Chapter 12
Elowen
I rub my face into the neck of either Rosie or Bruno, I don’t know which one is sleeping on this side of me.
I try to open my eyes, but a splitting headache fights the effort. And then it all comes crashing down: why I have a headache this early in the morning, and what happened last night.
I open my eyes and sit up in bed. An unfamiliar bed, covered in dark blue bedding. My head is spinning as I look around the room. I know whose room this is—with this minimal decoration, not a single object that suggests any interest in anything.
I hold my head. Bruno and Rosie are lying on either side of me, watching me.
“We’re in the wrong bed, babies,” I mutter. My voice doesn’t sound particularly good either.
The stupid things I did last night flood my aching head. I groan, gripping my head harder. How am I going to face Hunter now? I was literally throwing myself at him like some wanton woman. Damn you, Wen.
The door in front of me opens, and the very man I don’t want to see right now walks in with a small tray in his large hand.
“Good morning. I’m sorry about last night. Thank you so much for helping me. I think I should leave now,” I say all in one breath, shifting uncomfortably on the bed.
He comes closer to the bed and hands me a glass. “Drink it before you leave. It’ll help with the hangover.”
I take the glass from him and gulp down the sour-sweet lemonade in one go, then hand it back and start to get out of bed.
As I pull the duvet off me, my bare thighs come into view, the bathrobe I’m wearing has ridden up, barely covering them.
I yank the duvet back over my legs and look up at Hunter.
He’s looking away from me, his jaw clenching and unclenching, restraint straining through every muscle in his face.
Is he annoyed with me?
Obviously he is.
From the way he’s acted since last night, one thing is clear: he has no interest in me. I think it was all my Salvario-deprived imagination that made me misread the look in his eyes. Maybe just because he has the same eyes as him, I was hallucinating the looks in them.
That also means Hunter isn’t Salvario with a new face, and I was just layering all my feelings for Salvario onto him.
The realization clenches my already-aching stomach, making me feel sick.
The shadows of gloom start consuming me from inside; before they take complete control, I should leave.
I adjust the bathrobe under the duvet and slide out of bed. Rosie and Bruno follow.
“Thanks for everything,” I say one last time before turning toward the door.
“Your clothes are here.”
I stop and turn to him. He points at the bag on the couch.
“Your caretaker sent them this morning.”
I walk to the couch and pick up the bag. After taking out the pouch with my flip-flops and setting them on the floor, I grab the bag of clothes and head to the bathroom.
The clothes I was wearing last night aren’t here. Maybe he sent them back to my place. I take off the bathrobe and put on the panties and bra, then the sweatshirt and sweatpants. I take the bathrobe with me and leave the bathroom.
He’s still standing in the same spot, Bruno and Rosie sitting close to him. His gaze moves to the bathrobe in my hand.
“I’ll return it after I wash it.”
“No need. I’ll have it washed,” he says without inflection, stepping toward me. He takes the bathrobe and tosses it onto his bed.
“I’m sorry for the way I acted last night,” I offer.
“It’s fine,” he replies, toneless.
I nod. “I should leave now.”
He nods, keeping me under his stare. I think it’s just his natural way of looking; I was an idiot to read things into it.
“Have you made any progress finding Salvario?” I ask, slipping on my flip-flops.
“Not yet.”
“Let me know if you make any progress.”
He hums in acknowledgment.
I walk out of his room; he, Rosie, and Bruno follow.
My head still hurts, but it’s bearable compared to what’s happening inside my ribs.
Now that it’s staring me in the face, I can see how desperately I was hoping Hunter was Salvario.
I was giving myself all sorts of reasons to believe that was the case.
It’s a good thing Hunter is a decent man, otherwise, I could’ve put myself in real danger last night.
My eyes burn; I blink quickly as I step down the stairs. What will I say to Salvario when I meet him? That I threw myself at people, imagining they were him? I can feel what he’d feel, because I’d feel the same if our roles were reversed.
“Oh, hey, Elowen.” Logan gets up from the couch in the living room as he spots me.
“Hey, Logan,” I manage.
He frowns. “What happened?” He looks toward Hunter, standing beside me. “Did my brother do something wrong? You can tell me, I’ll beat his ass.”
I force a smile. “I just have a headache.”
“Did you not drink the hangover lemonade I made?”
“Thanks for that. I had it. I think it’ll just take some time to kick in.”
He chuckles. “Thank him for making me do it.” He jerks a thumb toward Hunter.
I nod, the same smile still on my face.
“Are you leaving?”
I nod again.
“Stay for breakfast—I mean, lunch.”
I shake my head. “I don’t feel well. I’ll eat later.”
He looks between me and Hunter.
Hunter
“What have you done?” Logan asks the moment I return after walking her home.
“Nothing,” I say with a frown.
Her mood shifted abruptly. Even with a headache, she was shining when I walked in, but then the brightness drained from her, and she sank into that crushed state I hate more than the bastard she loves.
“Then maybe it’s her headache and depression acting up.”
“I don’t like seeing her like this,” I admit.
“Then do something to cheer her up.”
“What?”
He walks into the kitchen to the coffee machine and starts punching in his instructions. “It’s a very difficult question, considering you can only make people depressed.”
He takes his filled cup. “Ahh, I have an idea, take her to a piano concert, if that kind of thing even exists in this burnt-down city. She plays piano, and you like it too. You can say you wanted to go, but Logan hates piano, so you came to ask if she’s interested.”
He takes a sip of his coffee, leaning against the counter. “It’d be an easy date and most likely make her feel better.”
“Okay. I’ll ask her when I go to return her bag.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“She forgot her bag and phone,” I add.
He grins. “My, my, Hunter—not bad. You’re learning fast. You knew she forgot the bag, yet you didn’t give it to her. I’m impressed.”
“Whatever,” I mutter, leaving him to his coffee and his grin.
I head to my bedroom. As soon as the door opens, her scent hits me.
I shut it quickly to keep it trapped inside.
I walk to my bed, where the robe she wore is lying.
I lift it, holding it like a relic, and bury my face in the fabric, breathing in her sweet scent.
The scent of roses fills my lungs, and I breathe deeper.
My eyes stay shut. My dick stirs in my pants at the memory of her wearing this robe last night and this morning.
It took everything I had to fight the ravenous need to pin her to the bed and take everything she was offering. Not to me, though, that’s why I didn’t act on my hunger. She doesn’t want me. She wants Salvario.
I lie down on my bed with the robe still clutched to my chest, staring at the ceiling.
I didn’t get a single minute of sleep last night.
I first asked her bodyguards to bring her dogs here, using the excuse that she was demanding them, then used her phone to hack into her house’s security system and planted cameras in her bedroom and living room.
And then I watched her till morning—sleeping with her dogs in my bed.
When she stirred, I went downstairs to have Logan prepare a hangover drink for her.
I never drink those things, but Logan does after every heavy night of drinking.
She must not have drunk much, but I’m not surprised a little alcohol completely knocked her senses.
I take out my phone and pull up the camera feed.
She’s in bed, lying on her stomach. One hand is tucked beneath her cheek, the other hangs over the edge of the mattress.
The slump of her shoulders tells me she doesn’t even have the energy to pull it back up.
Every inch of her looks drained. The camera angle doesn’t give me a clear view of her face, but I don’t need one to know she isn’t okay.
Is that because I told her we’ve made no progress finding that man? My molars grind together. How the fuck do I remove this leech called Salvario from her?
I put my phone down and close my eyes. Once she finds out he’s dead, she’ll have no option but to move on from him. But then what she said last night echoes in my mind, and my eyes fly open. She said she was planning to die because she thought Salvario was dead.
What if I kill Salvario, and she ends her life after him?
The furrow between my brows deepens. The thought that didn’t leave my head all night surfaces again: she thinks I’m Salvario. A part of her strongly believes that, if not for that, she wouldn’t have acted that way last night. What if I indulge that part further?
But I don’t want to live in another man’s shadow. I want her to want me for who I am, not because she believes I’m someone else.
There is a way. I’ll bring her closer by feeding into her false belief that I’m Salvario. With time, she’ll start loving me in this identity, and then I’ll remove Salvario from her life completely. I’ll keep searching for him, and when I find him, before she even knows, I’ll kill him.
The corner of my mouth hooks upward. I’ll use Salvario to replace Salvario.
After a year of living like a shell without any memory, I’ve finally found someone who gives me a real reason to live.
And I’ll go to any length to make her mine, whether that means killing Salvario or killing Chris.
And I know I’ll need to do both. Chris wants her family dead, and there’s no way in hell I’ll let him, it would hurt her.
I never liked him anyway; he’s too stupid for me to stomach.
The way he thinks Logan and I are his lapdogs has been grating on my nerves for a long time.
That’s the main reason I don’t talk to him and let Logan do all the talking.
Also, I don’t usually think about it, but it now feels too much of a coincidence for both of us to have lost our memories in the same accident.
We never trusted Chris blindly, so we did our own investigating and learned that we are indeed two orphans who grew up together—Logan and Hunter.
Later, we gave ourselves the last name Blackwood.
We saw our old pictures still hanging in Yellow Valley Orphanage in Toronto, along with other kids from there.
We met a few of those kids, and they confirmed we’re Logan and Hunter, just with slightly changed faces as we grew up.
We found data in Chris’s database indicating we worked for his father and brother for a long time. There’s no doubt about the identity I have, but I have doubts about this whole memory-loss thing. It sometimes occurs to me that maybe he wiped our memories clean. I’ll ask him that before I kill him.