Chapter Six
Chapter Six
“Vivian, are you all right?”
Nick turned around, and his brows knitted together.
“Ahem.” I swallowed the pain spreading through my body and forced a smile. “I’m fine.”
He didn’t say anything. His eyes moved from my face to the way I was curled around my stomach, to my shaking hands.
The plane hit turbulence and lurched. I swayed with it, and the wounds on my back tore. Cold sweat broke out on my forehead.
“You’re hurt?”
I tried to shake my head, but everything went black.
The last thing I remember is him lunging to catch me, and the way his voice broke on my name.
…
Nick raised his hand. His palm was warm with blood.
His face went dark. He hit the intercom to the cockpit. “Find the nearest airport. Land now!”
Reykjavík, Iceland. The university hospital.
Nick stood at the window outside the emergency room, watching snow swirl across the sky.
The light over the ER door went out. An old doctor with a white beard pulled off his mask and shook his head. “It’s not good. Acute lung injury, pulmonary edema, fractured ribs, ruptured organs. And complications from the miscarriage.”
Each word landed on Nick’s nerves like a hammer.
“Vito.”
“I’m here, sir.”
A man with an utterly forgettable face appeared behind him—the kind of face that vanished into any crowd.
No one would have guessed he was the most trusted right hand of the head of the Valenti family.
“Find out what happened to her.”
Five years ago, that winter, had been the darkest time of Nick’s life.
It was snowing the day she knocked on his door, her eyes shining. “Nick!”
That year, she’d been offered a contract with the Royal Ballet in London—and her grandmother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She’d flown home to Vermont and stayed with her to the end.
Nick had thought she’d come back to start over.
“Nick, I’m going back to America. For good this time.”
His fingers went still in his pocket. The edges of the diamond ring there dug into his skin. “Why?”
She was quiet for a moment. “I… I’ve fallen for someone.”
Who?
The word circled his mind four or five times. He never dared to say it out loud.
She gave up a brilliant future in Europe and went back to America to marry Julian.
He never let himself ask about her again. He’d gone to see her in secret a few times, and every time, watching how in love they were had been like being flayed alive.
That man had adored her down to the bone. He’d had eyes for no one else, and couldn’t bear to see her hurt in the smallest way. And the girl Nick loved had had eyes for no one but him.
Nick had been eaten alive with jealousy, and had held his feelings down almost to the point of cruelty, mocking himself over and over for being so useless.
In the end, Vivian and San Francisco became a wound he couldn’t bear to touch.
So how had she ended up like this?
Something dark flickered in Nick’s eyes.
Whoever had hurt her would pay. Whoever they were.
…
San Francisco.
Julian had been unconscious for three days and three nights.
Finally, his finger twitched.
“Doctor! Doctor! His finger moved!” Rosalind flung herself at the bed. “Julian, you’re awake! The doctor said if you didn’t wake up today, you might never wake up!”
His head was throbbing. He pushed her away, irritated. “Who are you?”
Rosalind’s crying stopped dead.
“Julian, you—you don’t recognize me? It’s me, Rosalind!”
His frown deepened. “Where’s my girlfriend? Where’s Vivian?”
He hated every woman who looked like Vivian. This one looked seventy or eighty percent like her, but he could tell at a glance that she wasn’t.
Vivian’s features were softer, gentler. When she lowered her eyes, there was something almost holy about her.
Just thinking of her softened his gaze.
He’d planned everything. In three days, at her birthday party, he was going to propose.
He reached into his pocket, and his face darkened. “Hey. Where’s my ring? Have you seen the ring I was going to give Vivian?”
The ring? Hadn’t he given that ring away five years ago?
Meeting his completely unfamiliar stare, Rosalind felt her blood run cold. She stood rooted to the spot. “Julian, what are you talking about?”
Impatience flickered across his face. He’d promised Vivian the perfect wedding. That ring was exactly the style she loved, and he’d poured his heart into it. If he lost it, she’d be so disappointed.
Last year, for her birthday, he’d rushed back early from Paris, and of course the flight had been delayed. She’d waited for him a whole day and a whole night, and when he finally walked in, her eyes had been swollen from crying.
He’d never broken a promise to her since.
And this woman—who looked so much like Vivian, and had appeared out of nowhere—grated on him more by the second.
“I don’t care who you are. Get out. Right now. And don’t let me see you again.”
Only then did it hit Rosalind.
He’d lost his memory.
He remembered Vivian. He didn’t remember her.
Then what had five years of careful, step-by-step scheming been for?
Now, if she wanted to use the baby to claim a share of the Blackwood fortune, she’d have to prove paternity first.
And this baby wasn’t Julian’s at all.
