Last Summer(22)

“Sure.”

Rebecca ends the call and Ella gently, slowly, sets down her phone.

Who the hell is Nathan Donovan?





CHAPTER 9

Ella unpacks her laptop and searches Nathan Donovan. Pages upon pages load, and within minutes, she has his basic stats. Nathan Donovan, celebrity adventurer and star of the hit Nat Geo Wild series Off the Grid! Thirty-seven, separated, and father to one son, who tragically died almost a year and a half ago, right before Off the Grid! was canceled midseason.

Ella clicks the Images link and a mosaic of photos, from professional headshots to stills of his survival television series and blurry paparazzi photos, fills the screen. With his dark-brown hair, ice-blue eyes, and a physique carved from military training and the grueling survivalist stunts he showcased on his series, Nathan Donovan isn’t hard on the eyes. He also looks like her husband. Damien’s doppelg?nger. Minus the military training and celebrity status, of course. Damien loves a good, long run and bench-pressing weights, but Nathan’s an adrenaline junkie and thrives in the outdoors.

Wow, she thinks. It’s uncanny how much they resemble each other.

Ella feels uneasy. Nathan is well known. She should have at least heard of him and his television series. She should definitely remember meeting and interviewing him.

But she has nothing. Not a single memory. Not even a faint recollection of a phone call or email, let alone an in-person interview that she apparently conducted on some godforsaken mountain trail, as Rebecca described it.

She’s blocked him from her memory. Just like Simon.

Ella’s gaze drifts to the office door. Across the hall is Simon’s nursery. The door is still closed. She hasn’t ventured into that room since early December. She did for a month, every day. She’d stand in the middle of the room, hoping the scent of the new furniture or sound of the musical mobile above the crib would jog her memory. They didn’t, so she gave up on trying to remember.

Well, she’s not giving up any longer. If she did, in fact, interview Nathan Donovan, she’d have files. There would be emails and a log of phone calls. Documents of research notes and uploaded recordings of the interview. But she doesn’t recall his name or seeing a file with her interview notes when she looked through her computer four months ago when she’d hoped to find a document or an email that would help trigger her memories. She’d looked through so many files last November. Maybe she forgot. Frantic, she searches again. She clicks folders and skims through her bookmarks. She looks through emails, sent, trash, and draft folders. She opens her trash bin. Over and over she plugs in variations of Nathan’s name. Not a single document, saved web page, or transcribed voice recording pops up.

Her phone. There has to be something. A call out or in. Certainly, she would have at least called him to confirm their interview time and location. Her log downloaded from her cloud account when Damien set up her phone.

Ella scans her calls and contacts, but she can’t find a match with the number Rebecca gave her. The phone’s location services are on but the history comes up empty, too, so she can’t tell where she might have traveled.

It’s almost as though the interview never happened.

Ella finishes her search and realizes she’s shaking. Nauseous, she drops her head in her hands and takes several deep breaths to calm her queasy stomach. She’s losing her mind.

Ella can’t ask Rebecca about it. She might slip about her memory loss and then her editor would question whether she can pull off the Donovan interview. Nathan would retract the exclusive. Then Paul will fire her. Or worse, assign her to writing fluff pieces on Hollywood divorces and fashion faux pas.

Ella has to be the one to tell Nathan, she reasons. He’s going to find out anyhow when he realizes she has to redo the interview because she doesn’t have any notes or recordings from the original. Best to tell him face-to-face. Less of a chance of him kicking her off his mountain once she’s already made the trek. Either way, she fully intends to convince him to do it over. She can be very persuasive when she needs to be.

In the meantime, she needs to dig up as much information as possible about him and their original time together. Who would know?

Damien.

She calls him but is sent directly to voice mail. She hangs up without leaving a message and calls Davie.

“Ella Bella. Calling about lunch tomorrow?” she answers.

“Hey, yeah, about that. We need to reschedule. I received a new assignment and need to drive to Truckee tomorrow. What do you know about Nathan Donovan?”

“Other than the man is a god and I’m disappointed your article never ran?”

So there was an article.

“Do you know when I met with him?” she asks.

“You don’t remember?”

“Uh-uh. I don’t remember anything about him.”

“At all? Wow.” The word comes out long, spoken with incredulity. “And you’re interviewing him again?”

“Yes, he called my editor this morning.”

“Geez, Ella. What are you going to do? It’ll be like you’re meeting him all over again.”

“Tell him the truth, I guess. I don’t have another choice. It’s an exclusive and he’ll only talk to me.”

“Well, for the sake of preserving your job and serving up the juicy bits us females have been dying to hear about him, I hope he doesn’t mind rehashing his life story with you. You spent a lot of time with him.”