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It should’ve been a good thing—something to be celebrated. I was sure the first thing I should’ve done was tell Scarlet that I’d gotten one of the memories I’d lost.
But I was scared...
I’d just started falling for my fiancée, and in the span of a few seconds, I’d realized the consuming need I currently felt for her wasnothingcompared to the actual love and unending devotion I’d felt for her in that memory. In a few seconds, I’d realized the pain from my so-called ‘memory’ of losing Harper couldn’t come close to touching the incapacitating grief of just trying to walk from Scarlet—of not having her fully.
And I’d fuckingdonesomething I shouldn’t have. Something I knew down to my soul had the power to hurt her and ruin us.
So, yeah, I was scared.
I was absolutely terrified of what I’d remember next.
Awhispered curse fell from my lips when my towel slipped off the rod I was trying to hang it on. Snatching it up before it could hit the ground, I had to try another two more times before I finally got it to stay.
It was still early in the morning, but it was clear this was how my day was destined to be...
Unable to find my keys that were right in front of me. Missing perfect waves because my thoughts were somewhere else. Forgetting how to shower because I was justthat distracted.
But that was what Chase had always done to me.
And after a week and a half of this? Of mind-blowing kisses and having him stop me from wherever I was going so he could just look at me in this indescribable paradox of a way—like his soul knew mine in an irrevocable way but was still learning mine for the first time. Of falling harder for the man I knew while falling for this new Chase all between dinners and physical therapy that was horribly, sexually charged and left me wanting and aching...
But we never went there.
Chasenever went there.
My head was permanently in the clouds and on him. My lips were permanently swollen from our kisses and tipped up in a smile.
But whenever we started getting carried away, he’d stop us. He never said anything—not anymore. Just gripped me tighter like he was trying to remind himself why we needed to stop, all while staring at me in that way.
But I heard his unspoken words each time. Loud and clear.
“Did you...did you want to sleep in our bed tonight?” I’d asked hours after we’d gotten home from the beach a week and a half ago.
“You leaving?” he’d asked instead.
“Chase, what? I already told you I’m not going anywhere.”
His head had moved in a mess of subtle nods and shakes. “It’s going to hurt when we find out—I know it is. Not going to hurt you any worse by letting myself have you when we know what’s coming.”
“We don’t know—”
“Until we do,” he’d said over me, words soft but unyielding. Gripping my side, he’d pulled me close and pressed his forehead to mine. “You consume me.”
So, he’d continued sleeping in the guestroom. And we’d never gone any further than the kisses that had slowly gotten a little longer, a little heavier, and were sure to be my ruin judging by the start of my morning.
“Jesus,” I hissed and then laughed in irritation when I smacked into the door as I turned to leave the bathroom. Rubbing my hands over my face, I groaned into them before letting them fall. “Gah, this morning!”
Grabbing the partially closed door, I slid it the rest of the way open. My gaze pulling to the canvas of Chase and me until a nagging sensation had me looking at the door just as my hand fell from it. Because I hadn’t closed it—even partially—when I’d gone into the bathroom to take a shower. We rarely closed that door.
A chill raced down my spine and icy fingers gripped my lungs as my stare snapped back to the bed.
Above it.
To the canvas there.
The photo of us that had been missing ever since Chase came home from the hospital was back. And—
“Oh my God,” I breathed before staggering toward the bedroom door. But my feet felt heavy and my body felt limp as the last remaining air in my lungs ripped from my throat in a cry for Chase.
