CHAPTER
FOUR
Shortly after he’d been released from the hospital, Maxim was rather relieved to discover that he’d been legitimately employed at the time of his attack. That’s what he assumed anyway, when he found a small stack of his business cards in one of the kitchen drawers.
Maxim Laurent
Banquier senior d’investissement
Comptes internationaux
Banque de France
He couldn’t remember anything about his job, obviously. He had no recollection of ever interviewing at the Bank of France. Nor could he recall ever having a burning desire to go into banking or finance. The last job he could remember was when he’d worked as a waiter at Les Deux Magots during his years at university.
How long ago had that been? Four years? Eight?
Probably closer to ten. Long enough to progress from waiter to banking executive, a move that struck him as an odd choice. Investment banking had a boring ring to it. Maxim had always preferred working with his hands to crunching numbers. But maybe that had changed, along with everything else.
He wanted to see Finley again.
She was all he could think about. But the museum wasn’t open yet, and even though she’d given him her card, he wasn’t sure if turning up first thing in the morning was such a good idea. He opted to go by his office en route to the Louvre. Perhaps he’d find something that would shed some light on the mysterious notebook. Or his life in general.
He’d settle for anything at this point.
“Mr. Laurent, you’re here.” The receptionist did a double take when she looked up from her desk and found him standing there.
“Oui.” Maxim nodded, immediately realizing that showing up unannounced at his office had been a mistake.
Nothing about the posh lobby was familiar. Not the paintings on the walls, not the polished oak furniture, not the woman behind the desk. Not even the large silver letters that spelled out Banque de France on the wall behind her. Maxim could see his reflection in them. He looked distorted and blurry around the edges, which pretty much mirrored the way he felt at the moment.
He forced himself to focus on one thing rather than trying to take all his surroundings in at once. Maybe that would be better. Surely he could remember one small thing.
He concentrated on the receptionist. She was young, early twenties maybe. Pretty.
Maxim had no recollection of her whatsoever.
Luckily, he could sneak a discreet peek at the name plate in front of her. Anna Picard. “Bonjour, Miss Picard. Perhaps you could direct me to my office?”
Her polite smile faded a bit. He should know who she was. The fact that he didn’t was obvious.
Her gaze flitted to the bruise on his temple. She stood and cleared her throat. “Of course, Monsieur Laurent. Follow me.”
She led him down a long, quiet corridor, past a large conference room with glass walls, until they reached one of the corner offices.
“Here we are.”
Maxim followed the wave of her hand with his gaze. His name was emblazoned across the smooth wood, along with the title Senior Investment Banker.
“Thank you.” He nodded, hesitating as he reached for the doorknob. He felt like an intruder all of a sudden, which was absurd. The office was his, after all.
But Anna Picard was still standing there, watching him with that strange expression that hovered somewhere between curiosity and suspicion. So he opened the door and pretended to recognize the huge desk and the floor-to-ceiling window with its sweeping view of the Eiffel Tower and Champ de Mars.
“I’ll let Monsieur Joubert know you’re here,” she said, and glided back in the direction of the lobby.
Monsieur Joubert. Yet another name that Maxim didn’t know. Wonderful.
His ever-present headache throbbed at the base of his skull. The awful, metallic taste that had been his constant companion in the hospital rose up to the back of his throat again. Maxim sank into the wingback leather chair behind the desk while he tried to get his bearings.
The scattered papers and numerous piles of file folders made it look as if he’d been away a matter of minutes rather than days. A Montblanc fountain pen sat just in front of him, uncapped. He half expected to look up and see himself strolling in the door, back from a coffee break.
Someone did stroll into the office, but it wasn’t Maxim. It was a man dressed in a finely tailored suit and bow tie. Monsieur Joubert, Maxim presumed.
“Maxim.” He smiled and came around the side of the desk, stopping just short of Maxim’s chair. “You’ve no idea how good it is to see you. I’m relieved to hear that the rumors of your demise were exaggerated.”
“Merci.” Maxim got the distinct feeling he should stand and hug this stranger. Or at the very least, shake his hand. Apparently, they were friends in addition to being coworkers.
But something stopped him. If this person was such a friend, where had he been while Maxim was lying in his hospital bed?
The man shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. His gaze flitted to the papers on the desk and then back at Maxim. His smile broadened. “I wish I’d known you were coming. I would have had Joy straighten up your office.”
“Joy?” Maxim’s life was rapidly becoming filled with a cast of characters he couldn’t keep straight.
The other man’s gaze narrowed. “Your assistant. Surely you remember Joy? She’s relatively new, but she’s been with us at least a year now. A year and a half, maybe?”
Maxim shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t. I’m afraid my demise is worse than it looks.”
“How so?”
Maxim swallowed. The metal taste in his mouth had gotten so bad that he could feel himself grimacing. “I’m recovering from a concussion. Memory loss is one of the side effects.”
“I see. What else have you forgotten?”
Maxim’s gaze shifted to the unfamiliar desk, its unfamiliar papers and the unfamiliar uncapped pen. “Everything, pretty much.”
“Including me.”
It had been a statement rather than a question. Still, Maxim nodded. “Yes, including you.”
“I suspected as much.” He extended a hand. “I’m Gregory Joubert, VP of finance.”
Maxim stood, finally, and gave his hand a shake. “My boss, then?”
“Yes, but also a friend.” Gregory pointed to a framed photo on a bookshelf behind Maxim. The picture showed the two men on a tennis court with a large silver trophy between them.
So Maxim was a banker and a country-club tennis star, in addition to being an obsessive amateur genealogist. He was beginning to think he’d woken up in an alternate universe.
“Apologies.” Maxim still wondered why he hadn’t heard from his doubles partner while he’d been fighting for his life. But maybe Gregory had been there—he had been pretty out of it for the majority of his stay. Tsar Nicholas II himself could have turned up and he’d have never known.
“The doctors assure me the memory loss is only temporary,” he added, although his hope was growing dimmer by the day. His most vivid memory was still the vision he’d had of Finley Abbot. He kept having to remind himself that he’d never actually known her. She was more a stranger to him than the man standing in front of him.
Still, he couldn’t help glancing around the office in search of more pictures. He half expected to find a photograph of Finley that matched the image in his head.
He didn’t.
“Temporary?” Gregory blinked. “So you’ll eventually remember everything, then?”
Maxim redirected his attention to his boss. “Not quite all of it. Most head injury patients never regain the memories surrounding the time of the accident.”
Gregory lifted a brow. “Maybe that’s a good thing. Do you really want to remember being beaten in the street?”
He didn’t want to remember. He needed to. “If I don’t remember, I’ll never know what happened, will I?”
“Point taken. Do the police have any leads? A detective came to the office a few days ago to ask some questions, but he didn’t seem to have much to go on.”
Detective Durand had been to his office. Why wasn’t Maxim surprised? “None so far.”
“I was there, you know. At the hospital. I went as soon I heard, but they weren’t letting you have visitors. They said you were in a coma.” Gregory shook his head. “It’s just so good to see you.”
He pulled Maxim into a hug.
Maxim let himself relax as best he could. So he hadn’t been alone all those days after all. He had someone. He had a friend. A friend he couldn’t remember, but a friend nonetheless. He’d take what he could get.
Gregory released him, jammed a hand through his hair and aimed his gaze at the stack of file folders on Maxim’s desk. “I hate to say this, Maxim. But if you don’t remember who I am, you’re not ready to come back to work at Banque de France. As a senior-level employee, you have a generous disability policy. I encourage you to use it. Give it some time.”
“I understand. I simply thought that if I came here and took a look around, it might spark some sort of memory . . .”
He looked away.
Maxim felt foolish admitting as much out loud, especially since this visit to his workplace had confused him far more than it had helped.
“Sure, of course. Stay as long as you like. If you need anything, I’m right down the hall.” Gregory graciously pointed in the direction of his office and lingered in the doorway for a final moment. “It’s really great to see you, mon amie. Take care. Let me know when you start feeling more like yourself again.”
Maxim glanced at the papers spread across his desk. None of the names or numbers on the charts sparked even the faintest memory. Most of the documents were dated nearly a year ago, which was somewhat alarming. He hoped he hadn’t spent the last few months in his office fanatically scribbling notes about the Romanovs in his journal.
But he was beginning to wonder if he had. Where was his work? What had he been doing at this desk in recent weeks?
And how would he possibly know when he started to feel more like himself again when he no longer knew who he’d been?
“THERE’S SOMEONE HERE TO see you.” Marian Dubois, the head curator for the decorative arts department, stood with her arms crossed in Finley’s doorway.
Not that it was exclusively her doorway. She shared it with the other six assistant curators in her department. So at best, it was maybe one-sixth her doorway. But hopefully that would change after the successful debut of her Romanov exhibition. No American had ever been promoted to full curator at the Louvre, but Finley aimed to be the first.
A girl could dream.
The room, located in the Richelieu Wing of the Louvre, was a maze of crisscrossed tables piled with carefully labeled and catalogued artifacts. It was controlled for both temperature and humidity, and required a key code for entry and exit.
When Madame Dubois entered and made her announcement, Finley closed the window on her computer and looked up. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t try and find the photographs Scott had told her about—the ones from the attack at Point Zero. She’d managed to keep that promise last night after she’d gotten home from her book signing, but first thing this morning, she’d caved. The photos were all over social media. There was even a short video on Instagram.
It showed a man lying facedown on the pavement, surrounded by blood. Around him, people stared. A few screamed. It was eerie. Horrific.
And it terrified Finley to her core.
She had to stop looking at the images. They were bringing back all sorts of feelings she’d tried long and hard to forget. Once her screen was blessedly dark again, she searched Madame Dubois’s gaze purely out of habit. She rarely received visitors, and every piece of art she’d assembled for the Romanov exhibit had been in France for weeks. She’d even flown to St. Petersburg and London to escort the rarer pieces back to Paris herself.
No one had a reason to come looking for her. Unless . . .
Don’t be ridiculous. You gave the man your business card less than twelve hours ago. It’s not him.
But Madame Dubois was looking right at her.
Finley swallowed. “Someone’s here to see me?”
“Oui, Finley. You.” Her boss nodded. “He’s waiting for you in the second floor portrait wing. He can’t come anywhere near this room. He doesn’t have clearance.”
Her visitor didn’t have any security clearance at all? That ruled out every single one of the Louvre’s two thousand employees.
It’s him.
Her stomach did a little flip. “Then I’d better get going. Merci, madame.”
Her boss nodded, and her gaze swept the items on Finley’s table. “Don’t forget this afternoon I’d like to review the major pieces for your exhibit, just to make sure everything is in order. The gala is in a matter of days.”
“Oui, madame.”
Seemingly satisfied for the time being, Madame Dubois exited the room. Once she’d gone, it was all Finley could do not to bolt from her chair.
The Louvre was the biggest museum in the world. The tour guides and docents were fond of telling visitors that the museum was so immense that it would take one hundred straight days to see every piece of art in the Louvre’s extensive collection. And that would leave a mere thirty seconds to look at each one. The museum’s galleries took up over half a million square feet, which meant that making her way to the portrait gallery was easier said than done.
She used her cardkey to exit the curatorial offices and waved at the security guard stationed by the door. Heels clicking on the marble floor, she made her way to the main building, past the mob of tourists fighting their way toward the Mona Lisa. For the sake of time, she took the employee elevator to the second floor rather than battling the stairs.
Her gaze landed on Maxim Laurent the moment she entered the portrait gallery. She recognized him at once, even from behind.
Broad-shouldered and brooding, he stood staring at the painting in front of him, almost as if in a trance. She moved toward him, but he didn’t seem to notice. Not even when she faced him straight on.
Finley concentrated on breathing in and out as she allowed herself a brief moment to take in the sculpted beauty of his face—aristocratic cheekbones, impossibly straight nose, and a jaw that looked as though it could grind coal into diamonds.
But it was his eyes that made her go weak in the knees. Eyes so intense they could unearth secrets. Deep, Prussian blue.
Bedroom eyes.
Could this be the man from the awful video and the pictures she’d been poring over all morning? It was impossible to tell. The photos were grainy, and the guy had been facedown. But he had the same build as Maxim.
She swallowed hard, and her gaze drifted to the painting that had so captured his attention. It was Valentin Serov’s portrait of Nicholas II, the last of the Romanovs. Emperor of all Russia. Husband of Alexandra Feodorovna. Father of Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Alexei, and of course, Anastasia.
Finley had seen the painting many times. Hundreds, if not thousands. She’d studied it so often while writing her book that she sometimes dreamed about it. But seeing it hanging before Maxim was almost like seeing it for the first time.
Her breath caught in her throat. The resemblance between the man in the painting and the man who’d introduced himself to her as Maxim Romanov was uncanny.
Surely she was imagining things. It was the power of suggestion that made the slant of their jawlines so similar. Nothing more. He’d all but told her he believed himself to be a relative of the last Tsar.
But what of the smooth, noble planes of their faces? Or the serious cut of their brows? And those Prussian blue eyes . . .
No wonder she’d thought Maxim seemed familiar.
Stop. You’re only seeing what he wants you to see.
She cleared her throat. “Monsieur Laurent.” She placed special emphasis on his surname, purely for her own benefit.
Trance broken, he blinked and swiveled his gaze toward her. “Maxim. Call me Maxim, please.”
“This is quite a surprise.” She swallowed. “Maxim.”
A hint of a grin came to his lips, and she realized she’d never seen him smile before. It somehow made him more handsome, if such a thing were possible.
She cast a meaningful glance at the painting. “I see you’ve found Nicholas II.”
He nodded and swiveled his gaze toward the canvas, where the last Romanov Tsar stared back at them from a vivid eruption of colorful brushstrokes. “He looks different in this portrait from the others I’ve seen.”
Finley agreed, but was curious to hear why he thought so. Most of the people she knew had spent years reading about art and discussing it. It was intriguing to get a fresh perspective. “How so?”
Maxim’s brow furrowed. “He looks less like an emperor in this one, and more like an actual person. Human.”
Finley’s throat grew tight for some silly reason. “Like a man instead of a political figure. I agree. It’s my favorite rendering of Nicholas II, actually.”
“Then it seems we have something in common.” Maxim smiled again, and this time, it sent a riot of awareness skittering through her. She felt the same unfurling ribbon of desire that had begun to loosen inside her at the bookstore the night before. She pressed her thighs together, to no avail.
What am I doing?
Whatever she was doing, she shouldn’t be doing it here. This was her workplace. Maxim had already spoken to her boss, obviously. What if he’d introduced himself as Maxim Romanov? Wouldn’t that have been a treat?
If she were being honest with herself, she shouldn’t be doing this anywhere. At least not until she’d figured out why Maxim thought she could help him. The more she considered the things he’d said, the more ridiculous they sounded. Scott was right. The man was a total stranger. Emphasis on strange.
Those things were just so easy to forget, though, when he was standing less than a foot away looking as good, if not better, than practically all of the Greek gods in the museum’s sculpture gallery.
But it wasn’t just his appearance she liked. It was the way he looked at her. His focus was concentrated. Singular. They could have been standing in an empty, windowless room. But they weren’t. They were surrounded by the finest art in the world, yet he only had eyes for her.
It should have embarrassed her or at the very least, unnerved her. It didn’t. On the contrary, she quite liked it. Which was odd, considering that she’d spent the past few years trying to make herself invisible.
People couldn’t hurt what they couldn’t see.
“Why are you here, Maxim?” She lifted her chin and looked him square in the eyes. It was time they cut to the chase.
His smile faded as quickly as it appeared. “I need to show you something.”
Finley’s gaze drifted to the brown leather notebook in his hands. She hadn’t a clue what was inside it and couldn’t imagine what it could possibly have to do with her. Or the Romanovs, for that matter.
“Look, is there someplace where we could talk?” Maxim cast a dark glance at the security guard standing quietly in the corner. “In private.”
Finley hadn’t even registered the guard’s presence. Security officers were all over the Louvre. Museum guidelines mandated there be at least one in every room. In their understated navy suits and ties, they pretty much blended into the background. Which was the whole purpose of the plain-clothes uniform.
The building’s entrances and exits, on the other hand, were all guarded by either two or four French policemen carrying machine guns. Those guys were a little harder to forget.
“I share an office with six other assistant curators. Why don’t we go for a walk?” As foolish as agreeing to leave the museum with him seemed, it was her only option. The walls of the Louvre had ears.
The Jardin des Tuileries was right outside. They could get away from prying eyes, but at the same time still be surrounded by people. As intrigued as Finley might be, she still wasn’t certain she should go anywhere alone with Maxim. Other than Scott, she hadn’t been alone with a man a long time.
A very long time.
He nodded. “Lead the way.”
They wove through the crowds of tourists until they reached the lobby with its grand spiral staircase. Finley flashed her museum employee badge as she steered Maxim out the employee exit, past two armed policiers.
Beside her, Maxim tensed.
Scott was right. He’s a criminal. Perfect.
Both officers made eye contact with Maxim, but to Finley’s great relief, they simply nodded and said, “Au revoir.”
Something was off, though. Finley could feel it. She shouldn’t be leaving the museum with this man.
Her heart was beating hard, and she was seriously considering turning right around and running back to the curatorial wing.
There was no denying Maxim’s resemblance to the Tsar, though. He looked like a Romanov. So much so that Finley couldn’t help but wonder if he might actually know something about the last of the Russian royals.
If he did, she needed to know what it was. She’d be an idiot to walk away from an opportunity like this.
She took a deep breath and followed him. They walked quietly across the main courtyard. When they reached the largest of the three glass pyramids, Maxim finally broke the silence.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “The police came to see me in the hospital, and they seem to know more about me than I know about myself. It’s . . .”
Finley studied his reflection in the pyramid’s glossy panes and waited for him to finish his thought.
“. . . confusing.” His reflected gaze fixed with hers. “I don’t know if they think I’m the bad guy or the good guy. It’s hard to tell.”
Yet another warning sign. If Finley had an ounce of sense, she’d turn around and walk straight back toward the museum. Of course if she had an ounce of sense, she wouldn’t be out here with Maxim Romanov in the first place.
Laurent. Not Romanov.
Why did she constantly have to correct herself?
Maybe because his resemblance to Nicholas II was so striking that he looked like he’d just climbed off Valentin Serov’s canvas. Right. That probably had a tad to do with her bewilderment.
Apparently Maxim wasn’t the only one who was confused.
She stared at his image in the pyramid’s polished glass. The triangular shape of the panes distorted the space between them just enough to make it look as though they were touching. If Finley hadn’t known better, she would have believed they were holding hands.
“I might not remember what happened to me, Finley. And I might not ever remember everything about my life, about who I am. But I promise you this. I’m not here to hurt you. I swear. I just want your help.”
Her gaze drifted to the bruise on his temple. It had deepened to an angry shade of violet since the night before.
Every rational thought in her head told her to run. Run as far away from this stranger as she could. Since she’d been mugged, that had been her game plan when she met someone she was mildly attracted to. Run.
The attraction she felt toward Maxim wasn’t anything close to mild, though. It bordered on scorching, which made her want to run even harder.
But simple curiosity got the best of her. Curiosity, and a desire to know as much as she could about the Romanovs. She’d spent a solid year of her life immersed in their tragedy. What if there was more to the story?
Her love of history was to blame. Because her willingness to hear him out certainly didn’t have anything to do with his penetrating blue gaze. Or the way his soulful promise gave her the utterly foolish urge to rise up on tiptoe and kiss him on the mouth.
She stared at his mouth and tried to imagine what it would feel like on her lips, her neck, and the hidden softness of her thighs.
God, what was wrong with her?
She crossed her arms, a barrier of sorts. Clearly she needed one. “You said you had something to show me, Mr. Laurent. I should be getting back to work, so I suggest we take a look at whatever that something is. Right now.”
MAXIM FOCUSED INTENTLY ON Finley’s face as she flipped through the pages of the leather-bound journal, but her expression remained neutral. Her posture was guarded.
He counted himself lucky that she was even sitting there beside him on a bench beneath the shade of a pomegranate tree. With the Eiffel Tower behind her and a blanket of tulips at her feet, she was lovelier than any image his memory or imagination could have conjured. She was beauty and grace personified. On another day—in another life, perhaps—he might have leaned forward and cupped her face in his hands. He might have run the pad of his thumb over the soft, pink swell of her bottom lip. Then he would have kissed her until the journal fell from her lap, forgotten. Buried amid the blooms.
But it wasn’t just a journal. Not today. It was his life. Or what was left of his life, anyway. And it rested—open, exposed—in Finley’s delicate hands.
She looked up at him and pushed the fringe from her eyes. Her hair was gloriously windswept, just as he’d remembered. Although where those memories had come from were still very much a mystery.
“You wrote this? There are pages and pages of genealogical research here. Yet you have no memory of it?”
He shook his head. “None whatsoever. The police found it on me after I was attacked. That seems significant, don’t you think?”
“It does.” She glanced down at the final line of the final page. Je suis Maxim Romanov. “You’ve obviously spent quite some time building a case that you’re the long lost descendant of the Romanov Empire, the Grand Duchess Anastasia’s grandson.”
“I have no memory of that either. The last few years are nothing but a blur.” Bits and pieces had begun to come back. At first, walking into his grandmother’s apartment after he’d been discharged from the hospital had been like visiting a museum. But the books on the shelves felt familiar in his hands. The clothes in the bureau felt right. It fit . . . this life he knew so little about.
Except for the notebook. He couldn’t wrap his head around either of those things. But then he’d found the photograph. Now, even the notebook was beginning to make a morsel of sense. His job at the bank somehow seemed even more confusing than the journal.
He spoke with exaggerated care. “Believe me, I know how improbable it sounds that I could be a direct descendant of Tsar Nicholas II.”
“Impossible, not improbable.” She leveled her gaze at him. “Grand Duchess Anastasia died in 1918. The notion that she could have been your grandmother is out of the question. If you’ve sought me out in the hopes that I could verify your claim, I’m sorry. I can’t.”
Oddly enough, she did seem sorry. Which was more kindness than Maxim had any right to expect.
“There’s more.” He reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket for the photograph and handed it to her.
She stared at it long and hard, until the picture began to tremble in her grasp. “Where did you get this?”
“At home. My apartment belonged to my grandmother before she died. Some of her things are still there.” He still couldn’t remember moving in. Couldn’t remember the funeral.
But he’d remembered the picture. He’d gone straight home from Shakespeare and Company the night before and searched the flat until he’d found it.
“She used to keep it on her dressing table. I’ve seen it since I was a little kid.” Which was undoubtedly why he’d hung onto it after she’d died.
The flat was filled with a curious mixture of old and new. Familiar and foreign. Maxim was still trying to make sense of it all. He was still trying to make sense of everything. Even his cell phone was a mystery. He recognized none of the names listed in his contacts, and the only message on his voice mail was from a priest whose name wasn’t familiar.
“I see why you asked about the blouse last night,” Finley said, without lifting her gaze from the picture. “The girl in this photo is wearing one just like it.”
“Exactly.” Maxim nodded. “I suppose it could be a coincidence. Most young girls in the early 1900s probably dressed in similar fashion.”
“Yes and no.” Finley shrugged. “Only girls from wealthy families. Aristocrats. Bluebloods.”
“Royalty?” Maxim lifted a brow.
“Yes, royalty.” She looked up finally, eyes glittering like gemstones.
A jolt of arousal hit Maxim low in his gut. If he never found out what happened to him, never unlocked the secrets of his past, it would have been worth almost dying just to see the expression of wide-eyed wonder on Finley Abbot’s face. Being the object of that kind of look made him feel like more than an emperor. He felt immortal, as if maybe his survival hadn’t been purely accidental. Maybe fate had been on his side.
He nodded at the photo. “What do you think it means?”
“Honestly?” The light in Finley’s eyes dimmed. “Nothing, really. It doesn’t change the fact that Anastasia is dead, except . . .”
Her voice trailed off.
“Except what?” Maxim frowned.
Finley blinked, and her expression went cautiously blank. “Except nothing. What can you tell me about this necklace she’s wearing in the picture?”
She pointed at the teardrop-shaped stone hanging from a dainty chain around his grandmother’s neck. Aside from the picture, Maxim had never seen it before.
He shrugged one shoulder. “Not a thing.”
Finley peered closer at the image, then glanced up at him. “You never saw her wearing a pendant that looked like this one?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Interesting.” She sounded mildly disappointed, which pained Maxim more than it should have. “Still, I’d like to take a look at your grandmother’s things. If you don’t mind, of course.”
Mind?
This was the best news he’d had in days. Weeks maybe.
“I don’t mind at all.” He gave her the address. “How’s tonight?”
“Tonight’s fine. Do you mind if I hang onto the photograph until then?” She stood and clutched the picture to her chest.
Maxim couldn’t have cared less. She could have whatever she wanted. He was finally getting somewhere. “Not at all. Be my guest.”
“Excellent. Then I suppose I’ll see you this evening.” She nodded, all business.
But a flush crept up her neck and settled in her porcelain cheeks, turning them as pink as the flowers on the garden path.
Somewhere beneath his wounds and all his lost memories, something stirred inside Maxim. Something timeless. Primal.
She feels it, too. She might not remember me, but we’re connected in some way.
“It’s a date.”