The Forgotten Gallo Bride

ence. Only the faintest lingering lemony fragrance.

He sat on the edge of the bed and breathed in the pain.

Maybe she was right. Maybe it was pride holding him captive here. Maybe he was afraid of showing any kind of vulnerability because he knew this was such a dog-eat-dog world. Every man for himself and all that. He’d lived it, breathed it, built his empire on the rules he knew governed it. Money made a man. People had power over those who were poor and vulnerable and he wasn’t putting himself at risk again. He couldn’t when it had taken so much to claw his way out of that position.

And even if what she felt for him was genuine? Even if she really was in love with him?

His rejection of her wasn’t about him at all. It was about what was best for her. He couldn’t be the man she deserved to have. She didn’t need someone who might let her down. He couldn’t be everything she needed. He didn’t know from one day to the next whether he’d wake up and remember anything at all any more. He wasn’t lumbering her with that. Not when she’d fought so long and so hard to get herself free from the oppression and emotional burden of her uncle. She wasn’t becoming his caretaker. It was never, ever happening.

He wasn’t what was best for her. He never would be.

And he couldn’t bear the thought of losing this too—these precious new memories.

At some point he slept—still dressed and on the edge of the bed he’d shared with her. When he woke, it was the worst moment ever. Furious with his inability to rationalise, he went out to the glasshouse, determined to maintain his daily routine. He worked out—longer and harder than usual.

Then he stomped to the kitchen. He hadn’t eaten in hours. The lights were off and it was cold. There’d been no warm woman up baking at two in the morning making the whole house smell scrumptious and making him smile with her enthusiasm. And it was silent. She’d taken her phone and its relentlessly upbeat playlist with her.

But she’d left him reminders. He lifted the lid from the container he found in the fridge. There was a cake in there. A typically Zara, lemon-loaded, generously proportioned cake. He couldn’t help it, his mouth watered. He cut a piece and put it on a plate and took a seat at the table that now held such significance. He bit into the treat.

As he’d known—feared—it was too delicious for anyone’s good. And as he chewed, it came. That fleeting moment of familiarity—remembrance. But the returning memory remained just out of reach.

It was always going to be just out of reach. Eternally elusive.

Déjà vu again, tormenting him, because his brain now knew he’d met her before and it was trying to piece it together.

He was never going to remember any of that day he’d first met her. The day he’d married her. He’d done something so extreme and he couldn’t remember a thing about it. He couldn’t remember her at all. How was that possible?

He stood in fury and threw the plate into the sink.

The sound of it smashing echoed in his head as he stalked out of the room.

In his office the empty entries in his journal tortured him more. He flicked through the last couple of pages. Then he flicked back further, determined to remind himself of what was important.

His business. His privacy. Priorities, right?

Except as he flicked through the pages, he couldn’t find what he was looking for. He tossed the journal down in exasperation. It was the most boring thing he’d read in months. He, who supposedly had an aptitude for identifying patterns, was only just seeing the reality now. His life had become so constrained and isolated—and boring. And he’d thought he was happy...but he wasn’t.

He’d never been more miserable. Not even that day when the specialist told him his memory might never return was as bad as this. Because only now did he understand what he’d done to himself. And to her.

His fear of losing more had meant he was too afraid to live in the present.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t trust Zara. He couldn’t trust himself. His worst fear was that he’d lose more of his memory and become a millstone around her neck.

He’d told himself it was just lust, just a case of having a beautiful woman under his nose for the first time in for ever—exactly the insecurity she’d once voiced. And as he’d replied, that idea was an insult to her. And to him.

It was only to her that he’d had such a reaction. It would only ever be to her.

And here he was afraid again—unable to trust that she hadn’t done what she had out of some misguided sense of obligation and pity. But wasn’t that insulting her all over again? Was he really going to believe that she didn’t know her own mind? She’d told him as much herself—she hadn’t given up her virginity to him out of pity. She’d wanted him. Plain and simple. And she’d had him. Exactly the way he’d wanted her himself. And he wanted more too.

Now he hoped she still wanted him—for more than just his body.

If he didn’t earn her pity any more—by stopping hiding and starting to live—then maybe they could be together as equals.

But he had to stop hiding now.

Because he hadn’t only lost his past. He’d stalled his present. And he’d lost his future too. He’d pushed her out of the door and slammed it after her.

He was an absolute idiot.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It was a lie.

ZARA GASPED AS she read the headline that dominated the online newspaper. She sank into the chair as her legs weakened and she squinted and leaned closer to the screen to read further.

Galloway Investments CEO suffers

severe memory loss

Tomas Gallo, millionaire CEO of Galloway Investments, was the victim of a near-fatal collision a year ago. Sources close to Gallo say the accident left his memory impaired with a temporal amnesia and there is no likelihood of full recovery. Yet the business has thrived, with Galloway Investments providing more than a twenty per cent return to investors in the last twelve months.

Sources say his work output has not been diminished at all. The CEO, always known for his work ethic, has become reclusive since the accident, living alone in an estate in Buckinghamshire. He is rarely seen in public.

She skimmed the accompanying fact box explaining his kind of amnesia and more about the company’s stellar results but her gaze leapt back to that awful headline. Her blood iced.

This was terrible. This was exactly what Tomas hadn’t wanted. And for it to have been leaked less than a week since she’d left him? There’d be no prizes for guessing who he’d suspect. Panicking, she grabbed her phone and hit Jasper’s number. She’d not spoken to him at all in the five days since he’d dropped her into the village to collect her car. And the only conversation they’d had then was apology met with apology.

‘How did they find out?’ she asked as soon as Jasper answered. ‘Who betrayed him?’

Who was the ‘close source’ who’d told all about his head injury?

‘Have you spoken with him?’ she added before Jasper had the chance to answer. ‘Is he okay?’

‘I haven’t been able to contact him today,’ Jasper finally answered in his usual cautious manner.

Zara pressed her hand to her forehead.

‘He’ll be all right, Zara,’ the lawyer added calmly.

Probably, but ‘all right’ wasn’t enough. He was unhappier than he’d ever admit. He was isolated and lonely and determined to believe he liked it that way and she feared this exposure would only drive him deeper into his seclusion. But he had so much to offer and she hated the thought of him being alone in that huge house all the time when he should be laughing and teasing and loved. There was so much in him to love.

‘Are you going to see him?’ she demanded.

‘I can’t. I’m en route to the airport now. I have a meeting to get to in New York.’

Jasper was going to the States now? ‘You don’t think checking on him is more important?’

‘His company is important to him, Zara,’ Jasper said firmly. ‘It’s what he’s t

old me to do.’

‘So ignore what he’s told you and go check on him,’ she snapped.

‘I value my job and I respect Tomas. If he says he can handle it, he can handle it.’

That wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t okay to leave him alone when this news had just broken.

‘I’ve already crossed the line with sending you there in the first place,’ Jasper suddenly explained in a chastened tone. ‘My job is to take care of the company, not the man.’

‘But you care about the man.’

‘Of course I do,’ he replied. ‘I care about him enough to do as he’s instructed without argument.’

But what Tomas was asking was pure defensive reflex—putting his company ahead of his personal life as he’d always done. This was only going to drive him deeper into his isolated world.

‘How are you doing, Zara?’

Her heart stalled at the gentle pity in Jasper’s query. Of course he knew how she felt about Tomas; there’d been no hiding how devastated she’d been when he’d made her leave the other morning. She’d been almost silent in that car, but there’d been tears she couldn’t stop from falling.

‘I’m fine,’ she assured Jasper quickly, glancing around her dreary little bedsit. ‘It was a rough week and this was a shock, but I’m okay. I’ve been very busy getting back into my work.’

It was a lie. She’d spent the first two days crying. Then she’d pulled herself together and told herself to get on with it. But it was damn hard. She missed him with every fibre of her being.

She ended the call as quickly as she could, still angry and upset and still none the wiser about who had betrayed Tomas’s confidence.

Jasper might be willing to say yes to everything Tomas wanted, but she wasn’t going to. She was going to stand up and do what she knew in her heart was right.

He might not feel the same way about her, and that was fine, but she could check on him as a friend. And the only way she was going to know he was okay was to see him face to face. And she needed him to know she hadn’t been the one to expose him. Honestly, she just ached to see him.

Decision made, she threw her bag into the car and locked up her small bedsit.