I scrubbed my face with both hands, hating that nightmare. I hated that image of Aimee luring me toward her. She represented everything I couldn’t remember and everything I would lose. Damn her. Damn her to hell.
I roared, grabbing one of the older versions of her image, and slammed it against the table. The wood frame splintered. I smacked the canvas again. Again, and again, and again. God, I hated her. I hated that I dreamed about her. I hated that she came looking for me. She ruined my life. No! I slammed the canvas against the tabletop. Imelda ruined my life. Thomas screwed me over. They screwed up my sons’ chances of having a normal life.
Sweat broke out across my body and veins popped up on my arms as I did what I could to annihilate the painting. The wood frame fell apart and the canvas shredded. I lunged for another canvas.
“James!”
I whirled, teeth bared. Thomas stood in the doorway, suit pants wrinkled and white dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck, sleeves rolled up his forearms and jacket slung over his shoulder. His hair was uncombed and brown eyes wild. We had the same color eyes.
I sneered at him. He clutched the door frame, his chest heaving as though he’d been running. How long had he been there? How many times had he called my name?
No, he didn’t call my name. I wasn’t James.
“Don’t, James. Don’t destroy your paintings.”
“That’s not my name,” I spat. “I’m not him.” I didn’t want to be him. I am me. My body, my life.
“Fine. Carlos. I don’t care what name you go by. You’re still my brother.”
I jabbed a finger at him and ate the distance between us. “You’re no brother of mine.” I punched him in the jaw. His head snapped. He staggered back a few steps. White-hot pain radiated from my knuckles to my shoulder, rattling my arm. That hurt. I shook my hand.
Thomas gripped the door frame to right his balance. He pressed fingers to his chin, worked his jaw. “Damn. Guess I deserved that.”
He deserved much more where that came from. I wanted to hit him again, beat him until his nose shattered and cheekbone cracked. He needed to leave. He needed to leave now. I pointed at him. “Get out.” I had two sons to worry about. If I came home drunk, bruised, and bloodied, Natalya would be fuming and Julian would ask questions. He was almost six, and he was smart. He’d know his dad got into a fight and he’d want to know why.
¡Mierda! How do I tell them about me?
I don’t. Not yet. They’re too young to understand. I could barely wrap my own damaged mind around it.
Flexing my fingers, I gave Thomas my back. I picked up the damaged canvas from the floor. It had split down the middle, right through the beautiful eyes that had bewitched me for months. I tossed the ruined painting on the table, wondering if Aimee would visit me again in my dreams now that I knew who she was. Would that other part of me still try to communicate while I slept? Because that was what I believed James was doing. There was something he wanted me to know.
Thomas came into the room, edging the table. He stopped on the opposite side. “We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t. Imelda and Aimee have told me enough.”
“They’ve only told you what they know.”
Which was more than I cared to understand. The more I knew about James, the greater the chance I’d snap out of the fugue.
“I don’t want to hear anything more, especially from you.”
“I don’t care what you want,” Thomas snapped.
“Obviously. That’s why I’m here,” I scoffed, pushing off the table and extending my arms to encompass the room, the town. Oaxaca. This whole fucking country.
“God dammit.” Thomas pounded the table. “Would you just listen? Please. Hear me out.”
“Why now? Why not nineteen months ago when I was flat on my back in a hospital bed? Why not when my face was swollen and shoulder busted and I was going out-of-my-mind crazy wondering who the hell I was?” My mind flashed back to the hospital, to a man standing outside my door. Aviator glasses, expensive suit, and face etched in grief. Anger sparked, flaring hot like a struck match. “You were there, in the hospital.”
Thomas shifted. His mouth parted briefly then flattened. He nodded.
“You gave Imelda the envelope with all my documents.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t say a damn thing to me and you paid her to lie!” I grabbed the jar of paint on the side of the table, the Caribbean-blue color I’d worked hard to customize so that it matched the eyes of the woman in my dreams. Aimee’s eyes. I lugged the jar across the room. Thomas’s brows shot up into his hairline. He ducked. The jar shattered against the wall behind him. Paint oozed like a Jackson Pollack painting, down the wall, puddling on the floor.
Thomas lunged out of the way. Paint stained the back of his shirt, dotted his hair. Blue polka dots like the cartoon animals in one of Julian’s children’s books. His shirt was ruined.
I shoved my fingers through my hair. “Go. Just go away.”
Thomas hesitated; then he pulled out a card from his breast pocket and left it on the table. “I kept you hidden to keep you safe. Phil tried to kill you.”
“The same guy who attacked Aimee? Where’s he now?”
“In prison.”
“Then I don’t need to worry about him.”
“There’s more—” He stopped when I held up my hand. He scratched the side of his nose. “Suit yourself. Call me when you’re ready to talk. But for now, I’m thinking it’s probably best you remain in Puerto Escondido.”
“I never intended to leave.”
Thomas shot me a look before walking to the doorway. He picked his suit jacket up from the floor where he’d dropped it after I punched him. He folded the garment over his arm. “Promise me you’ll call if you change your mind.”
“About talking or leaving Puerto Escondido?”
“Both.” He gave me a sad smile. “Take care of yourself and . . . watch your back.” With that, he left the room.
CHAPTER 3
JAMES
Present Day
June 21
San Jose, California
“Papá will be angry.”
“Who cares? He’s always angry. He’s also not our real papá.”
Julian reprimands Marcus for what James thinks is the millionth time. Marcus, or Marc, as he’s come to call him, must be sick of his brother’s attitude. James sure is.
From the conference-room entrance, he watches Julian launch a spitball at the window. He’s been busy while James was with Thomas. Spitballs dot the glass like falling snow. Julian shreds a napkin, wads the paper in his mouth, and blows through the plastic straw they found for their sodas in the lunchroom. The gooey wad splatters against the window and sticks.
Enough.
“Julian,” James snaps with authority, a tone he adopted too quickly after first “meeting” the boys last December.
Julian jolts. He tosses the straw under the conference table.
James narrows his eyes on the wadded masterpiece. What a mess.
Most of the office staff has gone home. He left the boys alone in the conference room with chip bags and sodas from the lunchroom vending machines. Probably not the brightest idea he’s had, but his lack of good ones has been on a downward slide since before he left the States years ago.
He glances down at where Marc sits. Doritos fragments litter the floor around his chair like speckled paint on a drop cloth. “Let’s clean up. Time to go.”
Julian chuffs—a short, sharp exhale that fluffs his bangs. “Go where?”
“Home.”
“We sold our home.”
“Don’t start, Julian,” James warns. “Now, clean up.”
Julian groans and picks up the straw. He launches it into the trash.
“Nice aim,” James compliments. The kid’s a natural athlete. He’s seen him dribble a soccer ball in the sand with his friends and shoot consecutive three-pointers on their driveway back in Puerto Escondido.
Julian slides James a look and pulls his backpack over his shoulder. He rises from his chair and starts walking to the door.
“Forgetting something?”