There was evidence all around the room that a woman spent a lot of time in here with me. I grabbed a tiny scrap of yellow fabric from the floor and couldn’t help but smile when I realized it was a pair of torn panties. Emma grabbed them from my hand as her face turned deep red, and she hid them behind her back.

“I guess you know this room pretty well.” I couldn’t help but laugh at how embarrassed she was.

“Who said they were mine?” Her eyebrow shot up.

I laughed hard as I took a step closer to her. “I sure hope they aren’t mine.” She laughed nervously, and I had to wonder why she would try to hide the fact that we had been together. My eyes danced over the unmade bed, and I ran my hand through my hair as I tried to imagine us there, our bodies tangled together as I thrust into her.

“I’m actually pretty tired.” I grabbed my shirt and pulled it over my head, groaning as I stretched my sore muscles.

“I’ll let you get some rest.” She turned to leave, and I reached out, grabbing her wrist. I could feel her pulse racing under my fingers.

“Stay.”

Her body slowly turned toward me, and I let go of her arm as I saw the torn look in her eye. “I just want to sleep.”

She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, and I narrowed my eyes at her. I couldn’t promise her only sleep if she kept doing that. As if reading my thoughts, she let go of her lip and I wanted to smile, but I held it back as I undid my belt and slid my jeans off.

She kicked off her shoes and began to undo her pants. I slid into bed and let her have a moment to herself, which also hid the fact that my cock was rock hard just at the thought of lying next to her. I felt the mattress dip as she slid into bed behind me. I rolled over and slid my body against her back, wrapping my arms around her to hold her close. I felt her stiffen as my hands slid over her skin, but I needed to be against her. She was all I had in the world at this moment, even if I couldn’t remember.

I put my face against her neck and inhaled the sweet flowery smell of her hair as I let my eyes close and drifted off into sleep.

I awoke throughout the night as visions of the car crash flashed through my memory. Emma was finally clear in the picture just moments before the crash. All I could see was her face covered in tears as she screamed my name, and I jolted awake.

I lay holding her against me for an hour before I was able to fall back asleep.

Chapter Sixteen

Emma squirmed against me, and my arms tightened around her body, afraid she would run away if I loosened my grip. She struggled against my hold, and I couldn’t help my body’s natural reaction to having her against me. I grew hard against her ass as I let out a low groan in her ear. Her breathing grew ragged but she continued to squirm against my hold. I’d be lying if it didn’t make me want her more.

“William,” she rasped as I rubbed my straining cock against her ass. “Stop it,” She reached over her body and pushed against my shoulder. I flipped her onto her back and positioned myself over her, pinning her arms above her head. It was only then that I saw the look of anger on her face and knew she was not playing hard to get.

“I’m sorry.” I released her hands and ran my fingers through my hair as I collapsed beside her on the bed.

“It’s fine,” she said angrily as she pushed herself out of bed and grabbed her jeans. I sat up to watch her as she slid them on.

“We don’t have a very…happy relationship, I take it?”

She looked at me with sadness in her eyes as she ran her fingers through her knotted hair. Without saying a word, she walked out of the room, and I was afraid she would be walking out of my life.

I got out of bed and quickly pulled on my jeans to follow her. She was in the kitchen preparing a cup of coffee on the counter. I walked up behind her and placed my hands on her shoulders, causing her to jump. I took a step back from her.

“I’m sorry.” I turned to the cupboard and grabbed two coffee mugs for us. She watched me maneuver around the kitchen remembering things. She didn’t speak as she filled our mugs for us to drink. I took a small sip of the steaming liquid, and she did the same.

“Whatever I did to you…I’m sorry.”

She rolled her eyes, and that stirred something inside of me.

“You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for.”

“I hope I never remember. I don’t want to be that person.” I couldn’t imagine being the guy who had stained her cheeks with tears and caused her to jump when he touched her. She was beautiful, and I had broken her.

She sighed loudly as her shoulders sagged.

“You weren’t the person I thought you were.” Even though she seemed to hate the person I had been, she also seemed to be mourning his loss. She missed the person I was when I was causing her pain, and it made me sick to my stomach.

“So, I need to go home today.” Her tone was cheerier, but the smile on her lips did not reach her eyes. She was putting up a wall, and I didn’t think it was for protection. After all I had done to her, she was feeling guilty. “You won’t have a car. You can call me if you need anything.”

The anger, the guilt of things unknown all boiled inside of me. I couldn’t make any of this right if she weren’t willing to stay with me. I hated that the one person I had in my life, I couldn’t remember and had made her hate me. I couldn’t beg her to stay. What kind of twisted fuck would I be then? My head throbbed as my emotions began to spiral out of control within me. I slammed down my coffee mug and made my way back to my bedroom, slamming the door hard behind me. I couldn’t watch her walk away. It would have been better if I had woken up alone at the hospital. Better if I hadn’t seen the face of the ghost that had been haunting my heart.

A few minutes later, I heard the front door close, and I knew she had left me. I was completely alone, and it hurt more to not know what I was missing. She carried around the pain of what I had done, and my slate had been wiped clean. I wondered how much of that was because of the accident or if it was self-preservation. I pictured her tear-soaked face from my nightmare.

When I finally found the strength to leave the bedroom, the emptiness of the apartment took the air from my lungs. I felt like I was slowly being suffocated.

I found a bottle of whiskey from under the island and I prepared to drink myself into oblivion. My eyes fell on a small cell phone on the counter top as I drank back the harsh liquid. She had my phone all this time? I poured another drink as I stared at it, wanting to call her and beg her to come back. I drank it down and slammed the glass on the counter as I spun it in my fingers.

I picked up the phone, telling myself that I would just call to apologize. As the screen lit up under my finger, I noticed I had a voicemail.

I hit the mailbox button and listened as a woman’s voice filled my ear, and it wasn’t Emma.

“Will, it’s A…Allison. I know I shouldn’t have talked to you in front of her. What we had meant something different to me than it did to you. I know that.” Her voice drifted off for a moment. “But I’d like to have another chance. Whatever your relationship is with that girl is never going to satisfy you. We both know you need more than that. Call me back.” The message ended, and I pushed the button to listen to deleted messages. Again, the same voice rang through with a message of apologies. The message was from when I had been in a coma, and someone had listened to it.

My chest tightened as the picture began to make itself a little clearer. Had I cheated on Emma? I wanted to pretend I didn’t know what it was this woman could do for me that Emma couldn’t, but inside I knew I wasn’t the good guy. I could feel it whenever my body had been against Emma’s. Had I forced her to do things that she didn’t want? My cock twitched at the thought of being pressed against her ass when she struggled against me.

I knew I would need to call Allison if I ever wanted all the pieces, but it felt like that would be a slap in Emma’s face, even if she had already walked out of my life. I poured another double shot of Jack and drank it down, trying to cover the pain that was taking over me.

The regret was overwhelming, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. The sudden flood of emotion was sickening. I sat down on a stool and ran my hand roughly through my hair. I saw Emma’s face in the car, so sad and broken. It was because of this. I had ripped her heart out and nearly killed her that night, and while I lay in a hospital bed with her at my side, she had to listen to the voice of another woman begging me to cheat on her. Her ability to care for me and sleep next to me the previous night said a lot about what kind of person she was. A person I had taken advantage of, used, and hurt.

I closed my eyes and pushed the thought from my head. I didn’t want to remember. I didn’t want to know what I had done to her, but I knew I had to find out. It wasn’t fair that she was suffering from my actions and that I could choose to be in blissful ignorance.

Regardless of the memory loss, my heart knew. My pulse quickened whenever she was close to me; the smell of her flowery scent felt like home. She was an echo in my life that even amnesia couldn’t erase.

I slammed my hand down against the countertop as I looked around my empty apartment. If she was going to suffer, I needed to suffer as well. I poured another drink before searching my place for clues to our past.

The first thing I ran across was an oversized, yellow envelope full of pictures of two women talking. There was something familiar about the house in the background, but I couldn’t place it. I shoved them back inside the envelope and tucked them away in a drawer in the kitchen.

“Fuck,” I yelled out as I scanned the open space. I was doing this to myself. I was shutting it all out, but why?

I grabbed my laptop and typed in my password from memory. There was Emma’s beautiful face on a social network site. I clicked her profile and began to look down through her posts. The first thing I noticed was someone offering condolences for her loss.

I quickly pulled up a new page and searched her name. The results populated within seconds. I clicked the top link and saw the face of one of the women in my pictures. Her name was Judy and “was survived by her niece, Emma Townsend.” The date of the funeral was only a few days ago. I went back to the search results and clicked the next link. It was a small news story about a car accident off Riddler Road, and the victims were Emma and me. It was the same date as the funeral. Was it possible the tears were for the loss of her only relative and not me that night? I knew that wasn’t the truth. It was painful for her to be near me, and the voicemails proved why.

It hit me that Emma was home alone now, dealing with the painful loss of her aunt as well as having lost her boyfriend. I was a disgusting human being. Still, even with the words in black and white, it all seemed like I was reading a fiction novel. I didn’t feel like that man. I was overwhelmed with guilt and regret and only wanted to comfort her and make things right. I glanced over at my phone on the island and tried to convince myself to call her. I knew that was selfish. She needed space, and if I cared about her at all, I should distance myself from her.

I slammed my computer shut and went back to the kitchen. Even with the memories gone, the emotions coursed through my veins. I poured another shot and drank it down as my eyes landed on a set of doors in the back corner of the room. It was an old service elevator. Emma had said the third floor had been under construction, and I knew she was lying.

I quickly made my way to the doors and rode up to the next floor before I could second-guess my actions. The door opened, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark, cavernous space. I felt the wall just outside of the elevator, and my fingers ran over a series of switches. I flipped one, and the back of the room lit up, illuminating large, black contraptions for every sick sexual fantasy a person could imagine.

This was what Allison could do for me that Emma could not. But Emma knew of this floor, and she had to have known what was on it or she wouldn’t have been lying. I took a few unsteady steps farther into the space, running my hand over a leather bench with restraints on each side.