“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice sleepy and rough.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m just thirsty, and I never brushed my teeth. Do you want some water?”
“No, I’m okay.”
Cynthia pushed up from the mattress and walked nude into the bathroom. At the doorway, she paused and looked back at Will. She expected to catch a glimpse of him as he fell back asleep, but he was propped up on his elbow. He was watching her walk away, but the expression on his face was not what she was expecting. His brow was furrowed, his gaze burrowing into her backside, of all places.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
Will shifted his gaze to her, the intensity only increasing as he studied her face just as thoroughly. “No,” he said pointedly, although his contemplative tone made her wonder if that were really true.
Cynthia was too sleepy to worry much about it. She went into the bathroom and shut the door behind her. She chugged a cup of water, finished removing her makeup and went about her nightly beauty regime. Her body was aching, but fulfilled, and she was eager to crawl back under the covers and sleep in Will’s arms until noon.
Returning to the bed, she switched off the lights and slipped under the sheets. Will had rolled onto his back and his eyes were closed. She snuggled into him and laid her head on his chest. Listening to his heartbeat, she realized she’d never been so happy. Finding a passion in sewing and design was nothing compared to finding a passion and love for Will. Tonight had been everything she hoped and wished for when she gave him back her engagement ring—a chance for them to start over and be happy together.
“I love you,” she whispered into the dark once the rise and fall of his breath became steady and even against her and she was certain he was sleeping. Then she turned onto her side and closed her eyes, immediately falling asleep.
Although he was lying in bed with his eyes closed, Will was far from asleep. Ten minutes ago, he would’ve told anyone he was exhausted and content with the woman he loved in his arms. His business was doing well and his love life was better than ever. Somehow, all of that was snatched from him so quickly that he couldn’t feel the pain of it being ripped away at first. There was just a mix of confusion and denial swirling around the sleepy fog of his brain. What he’d just seen was impossible. Incomprehensible. And yet there was no way to deny the truth.
The rose tattoo was gone.
He’d hated that thing from the moment she’d gotten it. Cynthia had gone off on a spring break girls’ trip to Cancun their senior year at Yale. Sometime amongst the sun and surf and tequila, she’d decided it would be a great idea to commemorate the trip with a tattoo on her ass.
It was pretty and well done, but in the end, it was a red rose inked into her left butt cheek. He’d done his best to ignore it over the years, and when their love life fizzled, he’d forgotten it was even there.
Until it wasn’t.
When he watched her walk away, the realization hit him like an iron fist to the gut. There was no tattoo. And not even the faintest hint of where one might’ve been removed by a laser without his knowledge. There was nothing. He didn’t know what to say when she asked if something was wrong.
Yes, by God, something was very wrong. She was not Cynthia Dempsey, and that was a problem.
In an instant, his entire world came crashing down around him. The best relationship he’d ever had was built on nothing but lies. He could feel it disintegrating around him. Everything she’d said and everything they’d done in the past few weeks meant absolutely nothing.
Who had he just made love to? This woman, this Cynthia imposter…who was she, and how had she ended up living another person’s life? The doctors said she had amnesia. Did she even know she wasn’t Cynthia? Was this all just one tragic mixup, or had this woman deliberately taken advantage of her circumstances? Was it possible that despite her outward appearance, she was as manipulative as Cynthia?
All this time he’d been afraid to let his guard down because he didn’t think he could trust Cynthia not to hurt him again. But he took the leap and found there was a greater pain he hadn’t felt yet. The woman he loved, the one who’d gotten under his skin and made him question the way he lived his life, wasn’t Cynthia at all. Cynthia never had the power to hurt him this badly because he hadn’t allowed it. This time he’d let down his protective walls and permitted his mystery lover to shatter his heart, whereas Cynthia had merely cracked it.
It took every ounce of strength he had to keep his jaw clamped shut and swallow the hurt, confused words in his throat when she snuggled into his chest, completely oblivious to his discovery. The woman in his arms was not Cynthia. It was nearly impossible to wrap his head around the idea. His mind bounced around frantically, reliving every discussion, every touch, trying to determine if it had been obvious but he’d been too blinded by her light to see it.
No wonder Cynthia had cheated on him. He’d been with her since college but he barely knew her anymore. They’d become so disconnected from their relationship that he couldn’t even tell her from someone else. He, of all people, should’ve been able to tell the difference regardless of what some plastic surgeon’s knife had done. He was a fool.
Will wanted to shake her and start throwing angry accusations, but it was 3 a.m. and he knew the answers wouldn’t come. In the morning he would uncover the truth and then see what she had to say for herself. For now, all he could do was try to fall back asleep and hope the heartburn-like pain in his chest didn’t keep him up all night.
It was then, as he lay in the dark praying for sleep to dull the pain, that the woman lying in his bed quietly declared that she was in love with him. And to think, up until that point, he’d thought the situation couldn’t get any worse.
Ten
When morning had finally come around, the arrival of the sun did not make Will’s outlook any brighter. In fact, he’d lay there wide awake the entire time. With each second that ticked by, the pain and confusion had slowly morphed into anger and suspicion. He got out of bed around seven and told her there was a pressing problem with the Sunday edition. He couldn’t very well tell her he didn’t want to be around her, pretending to bask in their post lovemaking glow. He wasn’t a very good actor, and he wasn’t ready to confront her until he had all the information. He wanted to have the advantage, and that meant doing the necessary research to figure out who she was and what she was after.
She—he couldn’t think of her as Cynthia anymore—pouted appropriately and gave him a kiss to help keep her on his mind all day.
Oh, yeah, she’d be on his mind, all right. But probably not the way she imagined.
When he got to the office, he asked his weekend admin to pull any articles the local papers had done on the plane crash. He spent two hours at his desk poring over the pieces published in his paper and other papers around town. There wasn’t much information aside from details of the accident itself, the short list of survivors and what the airline was doing to ensure the tragedy would never happen again.
None of that was helpful.
Going down the hallway into the bullpen, where a large group of journalists worked in cubicles, he sought out the guy who had written all the articles for the Observer.
“Mike? Do you have a second?”
