“What are you doing here?” he asks shaking his head in amazement.
“I came to find you,” I say honestly. “To tell you that—” I glance up at his window to indicate the point of my speech.
“You weren’t going to say it to my face?”
“No.”
“It’s a very far way to travel to say something that important to my hotel window.”
“I had no right to come,” I admit, shrugging. “I’m sorry. I broke into your house and found out you were here.”
He squeezes his eyes shut and it looks like he wants to laugh.
“Cammie help you?”
I nod.
“I’m glad you came,” he says softly, “I was just thinking about you.”
I jerk in shock. “You were?” He smiles at the look on my face.
“Sure. I think about you all the time.”
I bite hard on my bottom lip to keep from crying. I am so confused I don’t know what to say.
“Let’s walk,” he says, and I fall into step beside him. “I never forgot you,” he says again.
“Well, you did for a while,” I say, studying the ground.
“No, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I never had amnesia. I faked it.”
I stop walking.
“You did what?”
“Olivia,” he stops and looks me in the eyes. “I faked my amnesia.”
I feel like the world is falling out from beneath my feet. Caleb and I are in Rome. I am in Rome. He never had amnesia. He thinks about me all the time. He never had amnesia.
“Why…what…why?” I want to grab him by the shirt collar and shake the answer out of him. Instead, I stand with my hands clenched at my sides.
“After everything happened with you and me, I tried to heal. I knew that I needed to forget you and move on. I hurt so much; everyday felt like a death sentence. I mourned you like you were dead and then, I met Leah. We were set up on a blind date and I remember feeling hope that day. It was the first day in a year that I felt hope. We took our time getting to know each other, I bought her a ring.” He shot me a look to see if I remembered the iceberg.
“And then, all of a sudden I missed you again. I mean, I never stopped missing you, but this time it hit me hard. I couldn’t go to sleep for a single night without seeing you in my dreams. I compared everything Leah did to everything I remembered about you. It was like the old wound opened itself up again and I was bleeding out my feelings for you.”
I close my eyes at his words. Words that I want to hear badly but that are making my heart ache so terribly I can barely breathe.
“I went on that business trip to Scranton and I was glad to get away from her for a few days. I needed to think and sort things out before I gave her that ring. Then the accident happened. I woke up in that car with the person next to me dead and I didn’t know who I was. My amnesia was induced by massive stress and the concussion to my head. By the time I reached the emergency room, I remembered everything. I lay on that bed in the hospital and I kept thinking, if only Olivia were here.
I would be happy if Olivia were here.
And then the doctor asked me if I knew who I was and I said no. I just said no. I made that decision in a split second because I didn’t know who I was without you and I knew that I had to try to find you. I lied to Leah, my family, and none of it mattered to me because my amnesia bought me time and an excuse. I went everywhere I knew you would go. The day you saw me in the music store, I knew you would be there; I had this feeling. I was still shocked, not because you showed up, but because you came right over and pretended that you hadn’t seen me standing there before you came in.”
I smile. He saw through me even then.
“But why didn’t you just tell me, Caleb? What could I have said after everything I did to you?”
Scenes were flashing in my memory like a jerky movie. Caleb calling me Duchess accidentally. Caleb bringing me my favorite flowers the night Leah crashed our dinner date. Caleb saying “I never forgot you” in the courtroom on the day of my birthday.
He pursed his beautiful lips.
“Because I wanted to go back to the beginning. I wanted us to have a clean start. And then you left—”
“And then I left,” I repeat. I wasn’t going to tell him about Leah, about how she pretty much drove me out of town. That was pointless and it would only hurt him.
“So, why did you find me again to be her lawyer? What in the world possessed you to do that?”
He laughs.
“I wanted to torture you. I wanted you to pay for leaving me a second time. I only ended up torturing myself, of course.”
“No, I was pretty tortured,” I smile. “And just think, I could have her in prison right now, with you all to myself.”
He looks at me in amusement.
“So, you still love me?” he teases, reaching out and tucking my hair behind my ear.
“More than anything,” I say. “I was waiting for you—for years. I didn’t live. I just waited for you to come back.”
He squeezes his eyes shut and I know that he is thinking what I am thinking. What if?
He pulls me to his chest and holds me there.
“I love you too, Olivia. More than I could ever love another soul. There hasn’t been a single hour in seven years that I haven’t thought of you.”
I cry into his shirt. If only I could die right now, then I would never have to live without him, I would just be gone.