He wanted to. Desperately. He’d hoped finally getting Caitlyn into his arms would do the trick. Instead, all he’d accomplished was to make things worse.
She was in love with him. And the way he felt about her—wonderful and terrifying emotions was a stellar way to describe it. When he looked at her, it was as if every star in the sky shined all at once, lighting up the darkness. She was his star. The only constellation in his life that would ever make sense. Because he’d done exactly what he’d set out to do. He’d created new memories, new experiences with her.
Surely this was love.
But he’d been in love with Vanessa, or so Caitlyn had told him. Why couldn’t he remember her clearly? It seemed wrong to tell Caitlyn about his feelings, his fledging certainty that he was in love with her, too, to promise her any sort of future, when he’d done the same with Vanessa...only to lose all consciousness of that relationship.
What if he did that to Caitlyn one day? What if he got in the ring with Cutter again and the next blow to his head erased his memories of her?
He couldn’t stand the thought.
At Falco, he sat in the chair behind his desk. It was a sleek behemoth with a front piece that went all the way to the ground, hiding his lower half from view to visitors. Why had such obscurity appealed to him? He had no idea, but Caitlyn had told him he’d selected it along with all of the other furniture in the office.
Perhaps he’d shopped for furniture with Vanessa, too, as he’d done with Caitlyn. He yearned for his relationship with Caitlyn to feel special and unique. But how would he know either way?
This frustration was useless, and nothing he’d done thus far today came close to handling his memory problems differently. So he picked up the phone and scheduled the CT scan for the following week after the holidays.
It might not help, but he couldn’t live in this fog of uncertainty any longer. He’d promised Caitlyn they would talk about the future after the first of the year and he’d been entertaining the notion of taking her to someplace she’d enjoy for New Year’s Eve, like Paris or Madrid. Just the two of them.
Antonio pulled the ring box from his pocket and flipped the lid. The fifteen-karat diamond dazzled like a perfect, round star against the midnight velvet. The moment he’d seen it in the case as he’d waited for the jeweler to retrieve Caitlyn’s custom-made necklace, he’d known. That was the ring he wanted on Caitlyn’s finger forever, as a physical symbol that she belonged to him and he needed her. He imagined her eyes filling with all that sweet, endless emotion as she realized he was asking her to marry him.
But he couldn’t ask her until he exorcised the ghost of his first wife.
He pushed away from the desk and strode outside to get some fresh air. Street sounds and the ever-present sting of smog and pollution invaded what little serenity he might have found outdoors.
A flash of red hair in his peripheral vision put a hitch in his gut. An otherworldly sense of dread overwhelmed him.
Slowly, he turned to see a woman approaching him, a quizzical, hopeful slant to her expression. Long legged, slim build, beautiful porcelain face, fall of bright red hair to her waist.
Vanessa.
Oh, God. It was his wife. In the flesh. A million irreconcilable images flew through his head as he stared at her. Pain knifed through his temples.
“Antonio,” she whispered, her voice scratchy and trembling. She searched his gaze hungrily. “I saw the news report and couldn’t believe it. I had to find you, to see you for myself.”
“Vanessa,” he croaked, and his throat seized up.
She recoiled as if he’d backhanded her across the face. “What is that, a joke?”
“You’re supposed to be dead. Caitlyn told me they found your body.”
Caitlyn. Horrified, he stared at the redhead filling his vision. Caitlyn was the mother of his children, his lover. She lived in his house, in his heart...and there was no room for Vanessa. How could this be possible?
“I’m not Vanessa, Antonio. What’s going on? It’s me.” Confusion threw her expression into shadow when he shook his head. “Shayla.”
The name exploded in his head. Across his soul. Shayla.
Laughing, moaning, murmuring his name—dozens of memories of her scrolled through his mind. Her body twining with his. Her full breasts on unashamed display, head thrown back as she rode him, taking her pleasure as if she had done it often, as if she had a right to use his body.
And of course she had done it often.
Shayla. His mistress. Vanessa—his wife.