* * *
There was something wrong with the light in his bedroom, Caleb thought fuzzily as he woke up from a deep, dreamless sleep. And his cleaning lady seemed to have used a different kind of product than usual because he didn’t recognise the smell in here either.
‘Ah, you’re awake,’ came a voice from somewhere to his left and he wondered wildly who he’d gone to bed with the night before.
He couldn’t remember.
In fact, now he thought about it, he found his mind was strangely blank, as if it had been wiped of details. How much had he drunk last night to wake up in this state? It must have been a lot because he had the unsettling feeling that he wasn’t at home at all. In fact, he realised with a lurch as his vision cleared, he had no idea where he was or how he’d got here. The walls were painted an institutional green colour and were disturbingly free of any kind of decoration. Turning his head, he saw with a shock that he was lying next to some kind of flashing, beeping, monitoring machine with wires and drips hanging from it.
Which were attached to him.
He tried to sit up and felt his whole body complain, pain shooting through his abdomen.
‘No, no, don’t try and get up. You had an accident and you’ve cracked a rib and banged your head so you may feel dizzy and disorientated for a while.’
‘An accident?’ he asked, shocked by how rough and raspy his voice sounded. His throat was so dry it felt as if he hadn’t had a drink in days.
‘Here,’ the voice said and he turned towards where it came from to see a middle-aged woman in a crisp white uniform standing next to the bed where he lay, pushing a straw towards his mouth.
He sipped gratefully from the drink, feeling the cool liquid soothe his throat and begin to refresh him.
‘Your girlfriend’s very worried about you,’ the nurse said, taking the cup away once he’d finished and putting it on the nightstand next to his bed. ‘She saw you get hit by the motorbike and is blaming herself for the accident because you were crossing the road to see her when it happened, so be nice to her when she comes in to see you.’
‘My girlfriend?’ He didn’t remember having a girlfriend.
His heart began to race as panic swept through him, nausea welling in his stomach as the room started to slowly spin. He shook his head, trying to clear the feeling, determined not to give in to it.
He didn’t do panic, dammit.
Not appearing to notice his disorientation, the nurse helped him sit up a little so she could fluff up his pillow and he gripped the rail at the side of the bed hard, racking his brain for the memory of how he came to be here in an attempt to centre himself. The nurse had said a motorbike had hit him but he had absolutely no recollection of it.
How could he not remember something so serious?
‘I think she needs a hug and some reassurance that you don’t hate her,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘Judging by the way she’s been pacing the halls and badgering us every ten minutes for updates on your condition, she obviously cares about you very much. You’re a lucky man to have someone who loves you like that.’
He just nodded, not wanting to let on that he had no idea who she was talking about, or that he was becoming more and more aware of other rather worrying gaps in his memory. He knew his name and that he owned a company called Araya Industries, which he’d built up from scratch, and that he lived in the L’Eixample district of Barcelona. He even knew what the inside of his penthouse looked like, but things like where he grew up and who his friends were seemed to have escaped him. And he definitely didn’t remember being hit by the motorbike. The last thing he did remember was getting into work this morning and turning on his computer, but after that it was all a blank.
This disjoin in his memory made him feel sick if he thought about it too much, so he decided to put it out of his head for now. It would all come back after he’d been awake for a while and had got his bearings again. And he didn’t want any fuss; he just wanted to get out of here, back to his home. Maybe once in familiar surroundings his mind would catch up with everything else.
‘I’ll let her know you’re awake so she can come in and see you,’ the nurse said, coming over to him and smoothing down the sheet that was covering him up to his armpits. It seemed they’d stripped him of the rest of his clothes, perhaps to check him over for injuries.
‘Who?’ he asked distractedly, still trying to get a handle on the anxiety that stubbornly surged through his body.
‘Your girlfriend, Elena.’ The nurse frowned, as if beginning to suspect that all was not entirely well with him.
He shot her a quick smile and said, ‘Okay, good, I’d like to see her.’
Perhaps as soon as he saw this Elena he’d recognise her right away and the rest of his memory would come flooding back with it.
The nurse nodded curtly, clearly still a little suspicious about his well-being, but then turned and left the room.
A moment later there was a tentative knock at the door. He sat up a little straighter in bed and called, ‘Come in.’
A woman with ice-blue eyes and long blonde hair hanging loosely around her slim shoulders entered the room and walked towards him, coming to a stop a couple of feet away from the bed. Her movements appeared graceful and controlled, but he could see from her strained smile that she was tense and worried.
Something about her shot a bolt of intense sensation through him, almost like déjà vu, though he could have sworn he’d never set eyes on her before in his life. He had vague memories of relationships with other women, beautiful, smart women, but there was something about Elena, something almost untouchable, that unnerved him. Or was that just his addled brain playing tricks on him? He’d obviously banged his head pretty hard if he’d forgotten he was having a relationship with a woman as attractive as this.
‘How are you feeling?’ she asked in English, which for some reason seemed absolutely right and totally expected.
‘I’m okay—a bit banged up, but I’ll live,’ he said, patting a space on the bed next to him, wanting her to come nearer so he could study her closer. He had the strangest feeling that if he touched her he’d feel more grounded.
She looked at him warily for a moment then visibly swallowed before stepping up to perch on the edge of the mattress, as if worried about getting too close and knocking him and causing him pain.
Desire shot through him as the scent of her perfume hit his senses and he closed his eyes for a moment, feeling another wave of déjà vu sweep through him.
Come on brain, catch up.
‘It’s good to see you awake. I was really worried about you,’ she said, her voice sounding a little croaky.
‘You’re trembling,’ he murmured, reaching out to touch her arm, feeling her practically vibrating under his fingertips.
‘I wasn’t sure what to expect when I came in here,’ she said, her gaze darting away from his face to look down at where his tanned hand rested on her pale skin.
‘Well,
