Chapter Six
Adam
––––––––
“I’M STARTING TO REMEMBER how audacious you are, little girl.”
She laughed as she spun back to face me, her lips parted in feigned surprise. “Me?”
“Yes, you.”
It was the strangest thing. There must still have been considerable gaps in my memories of what had gone on between us.
I couldn’t recall leaving Britain, and aside from the beautiful woman in front of me, I had no idea why I’d chosen to leave such a privileged position, or what we’d been through to see me end up in a Swiss hospital bed, but sitting there, holding her hand, the interaction between us seemed so normal.
There was no awkwardness when I tugged her closer, nothing but a comforting, familiar intimacy and a visceral need to know her better.
“It was your suggestion that Kaspar leave, Sir.” She inched closer until I could wrap my arms around her.
“Yes.” My hand shifted to draw her luscious dark hair from her face. “It was, wasn’t it?”
She smiled, and I knew instinctively that, unlike her pretend innocence, the gesture wasn’t fake. Caroline was pleased to be alone with me. That’s why she’d advocated so hard to achieve it. That’s why she edged closer along the covers. “I’m glad you did, Sir. I missed you.”
I held her against me, enjoying the warmth of her embrace, and even though I couldn’t technically miss what I couldn’t remember, I sensed the tug of need there, too.
We belonged together. I just needed to shift the pieces in my mind to know exactly why.
“I wish I could say the same, little girl, but the truth is, I didn’t even remember you until Kaspar mentioned our relationship. ”
Her brows knitted as she drew away. “That’s hard to hear.”
“I’m sorry.” I leaned closer and pressed a kiss to her forehead, suddenly grateful that Elsa had taken the time to help me brush my teeth that morning.
“But I want to be honest. Not knowing who you were when you walked in doesn’t mean I don’t recognize my feelings.
I love you, Caroline. Even having this limited time together has assured me that much is obvious. ”
“Thank God.” Her eyes fluttered closed at the caress. “When I heard you had amnesia, I was terrified you wouldn’t remember us.”
Stroking the side of her face, I tried to take in every line and curve of her countenance. “Not even amnesia can stop this thing between us.”
“I’ll help you fill in the gaps, Sir.” Her lips stretched wider as her gaze found mine. “What can you recall? You said you remember us being at Fortorus.”
“Yes.” I breathed in the smell of her hair as I strained my memory. “I rescued you from two sentries, right?” An image of their faces burst into my mind as I mentioned them, as did their callous motives for capturing Caroline in the first place. “They were idiots.”
“That’s right.” She sounded excited about the progress. “Walker and Sorosson.”
“And you stayed with me at my quarters.” My cock throbbed at the myriad of scintillating recollections of the things I’d done to and with her there. “You enjoyed it more there.” A throaty chuckle left my lips at her disgruntled expression.
“You were a swine to me there.” She pushed my shoulder playfully.
“Not all the time.” The memories of that time seemed clearer then, as though they’d happened only the day before. Not that I could actually recall what had happened the day before, or many of the days in between. “I loved you there, too. I fell in love with you there.”
My words halted at the conclusion, a wave of that same warming emotion washing over me, and in the depth of that consuming feeling, my intentions for fleeing with her became crystal clear, even if I still didn’t recall all of the details. “I do love you.”
“Yes.” She blinked away tears as her smile somehow grew wider. “That’s right, Sir. I love you, too.”
For a few magical seconds, we stared at each other, hoping that the shared sentiment was enough, but all too soon, the reality of our predicament gnawed at me.
“So, the contents of my deposit box is where?” I despised being the one to break the spell, but Kaspar had been clear about our time restraints. We only had a couple of minutes left in privacy.
“At the house you leased from Fabian,” she started.
“Fabian?” I frowned, irritated to hear yet another name I couldn’t place.
“Someone we met at a café.” She shrugged. “We had nowhere to stay, and he offered us one of his houses.”
I glanced at the window, concentrating on trying to recollect any of what she was telling me. “What was this house like?”
“Clean lines and white and beige spaces.” Her lips twisted. “Nothing special, Sir, but to us, for a few days at least, it was like heaven.”
“If I got to be with you alone, then I can understand why.” My gaze raked over her. She was wearing unflattering leggings and a sweater, but I knew how good she looked out of those clothes. “I want more of that, little girl. More time for the two of us.”
“Then you need to get yourself out of this place and away from Kaspar, Sir.” She lifted her hand and brushed her fingertips through the stubble at my chin. “I’d like to enjoy that life we were planning together.”
“Mmmm.” Darting from her touch, I kissed the ends of her fingers and, as though the digits spoke directly to my balls, a spike of arousal surged through me. “Sounds good.”
“What about you, though?” Unease flashed in her expressive eyes. “Are you okay, Sir? No one will tell me anything.”
“I’m okay,” I reassured her. “They did an MRI earlier and found some lesions, but they seem to think those are old and nothing to worry about.”
“Oh, thank God.” She sagged against me, as though the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders.
“Wait, what?” Pleased though I was to hold her so closely, I couldn’t understand her relieved reaction.
“I thought you might have collapsed because of what I did to you.” She frowned. “Do you remember any of that?”
Sliding my fingers between hers, I concentrated on her question. Did I remember what she’d done?
“The decanter?” The solution came to me in hazy memories where I saw flashes of me waking up on the floor of my unit with a searing pain in my head. Turning my head in the flashback, I recalled seeing the decanter on the ground beside me.
“Yes.” Her voice was quiet.
“You smacked me with the decanter?” Disbelief echoed in my voice.
I couldn’t believe that a woman who was clearly so devoted to me would have done anything so malicious, but then, she had been my prisoner, and people in captivity often acted rashly.
If what Caroline had told me was true, though, that was no longer the case.
Leaving Ian’s regime meant everything was different.
She was no longer my captive, so by a process of elimination, I was no longer commander general.
Faltering, that idea bounded around my head. If I wasn’t the commander general, then who the hell was I?
“I apologized many times for doing so, but I guess you don’t remember.” She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth. “And you punished me, Sir. Maybe you do remember that?” Her tone morphed into mischief as she cajoled me from my melancholy on the subject.
“Not specifically,” I murmured. “But I bet I did.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t me who caused all of this.” Her gaze flitted around the white room. “I wanted to get away from you then, Sir, but I never meant to hurt you.”
“I suppose we hurt each other.” I sighed, still pondering on my sudden identity crisis. The Adam Harper who’d made the decision to leave Britain had enjoyed time to process his choice, but it was all a shock to the version of me sitting in a hospital bed.
“Yeah.” Her brow rose. “What a pair, eh?”
“Less Romeo and Juliet, and more Bonnie and Clyde?” I sniggered, relieved that the comfort of our chemistry still seemed more important than my sudden confusion about my identity.
I couldn’t yet recall everything, but I believed every word she was telling me.
Caroline needn’t have told me about the decanter issue at all.
She could have kept that less-than-impressive moment of our past in the dark.
Yet she’d chosen to tell me, and to express her regret, and I appreciated that.
Her honesty solidified my instinctual urge to trust and protect her.
“Can you forgive me all over again, Sir?” A crease appeared in her smooth brow.
“Of course.” There was such certainty in me as I reached for her face and caressed the side of her jaw. “I know how much you mean to me, little girl, even if I can’t remember every small detail of why.”
“Thank you.” She leaned into my palm.
“And knowing me, I’m sure I’ve done some pretty shitty things to you.”
I didn’t go into specifics, but the truth was, I could recall some of the insanely hot but degrading things I’d ordered her to do in the past, and while none of them justified smacking me over the head, I supposed I could see why they’d had a cumulative effect.
Over the years, I’d relished them. Power and privilege had certainly gone to my head.
“You were...” she hesitated, as though looking for the right words.
“Go on.” I buried my fingers in her hair. “Tell me. I want you to be honest.”
“Challenging, Sir.” She smirked. “But you looked after me, Adam. You saved me.” She protracted the final two words. “Without you, the so-called president would have killed me.”
“I had to get you out of there.”
The spark of another memory blazed behind my lids, expressed less as a picture in my mind and more as an unnerving sense of dread.
That escalating dismay curled itself around me like a constrictor, threatening to cut off my air supply.
In its furling power, the answer to why I’d fled the only life I’d known was obvious: Ian wanted to murder her, and I simply couldn’t allow that.
“It was worth it.” The words flew from my lips as though some greater power had put them there. “Leaving and everything that’s happened since. It was worth it to get you out of there.”