returns? I can’t stay here forever with you both.
” I begin to pace around the room. “What if I have a boyfriend out there waiting for me? Or family? Friends? Kids? People must be looking for me. I can’t be that easily forgotten.
I can’t pretend I wasn’t someone before all this,” I say as I angrily swipe at the tears that seem to freely pour from my eyes.
I hate crying. Deep down in my soul in some dark recess of my mind, I know that I don’t normally cry, yet here we are, a weeping fucking mess.
“Fuck it. You need a drink,” Tomas says sternly.
Huh? I’m confused by Tomas’s sudden change of personality. He grabs my hand and pulls me into the kitchen.
I follow him, it’s not like I have a choice.
He pulls out a bottle of tequila, grabs two shot glasses, and slides one in front of me. He then grabs the bottle and pours each of us a glass.
“Drink up,” he says, nudging the shot of tequila in my direction.
“Is this a good idea?”
“Probably not, but maybe you need to get out of your head for a while, and I find tequila helps,” Tomas advises with a shrug.
“I’m so far out of my head that I’ve forgotten it all.”
Tomas’s lip curls in a smile. “That was funny.”
I roll my eyes at him.
“Drink up. You never know what the tequila can unlock.”
Can’t be any worse than I am now. And with that, I grab the glass and throw it back.