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Squeezing his hand, she whispered, "I'm sorry."
"All is not lost." He pulled her out of the chair and slung an arm around her shoulders. "The good doctor proposed using truth serum on me."
Lola stumbled to a stop. "Truth serum? Are you going to try it?"
He shrugged and pulled her toward the elevator. "What do I have to lose?"
An hour later, Lola emerged from the steam of the shower, wrapping her hair in a towel. The encounter at the hospital had made her feel dirty. Although her skin was now squeaky clean, all the scrubbing in the world couldn't eliminate the vague sense of fear that clung to her flesh.
What did they want from her?
She refused to believe the suspicions of the various cops that any of her mishaps had anything to do with her father. She and Gabe had cut all ties to her father's business associates, well, except Emilio Diaz...who now lay unconscious in a hospital bed.
Rubbing the mist from the bathroom mirror with a clenched fist, she grimaced at her emerging reflection. Why did so many roads always lead back to dear old Dad?
After massaging her face with moisturizer, she sauntered into the bedroom and yanked open the drawer where she'd stuffed her underwear. She scooped out a pair of black lacy panties and twirled them around her finger once. Why not? It wasn't every day a scrumptious male specimen inhabited her orbit. Might as well be prepared for anything.
She shimmied into a pair of black leggings and pulled a long sweater over her head. She ran the hair dryer across her head for a few minutes and then padded downstairs in her stocking feet. Taking a deep breath, she rounded the corner and paused. She drank in the sight of Jack hunched over her laptop, a lock of black hair falling over his forehead.
He represented the perfect man--beautifully made, brave and fearless with a clean slate for a past. When he turned out to be married, divorced or responsible for a trail of broken hearts, he wouldn't appeal to her in the same way. Jack was an illusion, a prince from a fairy-tale land called Amnesia.
She'd burn in hell for that little slice of her brain that wished he'd stay a tabula rasa.
He glanced up suddenly, and Lola's cheeks flared with heat.
"You look better. Feeling better?" He nudged out the chair across from him with his foot.
She dropped onto the chair and cupped her chin with one hand as she planted her elbow on the kitchen table. "I'll live. You find anything on Prospero or the colonel who organized it?"
"No." He shoved the laptop away from him as if disgusted with its silence. "But then I didn't figure Prospero would have its own website."
"If Emilio would wake up, he could tell us where he found you in the first place. That would be a great start."
"You checked on him this afternoon, right? Is his condition any better?"
"His physical condition improved from yesterday, but he's still out." Lola folded her hands on the table and tapped her fingers on her knuckles. "When are you going back to see Lesley?"
"Sooner rather than later."
Jack quirked an eyebrow at her and she nodded like a bobble-head. Didn't want him to suspect her deep, dark secret--that she was in no hurry for him to find out he had a wife and five kids.
"Do you have a problem with that?"
He must've detected the ambivalence in her eyes. So this time she shook her head so hard it nearly rotated. "Not at all, but it's by no means a surefire method for extracting memories. It puts you in a highly suggestible state, and it might be dangerous given your headaches."
"I'm willing to risk any danger, and I'm sure Lesley isn't interested in implanting any false memories in my brain." He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back in his chair. "Unless you think she has some nefarious purpose for putting me under."
It showed her state of mind that Lola had to study Jack's face for a few seconds to figure out he was kidding. She smiled. "Maybe she wants to suggest you're her secret lover and the two of you were on the verge of a romantic getaway to a deserted island."
Lola gritted her teeth behind her parted lips. Idiot. She'd just attributed her own fantasy to Lesley. Like Jack couldn't see through that one.
"I just might take her up on that suggestion." His dark eyes smoldered, and Lola squirmed in her seat. "At least the part about the getaway to a deserted island."
