1
she said as she continued to shake her head, her expression going blank as her eyes fluttered closed and her entire body went slack in his arms, her head flopping against his chest.
Bullshit. You’re exactly the woman I want.
As Max clasped her tighter against his chest, he whispered fervently, “No. Wake up. Stay with me.”
The palm cradling her head was damp, and as he moved it slightly away, it was saturated with blood from a cut on her head.
Head wounds bleed a lot. It might not be as bad as it looks. Stay calm. Oh hell, who am I trying to fool? She’s out cold.
Sam, Simon, and Kade arrived as Max stood, holding the woman’s slight weight in his arms.
“Have you lost your damn mind? Why did you take off like that?”
Kade stared at the woman Max was holding. “What happened to her?”
“Fell. She’s unconscious, smashed her head against the concrete. We need to get her to a hospital. Call an ambulance.”
For once, Kade didn’t argue, his hand diving into the pocket of his jeans for his phone.
Max started walking, his rational mind working automatically, knowing he needed to get her through the park and to the road where they could meet the ambulance. He could feel her warm breath against his skin, her pulse beating rapidly underneath his fingertips that were resting against her neck.
She’s alive. Mia’s alive.
That particular fact was astounding on more than one level, but Max knew he couldn’t think about that now. He’d figure everything out eventually. Right now, Mia needed him to take care of her medical needs. If he didn’t focus on that and only that…he’d totally lose it, and his famous Hamilton control would desert him completely.
Max moved as quickly as he could through the park, trying not to jostle the woman in his arms too much, Simon and Sam flanking him silently on each side. Kade was behind him, still on the phone, briskly directing emergency personnel to their location.
“I can carry her for a while,”
Sam said quietly, putting his hand on Max’s shoulder to try to make him stop walking.
“No,”
Max growled. It would be a cold day in hell before he relinquished his hold on her. He’d just gotten her back. He wasn’t letting her go. Shrugging off Sam’s hand, he kept moving.
“You can’t hang on to her until the ambulance gets here. It could take awhile.”
Simon tried to reason with him.
“The hell I can’t,”
Max answered harshly, his hold tightening on his woman involuntarily as he lengthened his stride. “She’s my wife. I’ll carry her as long as I need to.”
He needed to keep her, needed to hold her.
He didn’t notice Sam and Simon’s astonished looks as they both gaped at him like he’d suddenly lost his mind.
“You think that’s Mia?”
Sam asked, confused.
“It is Mia,”
Max answered confidently.
“Max, she doesn’t look like Mia—”
Arriving at the parking lot, Max jerked his head around to look at Sam, telling him belligerently, “It’s her.”
He knew his own wife. She smelled like Mia; she felt like Mia; she was Mia.
The woman in his arms began to stir just as Kade joined the three men. Sirens were wailing distantly, rapidly moving closer. “Ambulance is coming,”
Kade muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets, his expression concerned as he looked at Max. “Max, I know you think that’s Mia, but you must know that she really isn’t.”
Max watched Mia’s eyes flutter open slowly, blinking like she was trying to focus her vision and looking around warily. “What happened? Why are you carrying me?”
she rasped.
“You fell and hit your head, sweetheart,”
Max answered softly.
“Can you put me down please?”
she requested, squirming.
Scowling, he answered, “Not happening. You’re hurt.”
Irritated, she looked at her brother. “Kade, can you tell Max that I’m fine? Where did you get that horrible shirt? I think that’s worse than the one with the purple birds.”
Her confused eyes moved over Simon and Sam. “Why are Simon and Sam here? Where the hell are we? Dammit! I feel like I got run over by a semi-truck.”
She rested her head against Max’s shoulder and closed her eyes, no longer arguing about Max holding her, her lucid moment apparently over.
The four men all looked at one another, none of them moving as they stared at the female Max was holding.
“Holy shit,”
Simon and Sam grumbled in unison.
Max’s heart accelerated, his mouth going dry. He found himself incapable of speech as he tried to wrap his mind around what was happening…and failed miserably.
Kade yanked the phone from his pocket and punched one of the buttons. Raising his voice to be heard over the sirens of the arriving ambulance, he shouted into the phone, “Travis? I need you to meet us at the hospital. We think we found Mia, and she’s alive.”
Maddie, Kara, and the rest of the guests for the picnic arrived, everyone talking at once as a paramedic hopped out of the ambulance and rushed over with the gurney. Max reluctantly laid Mia on the board that rested on top of the pristine sheet, but he gripped her hand and never let go. Ignoring the chaos around him, he followed wherever his wife was going. Hopping into the ambulance, he sat near her head and let the paramedic do his job, but he gripped her hand, squeezing it lightly, needing to keep the connection.
“Are you hurt, sir?”
the brisk voice of the young medic asked.
The question barely penetrated the fog around Max’s brain. Slowly, he glanced down at his t-shirt, realizing he was covered in blood from Mia’s head wound.
“No,”
he said huskily, shaking his head. “Not anymore.”
The perplexed young man in uniform looked at Max for a moment and shrugged, obviously convinced that the blood on Max belonged to Mia. Setting back to work, he stemmed the blood from Mia’s head wound, stabilized her head and neck, and started peppering Max with medical questions about his wife.
Yanking himself brutally from his own thoughts, Max went into autopilot, answering every question, responding coherently, giving the paramedic every bit of information he could to help Mia.
Mustering every bit of the Hamilton control he could find, Max calmed and buried his emotions. It should have been easy. It was something he’d done most of his life. But right now, it was an enormous effort, one that he almost didn’t care whether he accomplished or not.
Do it for Mia. She needs you to be sensible and get a grip on yourself.
With that thought, Max was able to totally rein himself in, become the rational man she had always expected.
By the time the ambulance arrived at the hospital, Max was in command of himself; the only signal that he hadn’t quite managed to completely bury his emotions was the steadfast, unwavering grip he retained on Mia’s hand.
By some unknown phenomenon, Max knew he was actually getting a second chance. As improbable as it was, his wife had been given back to him, and he wasn’t going to fuck it up this time.
His face grim, he never left Mia, even when he was instructed to wait somewhere else. He’d waited long enough. He had his wife in his grasp, and he wasn’t ever letting her go again.
“I’ve talked to all of her doctors, Max. Even the consulting psychiatrist. Her traumatic brain injury is fairly mild; she’s experiencing some symptoms of post-concussion syndrome with retrograde amnesia. She really doesn’t remember the last two and a half years or what occurred during that time.”
Maddie was using her doctor’s voice, but her expression was concerned as she sat down next to Max in the hospital waiting room and covered his hand with hers.
Max released an exhausted breath before replying, “Could you put that in layman’s terms, Maddie? What does it mean?”
Running a frustrated hand from his forehead to his jaw, he looked at his sister, unable to hide his pleading expression. He wanted someone to tell him that Mia was going to be okay. Anything else was just not acceptable.
“It means when she smashed her head into the cement, it scrambled her brain around inside of her skull and screwed up some of the tiny cells that exist inside the brain. She’s fine, Max. Really. There’s nothing significant on her MRI. The headache and dizziness will eventually subside and her memory should come back.”
She removed her hand from his as Sam entered the room with a cardboard holder filled with foam cups of coffee, silently handing both him and Maddie a cup before taking one for himself and plopping beside his wife.
Max knew he should feel some sort of relief from hearing the words Maddie was saying, but every time he saw the vulnerability on Mia’s face, it made him want to kill someone. Problem was, he had no idea who to hurt for what had happened to his wife. Hell, he didn’t even know what had happened to her. Most of the time, he didn’t dare question the fact that she was back and whole. But he couldn’t help having a few moments of doubt, wondering where in the hell she’d been, what she’d gone through during the last few years. He was a man of reason, and nothing was making sense.
As though reading his mind, Sam commented slowly but dangerously, “We’ll figure out what happened, Max.”
Max could hear in Sam’s tone the words he didn’t say aloud…and the bastard or bastards responsible will pay if they hurt her. Max looked across his sister and saw Sam’s expression. As the two men’s eyes connected, Sam nodded once at Max, letting him know he meant business. Max inclined his head slightly, acknowledging Sam’s support, so damn glad that someone understood his irritation and frustration, his raw male need to get revenge for whatever had happened to Mia. Yeah, he wasn’t sure she had even been hurt, but someone had taken her away, and he wanted that person’s head right now.
“You need to sleep, Max. You’ve been here for two days straight. Go home and get some rest. Mia can go home in the morning.”
Maddie’s voice was pleading, her eyes troubled.
Oh, hell no. They’d need an entire damn army to drag him away from Mia. She was confused and scared, and though Maddie didn’t know it, that was a rarity for Mia. He needed to be here with her. His wife was back, and nothing was taking her away from him again. With the uncertainty of what exactly had occurred, why she had disappeared, there was no way he was leaving her. “I’m staying. I’ll sleep when we go home,”
he answered stubbornly, pulling the lid from his coffee and taking a healthy gulp. “You two need to take off. I’ll be fine here.”
Shit, he wanted to get up and dance because his wife had been returned to him. He probably would if he wasn’t so damn tired and worried.
Kade and Travis had left for the day, but Maddie and Sam had stayed behind, Maddie hunting down the doctors to get the whole story after getting Mia’s permission to do so. Thank God his sister was a physician. Max needed to hear what was happening from someone he trusted, and in a language he understood.
Sam stood and clasped his wife’s hand, pulling her to her feet.
“I don’t want to leave you alone here tonight, Max,”
Maddie said softly, her sympathetic gaze running over her brother and his disheveled appearance.
Max looked up at her, his heart warming from her sisterly concern. Putting his coffee on the table beside him, he stood up and pulled her into a bear hug. Sam plucked the coffee from his wife’s hand deftly as Max swept Maddie into his arms and squeezed her tightly. “Thank you for being here when I needed you, but I’m not alone anymore. Mia’s here. I’m exactly where I should be.”
His voice was hoarse, his emotions getting closer to the surface with exhaustion.
Releasing Maddie, he told Sam, “Take her home. She’s pregnant with my nephew.”
Sam snorted. “You mean my daughter?”
He raised a brow at Max.
Max rolled his eyes. “My nephew,”
he argued good-naturedly. He knew Sam didn’t care whether Maddie had a boy or girl, as long as the baby was healthy. But since he’d learned that Sam was dreaming of a little girl cousin for Simon’s soon-to-arrive baby girl, Max immediately had to be contrary. It just wouldn’t be natural not to argue with Sam.
Sam took Maddie’s hand and slapped Max on the back. “Now you can have one of your own, buddy. See you tomorrow.”
Sam exited the waiting room with Maddie, his parting words still echoing in Max’s brain.
Max had barely started to dare to believe Mia was alive, back in his life again. It was too early to start thinking about kids, but it didn’t stop the longing when he thought about the fact that he might have something other than a bleak future. His heart racing, he exited the waiting room, striding quickly toward Mia’s room.
His wife had been in the hospital for two days, yet he’d barely had a chance to talk to her. Someone was always taking her away for tests or exams, and when she was in her room, someone was always visiting. He wanted some time alone with her, needed it.
He didn’t knock. The door was ajar and he pushed it open gently with his shoulder, his eyes immediately drawn to the bed. Max didn’t know what he had been expecting, but he exhaled hard, expelling the breath of relief he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Maybe he was afraid he was delusional, or that she’d be gone. But she was there, her head down and looking at the screen of her laptop, her teeth worrying her lower lip as she tapped on the keyboard.
She’s scared. I know that worried expression.
Her hair was still short, but it was blonde again, the color that she’d used apparently temporary. Most of it had washed out after the nurse had helped her shower. Max couldn’t deny that he wanted to know why she had wanted to cover her blonde locks, why she’d cut her beautiful hair short, but he pushed the questions away. He wasn’t getting any answers—not right now anyway. Instead, he just stared at the short curly locks that framed her beautiful face. Dressed in a pink pastel nightgown with fuzzy slippers, she looked much younger than her actual twenty-nine years.
I missed two of her birthdays. We missed two anniversaries.
No matter. Max planned on making up for every moment they’d lost. Never again would he tell himself he had time, that he had years to enjoy life with Mia after he’d created his empire, and especially once he’d learned to control the intensity of his emotions around her. The latter was the primary reason he’d focused on his business. The way he’d felt about her was too intense, too raw, too hard to hide. She’d been his one vulnerability, a major crack in his Hamilton control, and he’d had a very hard time keeping his possessive instincts in check. Now, he couldn’t care less whether he was in control or not. Everything had stopped mattering to him the moment he had lost her.
Learned your lessons, dumbass?
Oh yeah, he definitely had. Life was short, and nothing really mattered except the people you cared about.
“What are you doing?”
he asked curiously as he moved into the room, letting the door click closed behind him.
Her luminous blue eyes looked up from the computer, her lips curling into a happy smile as she saw him. The look was so familiar that it nearly brought him to his knees.
“Research. I’m trying to find out more about what happened to me and why I can’t remember.”
She closed the laptop and gave him her full attention, a familiar action that had always disconcerted him and fascinated him at the same time. Now, he found it enchanting and seductive, something that helped quench a deep-seated need.
He sat in the chair next to the bed, unable to tear his eyes away from her face. “And what did you find out, Madame Detective?”
“Not much. Nothing the doctors haven’t already told me. I did find it a little spooky reading about my own supposed death.”
She sighed and rested against the pillows behind her back before continuing, “Losing over two years of my life is scary. It seems like just yesterday that we were attending the Bannister Charity Dinner, but I can feel the hole in my life, that everything’s changed.”
She paused and whispered softly, “I’ve changed.”
“We’ll figure it all out, sweetheart. I swear. Everything will be okay,”
Max answered, taking her hand in his and scooting the chair closer to the bed.
“I’m glad you’re here.”
Her eyes moved from his face and looked at their joined hands. “Obviously I haven’t been living a life of leisure. My hands are rough.”
Max flipped her hand over, noticing her ragged nails and callused hands for the first time. “You’ve never lived a life of leisure. You’re the busiest woman I know.”
But her appearance was always perfect, always impeccably groomed and stylish.
The changes were odd, but he wasn’t about to tell her that.
“Oh well. At least I’m thin,”
she said wistfully.
Yeah. She was. Too damn skinny. Another thing that was perplexing. Mia always had herself on some kind of diet, and Max had hated it. She’d had perfect curves, and an ass that made his cock hard every time he got a glimpse of her swaying hips in front of him. “It’s nothing that some good Italian food won’t fix,”
he told her with a grin.
She groaned. “Pasta is my enemy.”
“You love it,”
he reminded her, wanting to laugh at a comment she’d muttered every time she’d put away a plate of fettuccini, usually followed by a healthy serving of tiramisu. Honestly, he didn’t care how she looked; in his eyes, she’d always be the most beautiful woman on the planet.
She pulled her hand gently from his and set her laptop aside. Twisting her hands nervously together, she mumbled, “I had them do a DNA test. My brothers provided their blood for me to have it done. It wouldn’t be as conclusive as it would be if my mom was still alive but—”
“Why? I know you’re my wife. You know—“
“I want you to know for certain. I disappeared for over two years. You deserve some sort of scientific proof.”
“I don’t need it. I have no doubts. I knew the moment I saw you in the park, Mia,”
he replied, slightly annoyed that she felt she had to prove herself to him.
“I think my brother wants it,”
Mia said quietly, the disappointment evident in her voice.
Bastard. I’ll rip his damn heart out. “Travis,”
Max said aloud, his tone vibrating with anger.
“No. I think Travis believes me. But I’m not so sure about Kade,”
Mia admitted, her expression vulnerable.
“Kade? Why the fuck does he want it?”
Okay…Max could believe that Travis would want proof. He could be a coldhearted bastard who believed only in concrete facts. But Kade? “I’ll kill him,”
he grumbled, thinking of the many ways he could torture his brother-in-law for asking this of Mia right now.
“He didn’t really ask. I offered. And I think it’s important that we get rid of any doubts for a lot of reasons. Kade just seems different, distant, and hesitant to accept that I’m really his sister.”
Mia sighed. “Maybe it’s just from the disappointment of the accident and his girlfriend breaking up with him. But he seems uncertain, and I don’t want anyone to have any doubts.”
“I’m still fucking killing him,”
Max answered irritably.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you drop the f-bomb before,”
Mia said teasingly.
“Yeah…well…things have changed. I’ve changed,”
Max admitted, knowing it was true. He wasn’t the same man she had known before.
“I’m different, too. I remember our life together before I disappeared, but I don’t feel like that same person anymore,”
she whispered just loud enough for Max to hear her. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey.”
Max stood and tipped her chin up so he could see her gorgeous eyes. “It doesn’t matter. I never stopped loving you. And I never will. We’ll start over, get to know each other again.”
He’d take his time, let her recover, but Max was determined that Mia would know him.
He wanted to tell her that he knew how empty his life was without her, how his heart had bled each and every day that she’d been gone, that he wished he had died with her when he thought she was dead. But she wasn’t ready for that right now, and he ruthlessly shoved the thoughts away. Right now, he just wanted her whole, healthy, and happy.
“Okay,”
she agreed breathlessly. “You should go home and get some rest. You look exhausted. Have you slept?”
He grinned at her. “Not much. And I’m not leaving until I can take you home tomorrow.”
“You need sleep. You look tired,”
she murmured, worrying her lip again with distress, her expression troubled.
“I’ll sleep,”
he assured her, hating to see her upset about him when she was the one in a hospital bed. “Here.”
He patted the chair next to the bed.
She hesitated before asking haltingly, “Will you sleep with me?”
Scooting over in the small bed, she gave him a hopeful look.
At that moment, all Max wanted to do was slide into the bed beside her and hold her, feel her breath against his skin to remind him that she was his again. But he couldn’t. “I stink. I haven’t showered and I’ve been in the same clothes for two days.”
Mia smiled and lifted her hand, pointing her thumb toward a door near the entrance of the room. “Bathroom is over there and Maddie brought you clean clothes. They’re in the drawer.”
Max’s lips turned up as he moved to the dresser and opened the drawer, pulling out a clean pair of jeans and t-shirt, and promising himself not to forget that he owed his sister a very big favor. “Five minutes,”
he told Mia, practically running to the bathroom and closing the door, probably setting a world record for taking the fastest shower and still getting himself clean.
Mia was yawning when he exited the bathroom, his hair still damp, but feeling almost human again. She moved to the edge of the bed so he could slip in beside her. The bed was small and would have been tight for a man his size even without another body, but at the moment, it was heaven. Pulling Mia away from the edge of the bed to cradle her back against his front, he groaned with ecstasy as her scent surrounded him, happily drowning him in her essence. His heart thundered, his body reveling in a sensation he thought he’d never experience again.
“Jesus. I missed this so much,”
he whispered huskily against her ear, his hand reaching up to swipe the string that turned off the light above them, plunging them into darkness.
Mia relaxed into his body, fitting perfectly against him. “I don’t remember us not being together, but I know that I missed it too. I love you,”
she said in a quiet, solemn voice.
His whole body shuddered as his hold on her tightened involuntarily. His hand splayed over her stomach, urging her closer. Those were the words he’d wanted to hear, needed to hear. As long as Mia loved him, not another damn thing in the world mattered. “I love you, too. I didn’t think I’d ever get to hold you again.”
His voice was choked, emotion lodging in his throat.
“I’m not sure my nurse will approve,”
she said with a light laugh.
“Don’t give a fuck,”
he murmured against her ear, breathing in the scent of her hair. “Are you comfortable?”
“Yes. You smell so good,”
she said in a sultry voice. “Are you okay?”
“Hell, no. Hospital beds are like torture devices. But you couldn’t blast me out of this position with dynamite right now,”
he told her honestly. “And I owe Maddie a hell of a nice present for the clean clothes.”
“She’s wonderful, Max. I’m so happy you found each other. How did it happen?”
she asked curiously.
He shrugged slightly as he replied, “Fate. Or maybe just dumb luck. I saw her at Simon’s wedding to Kara and she looked just like an old picture of our birth mother. It made me want to dig into my past and I finally found the proof that we were brother and sister. Unfortunately, she didn’t get adopted and she’s had it pretty tough. I wish I had known earlier. I was just a baby when we were separated and neither one of us remembered the other.”
“She seems happy now,”
Mia mused.
“She is. How could she not be? She has me for a brother,”
Max answered with a chuckle.
“I know she’s happy to have you as a brother, but I sort of think Sam has a little bit to do with it too,”
Mia answered with a sigh. “They look so happy. Maddie told me some of their story. I never thought Sam would become so domesticated. I guess underneath the playboy exterior, he was always yearning for Maddie. I guess both Simon and Sam are finally happy. It seems so strange that everything has changed so much. It’s almost like I went to sleep one night and woke up to an alternate universe. But I’m glad both of them found the right woman. I’m glad. I always worried about them. I wish that would happen for Kade and Travis.”
Max was pissed as hell at Kade, and Travis needed a woman who’d grab him by the balls and wouldn’t let go, because he could be an asshole, but Max answered magnanimously, “I hope so, too.”
And he did, because that’s what Mia wanted. Kade could find the right woman to please Mia…right after Max beat the hell out of him for being an asshole.
“Will you stay for a while? Until I remember or at least get used to the fact that I don’t remember the last few years?”
Her voice sounded nervous, frightened. “Everything just seems so dissimilar to what I can remember.”
“Sweetheart, I’m staying all night,”
he reminded her.
She shook her head slightly. “That’s not what I meant. I was wondering if you could put off your business trips. Just for a little while. The media will have a field day with this, and I was hoping you might be able to stick around for a while.”
Guilt made Max’s body tense and his gut burn. “Mia, I’m not going anywhere.”
“What about work, your plan to conquer the business and political world?”
she questioned, her voice confused.
Yeah, at one time he had wanted to run for political office, but those desires had completely fled. He’d wanted it for all the wrong reasons, and he’d discovered he would make a lousy politician. “I told you I’ve changed. I don’t want the same things as I wanted back then.”
He released a masculine sigh as he continued, “And I’ve conquered everything I want to conquer in the business world. I don’t need to travel like that anymore.”
Actually, most of the trips hadn’t been critical, but he didn’t want to think about that right now. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
“It will be nice to have you home,”
Mia said with a yawn. “I miss you so much when you’re gone. I need you to help me get used to all the changes that have happened. I wish my memory would just come back.”
Max could have told her that he understood the loneliness she had felt, but he doubted that she could handle exactly how much he’d missed her—during their marriage when he traveled a lot, and during the years she had been taken away from him.
“You won’t have a chance to even miss me,”
he informed her playfully. In a sterner voice he told her, “You’re also going to be surrounded by security from this day forward. No arguments. No more going around unsecured. No more ducking our security. You’re being protected. Always.”
“I know I ought to disagree, but I won’t. Not now. I’m actually relieved,”
she admitted, her voice sounding lost in the dark.
“And you aren’t going to be exposed to the media either,”
he rumbled adamantly. “I’ll make a brief statement when the media finds out, and that’s all they’re getting.”
“I’d rather avoid them for now. At least until I remember what happened.”
Mia shifted position slightly, rubbing against him as she moved, her ass flexing against his groin. “Max, are you…”
Her voice trailed off, her question unfinished.
He knew exactly what she was going to ask. “Am I hard? Yep. My cock is like granite right now. Everything about you arouses me, and I’ve been without for over two years, sweetheart. So you need to quit squirming against me like that,”
he answered. “Be still.”
Her body stopped shifting, but she asked curiously, “You didn’t…you never…nobody ever…”
She stopped and then continued, “You didn’t sleep with anyone while I was gone?”
“Nope. And I didn’t fuck anyone either. I had no desire to screw a woman who wasn’t you,”
he answered bluntly.
“But didn’t you ever want to—”
“The only thing I wanted was my wife. So I got myself off thinking of you, because there was no one else I wanted.”
Max figured if they were starting again, he might as well get honest. He and Mia had never discussed sexual things this bluntly, but maybe they should have. “Does that surprise you?”
She was silent for a moment, so quiet that Max thought she had fallen asleep before she answered. “Actually, the thought of you doing that is pretty hot.”
Her voice was low, husky, with a fuck-me-right-now vibe running through her words that he’d never heard before and nearly made him groan with frustrated lust. “I wish I could have watched,”