Denial (Careless Whispers #1)(2)

I wait for the expected shock, followed by fear and bad memories, but still nothing comes to me. “When?”

He lifts his wrist, displaying a watch with a thick black leather band. “It’s six in the morning now. I called for the ambulance just after midnight.”

“That’s bizarre. What was I doing in an alleyway after midnight?”

“I was curious about the same thing.”

“Why were you there?”

“Trying to reach the grocery store in front of it, before it closed.”

“I see.” My brow furrows. “I just can’t imagine myself making the decision to go to a dark, deserted place alone that late at night.”

“Maybe you didn’t. Maybe you were forced.”

“That’s a horrible thought,” I say, and while I mean the words, I remember nothing, therefore I feel nothing.

“But a logical one, considering you ended up in the hospital.”

There is a flickering image in my mind of an ambulance and cobblestone pavement, and I can almost feel the cold ground against my body. And it’s then that fiction becomes reality. “I’m not dreaming, am I?”

“You didn’t really think you were, did you?”

“I thought . . . because I can’t remember anything . . . it just seemed off. I’m off.”

“Because you have a head injury—and from what you’ve indicated, a hellacious headache. That’s no dream I want to experience.”

He’s right, of course. He might be dream-worthy, but nothing else about this is. Definitely not the blank space in my mind that I try to access now and fail. I don’t know what is happening to me. Panicked, I jerk to a sitting position, a mistake I’m punished for as the pain bleeds from the center of my skull left and right, seeming to draw a circle.

Groaning, I curl forward and grab my head. “It feels like my scalp is being detached.”

“You need to lie back down,” Kayden insists.

“No,” I say, grabbing my legs to support myself. “No, I don’t need to lie down. I need to remember what happened to me.”

“I’m raising the bed for you,” he says, and a low hum fills the air as the mattress comes to life.

I force my head up and look at him. “Kayden,” I say, clinging to what I know. “Your name is Kayden.”

“Yes,” he confirms, his hands encasing my waist as he eases me against the mattress. “My name is Kayden.”

“Thank God,” I breathe out. “I have present-time memory.” He starts to move away and I grab his forearms, holding him to me. “Wait. What’s my name?”

“What? You don’t know your name?”

“I can’t remember anything before I woke up. Just tell me my name. Please. I need a trigger for my memories.”

He studies me for a beat, maybe two, in which I want to yank a response from his mouth. And then he’s standing, giving me his back, one hand running through his thick hair.

“Kayden, please,” I say, freaking out at his reaction. “What’s going on? Why aren’t you answering me?”

He faces me, hands settling on his lean hips. “Because I can’t. You were mugged. Your purse and identification were missing when I found you.”

“You don’t know who I am, either?” I feel as if I’ve been kicked.

“None of us do.”

“Surely someone has come looking for me.”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet?” I choke out, and the news is yet another gut-wrenching blow that leaves me reeling and alone. What kind of person has no one looking for her?

He moves to the side of my bed again and sits down. “It’s only been a few hours.”

“Please don’t do that obligatory make-me-feel-better thing that people do. I am indebted to you for saving me, and I appreciate that you waited here until I woke up—but you don’t have to stay here with me.” My eyes prickle with tears, and I stare at the doorway, trying to compose myself.

Of course, it’s at that poorly timed moment that a woman in green scrubs rushes into the room, speaking in a language I don’t understand. I inhale and will away the tears threatening to spill over, only to have her stop at the foot of my bed, her speech pausing expectantly. I blink and realize that she’s waiting for an answer I can’t deliver. I stare at her. She stares at me, and while the tears might be gone, I have this sense of standing in quicksand, sinking fast, unable to claw my way out.

Kayden rescues me, stepping to my side and answering for me. Confused, overwhelmed with everything but memories, I let my head roll forward, pressing my fingers to my throbbing forehead and telling myself not to crumble. I have to be stronger than this moment in time.

“You don’t know Italian, do you?”

At Kayden’s question, I look up to find the nurse gone and him standing at the end of the bed. “Why would I?”

“It’s the native language.”

He’s making no sense. “No, it’s not.”

“You don’t know that you’re in Rome.” It’s not a question, and he doesn’t wait for an answer. “Of course you don’t. Why would you? You don’t even know your own name.”

“What? I can’t be in Rome. I’m American.”