Claiming His Secret Heir. Joanne Rock
Читать онлайн книгу.
used to be so steady and self-assured. Now, everything her father had told her about her past contradicted what she had believed about it.
“I definitely don’t want to add to the stress of remembering.” Damon returned to the tray and finished making her turkey sandwich, which he passed over before pouring her a drink—water with a twist of lemon. “I did a quick scan online about amnesia recovery while the housekeeper put together the meal, and it said that the senses can sometimes trigger memories more easily. Hearing a song or smelling something familiar can help, like your physician said.”
Thinking about the flood of memories from the scent of his aftershave, Caroline would say the doctor had been spot on.
“If I never lived here, maybe there’s nothing to be gained by me staying here.” She had allotted two days to solving the mystery of Damon. She couldn’t afford to waste time. “Is there somewhere else that might be more meaningful?”
Nibbling on her sandwich, she watched him make another for himself, the muscles in his forearm shifting and flexing as he reached for cheese slices and fresh tomato. She’d fallen for him hard and fast the first time—getting engaged after knowing him for only six weeks and marrying him a month after that. She needed to be more cautious now, to learn all she could about him.
“You lived in a hotel when you first came to town to research Transparent. I had a smaller house close to the company in Mountain View.” He leaned back against the cushions lining the daybed swing, keeping a foot on the patio floor to anchor them.
Caroline was grateful both for the darkness and Damon’s focus on keeping the daybed from rocking, which took his attention away from her while her face flamed with memories of time spent at his place. How many nights had she languished in his bed there before their wedding? They’d made love in virtually every room. Also, the sauna. The pool house...
She didn’t dare ask him about that home. Her voice might betray her.
“Did we have dates anywhere significant? Special?” She frowned, trying to remember how it felt to have no frame of reference for conversations about the past. When her amnesia had been at its worst, she’d asked questions constantly. “Or maybe we should visit the business, if that’s how we met.”
Would seeing her office help? They’d worked in the same building.
But she needed to be careful. Damon was a very smart man. Brilliant, even. She’d been fascinated by his mind and his innovative ideas for Transparent even before they’d met. One misstep in her ruse could ruin her cover story for being here.
“We went hiking in the Santa Cruz Mountains once.” He studied her with a clear blue gaze that missed nothing. “And you were fixated on the Winchester Mystery House for a while. We had picnics in the gardens while you kept an eye out for ghosts.”
His unexpected choice of memories touched her. Those outings were such brief pockets of time they’d spent together compared to the long hours they’d invested in his business and, later, trying to deal with her father.
Her driven, focused father would have hated that she’d gone ghost-hunting. Did he know she’d ever done something like that?
“Do you remember?” Damon asked suddenly, making her realize she’d been quiet a beat too long, thinking about how thoroughly her father had schooled her to think like him, to fill her days with work the way he did.
“No.” She shook her head quickly, returning her gaze to her plate. “I’m just surprised to imagine myself ghost-watching. It hardly sounds like the hobby of a businesswoman.”
She’d been a different person with Damon, though. Their courtship had been a revelation. It hadn’t just been about love. It had been about play. Fun. Laughter.
Things she hadn’t really taken the time to savor in a life full of goals set ever higher ever since childhood, from violin recitals to debate team championships to achieving perfect test scores. Then, after graduating from college, it had been about obtaining a lucrative position in a New York financial firm before joining her father’s company. Her father had trained her to focus on work relentlessly, while Damon wasn’t afraid to enjoy himself.
“I think you liked the diversion of something whimsical after the stress of long days at the office.” He took a bite of his sandwich and seemed to reconsider the answer. “Then again, maybe you were just trying to give me a diversion after the long days at the office. We never did see any ghosts.”
And his sense of whimsy had faded, she recalled, toward the end of their honeymoon when her father had urged her to come to London to help him with a takeover of a UK company. She’d been excited for the chance to end the standoff with him. Damon had been stunned she would even consider it. In the end, she’d told him she would head to London anyhow to see a friend and at least meet with her father. It had been an unhappy way to wind up their romantic Italy trip.
But could it have really been the end of their marriage?
“Then let’s try again.” She still hoped their son could one day see the more lighthearted, loving side of Damon. Provided it ever existed outside her hopeful imagination. “Let’s go back to a place with happy memories.”
* * *
The next day, with Caroline in the passenger seat of his white Land Rover, Damon pulled into the Los Trancos Preserve in the mountains above Palo Alto. The woods were close to the house, easy to access from the home they’d built together.
It seemed like a million years ago now. Their dating. Their marriage. Even her disappearance. Last night, after she went to bed, he had reopened his old investigation notes from those frantic first few months she’d been gone. He’d taken his time reading over everything again, looking for new clues now that he knew she’d been in Mexico. All of the evidence he’d found on her whereabouts had led him to believe she was in Europe. She’d deposited money in her account in London and used an ATM card in Prague, Paris and Venice. Her credit card had been used for a room in a Barcelona hotel, but when his PI had shown her picture around the place, no one on staff recognized her.
Had someone been impersonating her? At the time, he’d guessed she wanted to disappear and had paid someone well to cover her tracks. Whatever the case, it was as much a mystery as ever. While he was inside the house retrieving food for Caroline, he’d also messaged the PI his half brothers had used to find him when he’d been traveling Europe looking for her on his own. At the time, he had ditched his cell phone so as not to be distracted with work calls or requests from his family to return home. He’d bought a burner and focused on following Caroline’s trail, but he’d come up empty handed.
Bentley, the investigator who had located Damon when Jager and Gabe got fed up with his disappearing act, was excellent. But unfortunately, he’d been hired by a branch of Damon’s family he would rather forget. Damon’s father, Liam, had left their mother when they were kids and Damon, Jager, and Gabe had no use for the guy. But recently, their grandfather, Malcolm McNeill, had made it his mission to reunite all of his grandchildren, even the illegitimate branch. Damon might not have much use for all the new blood relatives in his life, and most especially not his father, but he could appreciate the value of a good PI. Maybe Bentley would figure out what a whole team of investigators had failed to the first time around.
Just what the hell had happened to his wife?
Talking about the good times with her last night had felt surreal, like the experiences had happened to someone else. He’d been trying so damn hard to forget her, and now? She’d forgotten all about him instead.
If that meant she forgot all about her bastard of a father, Damon didn’t mind the sacrifice one bit. He hoped the subject of Stephan Degraff wouldn’t surface between them today since Damon knew he wouldn’t be able to scrounge a single positive thing to say about the guy who was still fighting to take control of Transparent. Her father was on a mission to turn the rest of the investors against Damon so they could pull in a more experienced CEO to run the company.
Over his dead body.
“Are