“Now?” I ask, shocked at how quickly this is moving. “Why is this so urgent?”

“We’re always cautious with head injuries, especially with unexpected symptoms.”

“I thought I had normal symptoms.”

“You do.” Before I can press for a more conclusive answer, another nurse rushes into the room and says something to him in Italian. I wait for the moment I can push him for answers, but it never comes. “I need to go,” he announces abruptly. “I’ll see you back here after we have the results.”

And just like that, he’s gone, and one of the nurses steps to my side. “I’m Anna,” the woman says. “I was with you when you first arrived and had the CT scan.”

I study her, taking in her salt-and-pepper hair styled in a bun, and try to place her. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember you.”

“Of course you don’t, silly,” she says good-naturedly. “You were out like a light. Glad to see you’re awake for the ride this time. We’re going to roll you down to the MRI department.”

She kicks the brake free on one of the wheels of my bed, and Kayden steps to the other side of me, kicking his side free as well and speaking to Anna in Italian, his hands resting on the railing. I open my mouth to plead for English again, but for some reason my gaze falls to his watch, to the brand name.

Cartier. The name means something to me beyond being an expensive brand, and I’m instantly frustrated that I know it’s high priced, but still know nothing of who I am or why I’m here.

My gaze lifts to find Kayden watching me, his expression unreadable, his continued presence truly unexplainable. “Don’t you have a job or something to go to?”

“My boss is good to me.” His lips curve. “Some even say he’s ‘beautiful.’ ”

I flush with the obvious reference to my compliment. “I thought I was dreaming when I said that.”

“Which makes it all the better.”

“You aren’t going to let me forget that, are you?”

“Not a chance.”

I blush and we both laugh, the sounds mingling, soft and feminine, and low and deep. And then the air shifts around us and we are staring at each other. I have no idea why he’s sticking this out with me, but without him, I’d be alone and even more scared.

“I don’t know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t found me in that alleyway,” I say, a tremor slipping into my voice. “Thank you, Kayden.”

There’s a flicker in his eyes, a shadow that’s there and gone before either of us blinks. “Thank me by getting your memory back,” he says, and while it’s a perfect answer, it’s somehow imperfect. There’s an odd undertone that reaches beyond predictability or sincerity.

It’s the last thought I have before the bed is moving and I’m being pushed away from him, and I can’t think for the motion setting the room spinning. Another bump, and my stomach churns. Groaning, I roll to my side, curling my knees to my belly, and I will myself to not throw up. The bumps and sways of the bed are pure torture.

“Oh, honey,” Anna says, leaning over me as we stop moving. “That ride didn’t go well, did it?”

“Sick,” I manage, my throat thick, goose bumps rising on my arms. “And cold.”

“I’ll make sure we have some antinausea medicine waiting for you when you get out of the MRI machine.”

“Can’t you do it before?” I plead. “I don’t want to get sick during the test.”

“We’ll have you done before I can get you medicine,” she says. “If you’re okay with it, I’d like to try and just get this over with for you. I’ll put a warm blanket over your legs now to stop your shivering.” She doesn’t wait for my agreement, announcing, “We need to move you to the table,” and she and another nurse are suddenly lifting me.

My stomach rolls and the throb in my head intensifies as they set me on the hard platform, which hits my injured back in all kinds of wrong ways. It also has me feeling exposed and very alone in my skimpy hospital gown. Hugging myself, I shiver, my teeth chattering. “Cold,” I say. “Really cold.”

“I know,” she says. “Hang in there. I’ll get the blanket.” She rushes away and comes right back and, as promised, wraps my lower body. “Better?”

“Yes,” I say, feeling a bit of the chill fade. “It helps.”

“Good. Because once we start the MRI, you have to try to hold still.” She unfolds my arms. “Keep them by your side.” I nod, and she adds, “I’m going to put some headphones on you. It’ll help with the noise.” Before she puts them on, she tells me, “Try to just shut your eyes and it will be over soon.”

I grab her hand before she covers my ears. “How soon?”

“Twenty minutes,” she says.

“That’s a long time.”

“It’ll be over before you know it.” She covers my ears with the headphones and I hear some sort of music playing—classical, I think. The table starts to move and I hug myself again, the air around me seeming to chill from cold to frigid. Too soon, I’m in the center of a giant cylindrical machine.

“We need you to be really still,” comes a voice in my ears. “And put your arms back down.”

“Okay,” I say, willing my body to calm. I need this test to get answers. I need to be well and remember who I am.

The music starts to play again, a soft violin that is moody, almost sultry, and I wonder how I know what a violin is when I can’t remember my own name. A roar starts around me and the machine begins some kind of swirling motion. I squeeze my eyes shut. The volume of the music is louder now, the violin playing faster, the notes fierce and defiant, and suddenly I’m running down a cobblestone road, darkness cloaking me, my heart racing, fear in my chest. I have to get away. I have to escape. I look over my shoulder and try desperately to see who’s after me, but there’s only darkness and then a hard thud to my shoulders that makes me gasp, pain splintering upward into my skull.

I sink to my knees and tell myself to get up. Get up! But the pain, oh, the pain is so intense. I feel myself falling, my hands catching the pavement, rocks digging into my palms before my cheek is there too. And then there is blackness. Black, inky nothing. Time ticks and ticks, the pain radiating in my skull, until I’m suddenly on my back and blinking up into pale blue eyes, but I can’t focus. Then everything goes black again.

two

I blink, and once again I’m staring into pale blue eyes. “Kayden?”

His lips curve, and those eyes of his, which have a way of stealing right into the emptiness of my mind, light with satisfaction. “You remember me. Progress. The last two times that you woke up, you didn’t know my name.”

“What last two times?” I try to focus, to remember anything but him. “The MRI machine—”

“You had a panic attack inside it, and they had to sedate you.”

My brow furrows, and I flash back to the violin playing in my ears. “No. I was fine, just cold and sick to my stomach.”

“Until you weren’t fine anymore,” he says, running his hand over the dark shadow on his jaw that I don’t remember being there before. A bad feeling comes over me.

“How much time has passed?”

He glances at his watch again, and I’m relieved to remember it’s a Cartier, relieved by all things familiar. That is until he announces, “Thirty-six hours.”

Losing that much time is like a blow; my throat is suddenly so dry it’s sandpaper. “I need water.”

He stands and finds the pitcher, filling a cup for me. I try to sit, and he quickly abandons his efforts, gently shackling my arm, his touch electric, familiar in a way that no longer surprises me but still confuses me. “Let me lift the bed,” he offers, and I nod, allowing him to help me, the way I have so many times before, it seems, when really it hasn’t been that often at all.