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What style? Brooke almost asked for every piece of furniture was gilded and the drapes, the upholstery and even the carpet were pristine white. Even the vase of flowers on the low table was filled with white blooms. In her opinion, it was stark and uninviting, but it certainly gave a striking effect.
‘And this is you...’ Lorenzo indicated the large professional photograph on the wall in which she posed on the same sofa for aDream Housemagazine interview she had, according to him, given only weeks before the accident.
Brooke stared in fascination at the woman in the photograph and her fingers went up to pluck uneasily at her loose ringlets as she studied that smooth straight fall of hair in the image. ‘I should be straightening my hair!’ she gasped suddenly.
‘I like it natural,’ Lorenzo dared to impart.
‘Honestly?’ she queried tautly as she stared at that flawlessly groomed, almost inhumanly perfect image with a sinking heart. It was undeniably her, but it wasnotthe version of her that she was currently providing him with.
‘Honestly.’
In that moment, Brooke felt overwhelmed. Coming home was proving more of a challenge than she had expected. Was it possible that the head injury had altered her tastes? She supposed it was. When she had expressed her concern about such changes to Mr Selby, he had been very reassuring, never failing to remind her that she was lucky to be alive and relatively unscathed as if the loss of her every memory from childhood was something she simply had to accept. And perhaps it was, and there was nothing less attractive than self-pity, she told herself fiercely, moving back into the hall.
‘Let’s go upstairs,’ Lorenzo urged. ‘I’ll show you your room.’
Your room, Brooke noted. ‘Don’t we share?’
Lorenzo cast her a lazy, careless smile because he was fully rehearsed on that answer. ‘You like your own space and you often took your stylist up there to decide on outfits. Sharing wasn’t practical.’
‘You know more about my life than I know about yours,’ Brooke couldn’t help commenting.
‘I don’t think that there’s anything in the world of finance that would interest you,’ Lorenzo parried. ‘Unless, of course, you’ve decided to set up a business or something of that nature.’
‘Not just at the minute, no,’ she quipped, breathing in deep.
So, separate bedrooms, little wonder Lorenzo was so physically detached from her and prone to treating her as though she were a friend rather than a wife. Even though they lived in an enormous house, they didn’t seem to share much as a couple. Not a bed, not taste, not their lives. It was unhealthy but perhaps Lorenzo liked his marriage that way even if it didn’t appeal to her, she ruminated worriedly. How had she let the man she loved move so far from her in every way?
Obviouslyshe loved him. She couldn’t believe that she would have married him for any other reason. His money, his giant house and his servants all made her feel intimidated. Buthedidn’t intimidate her, he made her...happy. Mr. Selby had urged her to think about whether or not that was just her insecurity talking and had asked her how she could possibly still love a man she didn’t remember. But she knew that she did in the same way she knew that the sun would rise in the morning. She had remembered Lorenzo’s voice and it was theonlything she remembered, which to her signified and proved his overwhelming importance in her life.
Brooke walked into another blindingly white room, but this time it was a bedroom and she decided that the absence of colour did give a certain feel of tranquillity.
‘And then there’s your favourite place,’ Lorenzo proclaimed, casting wide another door.
Brooke froze on the threshold of an amazing dressing room. But it was so big, so packed with stuff it didn’t really qualify for that description. Racks and racks of shoes and bags lined the walls in glass cabinets. Rails and rails of zingy, colourful garments hung in readiness. It was a feast of conspicuous consumerism, a rebuttal of the ‘less is more’ mentality, and she thought, Oh, dear heaven, I’m greedy and extravagant and spoilt rotten! And then a calmer voice switched on inside her, reminding her that being a fashion icon had sort of been her job. She forced herself deeper into the room to browse through the clothes, hoping for something to jar her memory, glancing at labels and surprised that she only recognised the household names of famous designers that everyone knew. In the general knowledge sense, her fashion antenna seemed to be running on an empty tank.
‘Of course, you’ll have to throw it all out.’
Brooke whirled, violet eyes huge.‘Throw it out?’she gasped incredulously.
‘Because everything in here is old and out of fashion now.’ Lorenzo tossed out that award-winning lure with deep satisfaction because he had already worked out how best to occupy his soon-to-be ex-wife. ‘Your wardrobe is out of date. You’ll need to start from scratch again and replace it all.’
‘But that would be horribly wasteful,’ Brooke framed in disbelief, fingering through a rack of jeans, searching for an ordinary pair but finding only slashed, sparkly or embroidered ones, marvelling that her former self had apparently never succumbed to a desire to simply wear something comfortable.
‘It’s the way that you live.’ Lorenzo shrugged, brilliant, thickly lashed dark eyes cynical and assured. ‘Every season you start again, so I imagine you’ll be shopping until you drop for weeks.’
Brooke nodded jerkily since it seemed to be what he expected from her. ‘It seems a very extravagant way to live,’ she remarked uneasily.
‘I can well afford extravagant,’ Lorenzo intoned, wondering why she wasn’t one bit excited at the prospect of shopping, wondering why she looked kind of lost standing there in the middle of the room, rather like a little girl contemplating a giant dress-up box that frightened her. This was Brooke’s world, from the fashion magazines piled on the coffee table to the immaculate shoe collection. And shedidn’trecognise any of it, he acknowledged grimly.
At least now, she could explore her life, Brooke reminded herself, for there had to be personal things tucked away somewhere within the two rooms, surely photos of her late parents and that kind of stuff, she reasoned as Lorenzo departed. As for the fashion end of things, she clearly wasn’t able to become a fashion icon again in her current state of mind and she would just have to move on from that and find something else to keep her busy. Reinventing yourself was all the rage these days, she reminded herself dully. It was not as though she had a choice when she couldn’t imagine wearing a see-through lace dress or jeans that exposed her bottom cheeks.
That reflection, however, threw yet another obstacle into her path. Almost certainly that more audacious woman was the woman Lorenzo knew and had chosen to marry. Brooke paled at that acknowledgement. Asexierwoman. Was that the common denominator at the heart of her marriage? That together sexier Brooke and more reserved Lorenzo meshed like magnets? Was that why Lorenzo was now so distant with her? Because she wasn’t putting out the right vibes any longer with her clothing and her manner? Well, she was just going to have to fake it, wasn’t she?
What do you know about being sexy? she asked herself limply. But she had toknowthose things to make such daring clothing choices! She relived that kiss and a slow burn reignited low in her pelvis and she shifted restlessly. Maybe she was sexier in bed than she imagined and when it happened it would all just come seamlessly together for her...but what if it didn’t? What if her apparent stock of general knowledge didn’t include the bedroom stuff? What if she lay there like a graven image and freaked him out? And why was she even having these thoughts, she asked herself, when to date even getting a kiss out of Lorenzo had entailed practically falling on him? Maybeshewas the partner who made all the sexy, inviting moves, she thought anxiously, and if that was true, the onus would be onher...
Perhaps Lorenzo had simply been waiting to bring her home, she reasoned, and tonight, when she was tucked up in bed, he would visit?
CHAPTER FOUR
