Denial (Careless Whispers #1)(11)

Frustrated again, I open my eyes and stare at myself, feeling as if I know the woman in that memory far more than I know the one in the mirror. “Who are you?”

Leaning closer to the mirror, as if that might actually help me in some way, my eyes catch on a red strand of hair near my nape, and then another, and another, all hidden in the under-layer. Shifting my attention, I examine my eyebrows, and sure enough, I locate several strands of red. Heart racing, and I’m not sure why, I grab my gown, and tug it upward and confirm that I’m either shaved or waxed, but whatever the case, it hides the proof of my coloring. Hiding. The word plays in my mind, echoed by another. Running.

I drop the gown and lean on the sink, staring at my image again, and I am now officially freaked out. I am running. I know it in some deep part of me. The question is—from whom or what?

“Oh God,” I whisper, thinking of the fingerprints. What if I’m in trouble? What if I broke the law and I’m giving the proof to a man who can arrest me? I don’t feel like a criminal, but how does one feel when one breaks the law? I just . . . don’t know.

Or maybe it’s not the law that’s my problem. Maybe it’s a person I’m trying to escape. What if it’s Kayden? What if that is why he’s familiar?

A knock echoes on the door and I jump, whirling around to face it.

“You okay in there?”

At the sound of Kayden’s voice, the detective’s words play in my head. Kayden Wilkens doesn’t do anything, including you, without an agenda. And I remind myself that I don’t know Kayden, so I don’t know if I can trust him. The same applies to the detective, which leaves me with a devastating conclusion. I can’t lean on anyone but myself until I retrieve my memories—which means I can’t stay here. I have to leave, now, tonight, and do it with no money or help. And go where? Think. Think. Think. And then it hits me. Italy is rich with religious culture. I’ll go to a church. Surely one of them will have a place for me to stay and hide.

Abruptly, the door opens, and I gasp as Kayden steps into the room, his big body claiming the small space, his presence sucking all the air from my lungs.

“What are you doing in here?” I demand.

He shocks me by kicking the door shut. “Opening your eyes.”

With dread in my belly, I grab the sink behind me, holding on for the blow that I sense is coming. “What are you talking about, Kayden?”

“It’s time for you to remember.” He closes the small space between us, crowding me, the spicy, warm scent of him with hints of vanilla teasing my nostrils and stirring a flicker of a memory I can’t place.

“I was right,” I accuse, my chin tilting upward to challenge him. “We aren’t strangers, are we?”

“Do I feel like a stranger?”

“I feel like a stranger. Why wouldn’t you?”

“What does your instinct tell you?” he asks, playing the same card Gallo had earlier.

And again, I say, “I don’t trust my instincts.”

“And yet you refuse your memories and leave yourself with nothing else to go on, vulnerable to lies I’m not telling you.”

Vulnerable. He uses the word like he knows what I’m feeling. Like he knows me. “How do I know that? How do I know anything you tell me is true?”

“Exactly,” he agrees. “That’s my point. It’s time to come out of the shadows and remember who you are.”

“You think I don’t want to? I can’t just flip a switch and make my mind work. And neither can you.”

“Maybe not, but I’m not leaving you in those shadows, either.” He reaches for me, and I gasp as he twists me around to face the mirror, his hips leveraging my backside from behind.

“What are you doing?” I demand, grabbing the sink while he grabs a hunk of my hair and holds it up to display the red.

“What does this tell us about you?”

“Lots of people dye their hair,” I say, afraid of where this is going, of what I’m about to find out.

“You not only colored your hair,” he says, “you did it quickly and badly.” He turns me around again, pressing my backside to the sink, his hands settling on my hips, scorching me through the thin material. “You were running when I found you, and you almost got caught.”

“You can’t know that,” I say, my fingers curling on the hard wall of his chest where they’ve landed. “I don’t know that.”

“Those men chasing you in that alley weren’t two-bit thieves. They were skilled, experienced criminals, and they were after you.”

“You saw them?”

“Yes. I saw them. And I intervened or you wouldn’t be here right now. What I didn’t know, when I called emergency and gave them my damn name, was who those men were. Not until I found this.” He digs out a package of matches. “Do they look familiar?”

“No,” I say, my voice cracking. “Nothing looks familiar but you.”

“Because you don’t want to remember anything before me and you have to.”

“I want to remember.”

“Mezonnett,” he says, reading the writing on the matchbook flap, and then grabbing my palm to press it inside my hand, curling my fingers, and his, around it. “It’s a restaurant owned by a man named Niccolo. A very rich, very arrogant man who also happens to be the biggest mobster in Italy.”