29. Amara
Amara
I slip back into the house, my heart still fluttering from Caleb’s touch. My lips are swollen from his kisses, and I can’t wipe this stupid smile off my face.
It’s strange—I don’t remember falling in love with him, that much of my memory isn’t quite there, but I do remember being with him and my body certainly does. Every cell recognizes his presence, responds to his voice.
“Where have you been?”
I nearly jump out of my skin. Milly stands in the hallway, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised.
“Just getting some air.” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, hoping the darkness hides my flushed cheeks.
“Air, huh?” She smirks, clearly not buying it. “Must’ve been some quality oxygen.”
I shrug, trying to look innocent and failing miserably.
“Did you see Dom before you left?” Milly asks, her voice dropping lower. “He stormed out earlier, and he looked ready to murder someone.”
“No. What happened?”
“No idea. He was on the phone, then suddenly he was grabbing his keys and slamming doors.” She leans against the wall. “Thought maybe you knew something.”
I shake my head. “I’ve been out.”
“With Professor Hot Stuff?”
“Oh my god, how do you know?”
“I saw the way you looked at him. It’s the same way you looked at him before the…er…accident.”
“You followed me?”
“Of course I did. But I left once I saw you with him on the beach.”
I laugh.
“Does that mean you’re remembering again?”
“I need to tell you something.”
Her eyes widen before she glances over her shoulder toward the kitchen. “Enzo’s just turned up. He’s in there,” she whispers.
“I’ll tell you more later.” My good mood slightly dampened at the mention of Enzo. According to my diary, her being with him is bad news.
“Tell me now.”
I glance around nervously before whispering, “I found my diary.”
“What? Where was it?”
“Hidden in my room. I’ve been reading it.”
“And?” She grabs my arm, pulling me closer. “Has it helped? Do you remember anything?”
“I’ve scan-read it a few times and now I’m going to read more,” I whisper. “It’s helping me see things more clearly, even if I don’t remember everything yet.”
“But your memory is coming back.”
I nod as I think about my laptop sitting on the desk. “There’s a problem with my computer, too. I don’t remember how to get into it.”
“What do you mean?” Milly whispers. “Just turn it on.”
“I can’t remember the password.”
Milly laughs, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Nobody uses passwords anymore. Turn it on. You’ll have set up a Face or Fingerprint ID. One will work. Just look at the screen. If that doesn’t open it up, then press your fingerprint over the mouse pad.”
“Really?”
“Trust me. You were always paranoid about security, you’ll have set it up. You hated remembering passwords.”
“Can you help me? Just to get into it.”
“Come on. Enzo will be fine.” She takes my hand and we dash up the staircase.
In my room, I open the laptop and press the power button. Milly crouches beside me as the screen lights up, casting a blue glow across our faces.
I position myself in front of the camera, holding still as the screen scans my face, but nothing happens.
“Try your finger,” Milly suggests, pointing to the small square on the right side of the mouse pad.
I press my index finger against it, and to my surprise, the screen unlocks immediately.
“See? Told you.” Milly peers at the screen. “What are you looking for, anyway?”
My heart races as I stare at the apps. “I’m not sure. Anything that might help me remember why someone ran me over.”
“Is that wise?”
“I need to know before everyone knows my memory is returning.”
“Have you told anyone else?”
“Caleb knows a little.” She purses her lips, but before she can say anything, I say, “I trust him.”
“Okay, but we need to have a talk about this. I’ll speak to you when Enzo leaves. For now, click the different apps. You’ll get the hang of it, but do nothing stupid. I will come and help you when I get rid of Enzo.”
What I don’t tell her is that I’m desperate to check the Pampered Princess website I found mentioned in my diary. Not only the website, but I think I am being blackmailed, and somehow it is connected to someone on the website.
“Want me to help you look now?” Milly asks.
“No!” I say too quickly. “I mean, I think I need to do this myself. It might trigger more memories if I discover things on my own.”
She looks slightly hurt, but nods. “Okay, I get it. Just let me know if you find anything interesting. Open an incognito browser if you want nothing logged.”
“Incognito?”
“Here, let me.” Milly hovers over three dots and a new menu appears. She clicks on the incognito tab. “Unless you log in, nobody knows that you’re on whatever website you go on.”
“Thanks.”
“Be careful. Call me if something upsets you. And let me know if you find out anything important,” Milly says, squeezing my hand.
“I will,” I promise, planning to do no such thing.
Milly heads to the door but pauses. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem...different. Not just the memory stuff. There’s something—”
“I’m fine,” I interrupt. “I’m just trying to piece everything together.”
After she leaves, I take a deep breath and open a new incognito window. Looks like I’ll find out more about the Pampered Princess website.
I drag my chair until it is in the center of the bedroom. I reach up to the ceiling fan blade where I stashed the diary for easy access. The book tips off the edge and lands with a thud on the floor.
I grab it and rush to the desk.
I open the page in the book that I’d marked for easy access. There it is—my login details for Pampered Princess, scrawled in my handwriting with a little heart dotted over the ‘i’ in Princess. My stomach tightens as I type in the information.
With a few clicks on the keyboard, I’m in. Suddenly, my face is in full view on the screen.
“Shit!” I need to turn off the camera.
I find a quick button on the keyboard and turn it off before I scroll through my feed. There are dozens of unanswered messages from men who seem to like me.
But as I read through them, the truth hits me. They don’t like me—they just want me to show them more in exchange for money. One offers five hundred dollars if I take off my top. Another wants a private session for twice that amount.
I gag.
I did this? Was my life so bad it resorted to this?
But when I read through my past encounters, it seems that I liked the attention. The messages I sent back were flirty, confident—nothing like how I feel now. Was I lacking something?
Was it just money I needed?
Or something else?
Then I read a message from someone called “HisPrincess”: “I’ll be waiting to whisk you away. Meet me at the Gold Coast airport at 4pm on Sunday.”
I check the date. Two days before I was hit.
The man hasn’t been online since.
Suspicious. I make a mental note of his username to investigate later before I read more messages.
“I’ll make it worth your while, SweetBunny,” one message reads. “Same arrangement as last time?”
My stomach churns as I click through to my profile picture.
There I am, wearing a bunny mask that covers the top half of my face.
I’m pouting at the camera, dressed in lacy lingerie that leaves little to the imagination.
The mask is cute, playful even, but there’s nothing innocent about what I was doing.
I keep flicking through my feed when a name jumps out at me: SweetJustice. The same name I wrote about in my diary.
My heart starts pounding against my rib cage. This is it. My blackmailer.
I stare at the screen. My heart stops pounding, but sinks with each message I read. The words blur together when tears threaten to spill.
What have I done? This isn’t me—it can’t be me. Yet here’s the evidence, displayed in high definition across my laptop screen.
There are dozens of them, each more threatening than the last.
“Look what I found,” one says, with an attachment.
My hand shakes as I click on it. The image loads—it’s me, no mask in place, but I’m standing next to an older man, gray at the temples, wearing an expensive suit. His hand is placed possessively on my back.
The next message makes my blood run cold: “Mayor Anderson is a very important man. If this picture gets out, he is toast. And so are you.”
I gasp, covering my mouth with my hand. Mayor Anderson? The man whose face is plastered across billboards all over the Gold Coast?
“Dom will be very interested to see these pictures,” another message reads.
“Why?” I had asked.
“Because your stepfather will think you are betraying him with his enemy.”
I click through more messages, my anxiety mounting so high that my fingernail finds its way between my teeth as I chew nervously.
I read on, the knot in my stomach tightening.
“But it can all disappear,” SweetJustice had written. “I’ll delete everything if you just let me know about a certain deal Dominic is getting involved in. The one happening at Angels and Sinners. I need the details and quick.”
Which means my blackmailer can’t be Dom. Unless he’s playing some twisted game.
I read more details, piecing together the fragments of my forgotten life. The deal was happening on the night I was nearly killed. The night of the accident. The message warns me not to tell anyone—not Dom, not my sisters, nobody.
“If you breathe a word of this to anyone, everything goes public. Your stepfather will know exactly what his little princess has been up to.”
I struggle to sleep for the entire night. So much so I’m exhausted, but sleep won’t come.
I check the time on my phone: 3:00 am. Perfect. Three hours of tossing and turning, and I’m no closer to sleep than when I first laid down. Is it the blackmailer still being out there that’s keeping me awake? Or something else entirely?
With a frustrated sigh, I throw back the covers and swing my legs over the side of the bed.
My throat feels parched. A glass of water might help.
The hallway is dark and silent as I tiptoe barefoot toward the staircase. I pause outside Dom’s bedroom door, my hand hovering over the handle. Before I can think better of it, I grasp it, turning it slowly to avoid any sound. The door opens just enough for me to peek inside.
The bed is empty. Perfectly made, like no one’s slept in it tonight.
Where is he? A flutter of concern rises in my chest, which surprises me.
Why should I care where my stepfather is at three in the morning?
I continue to the kitchen, grabbing a glass from the cabinet and filling it with filtered water from the refrigerator door. As I drink, my eyes drift to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the backyard. The pool glows an ethereal blue in the darkness, its surface perfectly still like glass.
The sight is oddly mesmerizing. Peaceful, even. I stand there watching the water for several minutes before deciding I’m not ready to go back to my room.
I wander into the family room, glass in hand, and sink into the plush sectional sofa.
The remote sits on the coffee table, and I grab it, switching on the massive TV mounted on the wall. After scrolling through options, I settle on The Greatest Showman. Something about the bright colors, or is it knowing it’s a musical, feels comforting right now?
Setting my water on the table, I curl up against the cushions, pulling the throw blanket over my legs. The movie plays, but my eyelids grow heavier with each passing minute. I try to focus on the main character, but the battle against sleep becomes too much.
I stop fighting it, letting my eyes close completely.
“Amara... Amara.” A deep voice murmurs in my ear as my body jolts against a hard chest.
My eyes fly open. “Dom.”
He’s holding me, his arms strong around my body. I must have fallen asleep on the couch.
“Why aren’t you in bed?” he asks, his voice a low rumble as he climbs the stairs with me in his arms.
My lip quivers traitorously. “I couldn’t sleep.”