Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN WHO REMEMBERED HIS HEART|
Elena finished her shift at seven that evening and found Adrian waiting outside the clinic.
He stood beside a black sedan, his hands bare despite the freezing weather. Two men waited at a distance.
She stopped beneath the entrance light.
“Do you make a habit of following women home?”
“I came to apologize.”
“That would be a first.”
He accepted the insult without reacting.
“I spoke to someone who remembers the incident in Hudson Valley.”
Elena's breath caught.
“What incident?”
“The attack that left me injured. The eleven days I spent recovering.”
“You remember?”
“Not enough.”
She studied him.
For the first time since he had entered the clinic, she saw something beneath the polished exterior. Frustration. Confusion. A man who had been handed a version of his own life and was beginning to suspect it had been edited.
“Why are you here, Adrian?”
He seemed startled that she knew his name.
“You read the card.”
“I read the newspapers, too. They call you a businessman when they want to sound respectable and a monster when they want to sell copies.”
“Which do you believe?”
“I believe a man who denies knowing the woman who waited ten years for him has a great deal to explain.”
His gaze dropped to the ring.
“I don't remember giving it to you.”
“But I remember.”
“Tell me about that night.”
Elena considered walking away.
Instead, she leaned against the brick wall and spoke.
“You were twenty-four. You arrived at my father's clinic during a thunderstorm. You were bleeding, feverish, and terrified. My father wanted to call the sheriff, but you told him people would die if he did.”
Adrian listened without interrupting.
“You called yourself Matthew. You said you had no family worth returning to. You hated the coffee I made, but you drank every cup. You pretended you didn't like old movies, then cried during the ending of Field of Dreams and blamed the medication.”
His expression shifted.
A tiny line appeared between his brows.
“I remember a room,” he whispered. “A yellow lamp. Rain against a window.”
Elena's heart lurched.
“You remember?”
“It's only an image.”
She continued, afraid to stop.
“On the twelfth night, you kissed me. The next morning, you said you had to leave. You gave me the ring and promised you would come back.”
“Why didn't I?”
“I spent ten years asking myself that question.”
Adrian looked away.
“Someone told me you had been working with my enemies. That the ring had been taken from my family during the attack.”
“Who told you?”
“My mother.”
Elena felt the blood drain from her face.
“Your mother never met me.”
“She says she has records.”
“Then her records are lies.”
He watched her carefully.
“You're certain?”
“I am certain that I loved a man who was frightened of dying and brave enough to trust my father. I am certain he never asked me for money or information. And I am certain that if he had chosen to leave me, he would have looked me in the eyes and said so.”
The silence between them grew heavy.
Adrian took a step back.
“I need to see your father's records.”
“No.”
“Those records may help me recover my memory.”
“They may also expose people who are still alive and dangerous.”
“I can protect you.”
Elena almost laughed.
“You couldn't even remember me.”
She turned toward the clinic.
“Don't come back unless you can tell me something you remember without someone else putting it in your head.”
Adrian watched her disappear inside.
He had spent ten years believing his past was a battlefield he had survived.
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Now he was beginning to suspect it had been a crime scene.
And Elena Ross was the only witness who had never changed her story.
