Modern Romance April 2020 Books 1-4

CHAPTER THREE

IN THE LIMOUSINE that wafted her down the long driveway towards the giant building that sat at the bottom, Brooke sat wide-eyed with wonder but striving to conceal the fact. It seemed that she was married to a man who was very much wealthier than she had understood, and that was a shock too. But acting shocked got old quickly and she was slowly trying to learn how to school her face into less revealing reactions every time she got a surprise about herself. This was her life, after all, she reminded herself soothingly, her home.

And Madrigal Court was gorgeous, she thought helplessly, as the sunlight glinted off the rows of windows and the old brick with its intricate designs and so many chimneys—a country house that must’ve been hundreds of years old. Tudor? she wondered with a frown, disconcerted to find that term popping up in the back of her brain. Seemingly she knew more about old buildings than she had assumed, or could it have been a memory? She was desperate to recall something concrete: an event, an image, a face, a fact, anything really, she acknowledged ruefully, but so far there had been nothing and that had to be incredibly frustrating for Lorenzo.

Without even thinking about it, she reached for his hand because she had been so very flattered that he had taken a day off to share her homecoming with her. She was extremely conscious that he worked very hard and for very long hours and she thought that might have been why she had concentrated equally hard, it seemed, to make a separate role and career for herself. Clearly, Lorenzo had married a strong, independent and confident woman and Brooke was desperately trying to shore up those traits in herself.

There would be no clinging, no whinging, when he disappeared abroad for days at a time, no mention of the truth that she missed him terribly when he was gone. He wouldn’t want to hear that kind of stuff and he would be disappointed in her. And hadn’t he had enough disappointment already, sufficient to end many a marriage, she reminded herself, when his wife wakened and didn’t know him from a stranger in the street?

Totally shocked by that gesture, Lorenzo flicked a covert black-lashed glance down at their linked hands and breathed in deep and slow to embrace calm. His enthralling vision of her walking into her wardrobe and shrieking in delight, ‘I’m home!’ still refused to retreat. But this new version of Brooke didn’t shriek, and her voice was low-pitched, just one of the many, many changes in her that unsettled him. It was almost as though she had had a personality transplant, he mused. Per Dio, she had cried when he told her that her parents had passed away before he met her and that she had no other relatives, nobody, who could fill in the blanks of the memory loss she was enduring now. Of course, there might be photos of her family somewhere in Brooke’s stuff, he reflected hopefully, because he knew that would please her.

At her request, he had retrieved her wedding ring from the home safe and she had threaded it on as though it were something special, not the plain band that she had originally dismissed as ‘not very imaginative’. Nothing that didn’t glitter with valuable jewels had once incited Brooke’s admiration.

She listened to his advice now as well. She hadn’t asked for a phone or even the Internet again, which impressed him as being even more weird, for Brooke had lived on her phone. How could she not be missing it? Of course, she didn’t know who or what she had to miss, did she? Lorenzo’s lean bronzed face hardened. Not least the very married film star who had recently had an aide contact Lorenzo to enquire after his wife’s health, evidently having heard a rumour that Brooke was recovering from the accident. Lorenzo suspected there had been an affair between them, but he reminded himself that Brooke’s sex life was, thankfully, no longer any of his business. They might remain legally married but there was nothing deeper involved.

Brooke walked up the worn stone steps into the house and smiled at the middle-aged man opening the door for their arrival. ‘And you are?’

‘Stevens, madam,’ the older man supplied in surprise.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, moving indoors and stopping dead to take in the big imposing entrance hall made cosy by the low fire burning in the ancient fireplace to one side. ‘Oh, this is beautiful!’ she claimed, startling Lorenzo.

‘You hated this house,’ Lorenzo heard himself murmur in soft contradiction. ‘You wanted a modern home, a McMansion. I refused to move because this was my mother’s family home and, although I never knew her, I enjoyed the knowledge that she had once lived here.’

‘Hated it?’ Brooke exclaimed in disbelief, spinning round to look at him. ‘I don’t think that’s possible.’

Watching her flounder with uncertainty as soon as she had spoken and accepted that such a former attitude was perfectly possible, Lorenzo registered his error in being that honest and at speed he strode over to a door to throw it wide. ‘Lots of married couples have different tastes.’ He dismissed that hint of contention smoothly. ‘This room is more your style.’

What style? Brooke almost asked for every piece of furniture was gilded and the drapes, the upholstery and even the carpet were pristine white. Even the vase of flowers on the low table was filled with white blooms. In her opinion, it was stark and uninviting, but it certainly gave a striking effect.

‘And this is you...’ Lorenzo indicated the large professional photograph on the wall in which she posed on the same sofa for a Dream House magazine interview she had, according to him, given only weeks before the accident.

Brooke stared in fascination at the woman in the photograph and her fingers went up to pluck uneasily at her loose ringlets as she studied that smooth straight fall of hair in the image. ‘I should be straightening my hair!’ she gasped suddenly.

‘I like it natural,’ Lorenzo dared to impart.

‘Honestly?’ she queried tautly as she stared at that flawlessly groomed, almost inhumanly perfect image with a sinking heart. It was undeniably her, but it was not the version of her that she was currently providing him with.

‘Honestly.’

In that moment, Brooke felt overwhelmed. Coming home was proving more of a challenge than she had expected. Was it possible that the head injury had altered her tastes? She supposed it was. When she had expressed her concern about such changes to Mr Selby, he had been very reassuring, never failing to remind her that she was lucky to be alive and relatively unscathed as if the loss of her every memory from childhood was something she simply had to accept. And perhaps it was, and there was nothing less attractive than self-pity, she told herself fiercely, moving back into the hall.

‘Let’s go upstairs,’ Lorenzo urged. ‘I’ll show you your room.’

Your room, Brooke noted. ‘Don’t we share?’

Lorenzo cast her a lazy, careless smile because he was fully rehearsed on that answer. ‘You like your own space and you often took your stylist up there to decide on outfits. Sharing wasn’t practical.’

‘You know more about my life than I know about yours,’ Brooke couldn’t help commenting.

‘I don’t think that there’s anything in the world of finance that would interest you,’ Lorenzo parried. ‘Unless, of course, you’ve decided to set up a business or something of that nature.’

‘Not just at the minute, no,’ she quipped, breathing in deep.

So, separate bedrooms, little wonder Lorenzo was so physically detached from her and prone to treating her as though she were a friend rather than a wife. Even though they lived in an enormous house, they didn’t seem to share much as a couple. Not a bed, not taste, not their lives. It was unhealthy but perhaps Lorenzo liked his marriage that way even if it didn’t appeal to her, she ruminated worriedly. How had she let the man she loved move so far from her in every way?

Obviously she loved him. She couldn’t believe that she would have married him for any other reason. His money, his giant house and his servants all made her feel intimidated. But he didn’t intimidate her, he made her...happy. Mr. Selby had urged her to think about whether or not that was just her insecurity talking and had asked her how she could possibly still love a man she didn’t remember. But she knew that she did in the same way she knew that the sun would rise in the morning. She had remembered Lorenzo’s voice and it was the only thing she remembered, which to her signified and proved his overwhelming importance in her life.

Brooke walked into another blindingly white room, but this time it was a bedroom and she decided that the absence of colour did give a certain feel of tranquillity.

‘And then there’s your favourite place,’ Lorenzo proclaimed, casting wide another door.

Brooke froze on the threshold of an amazing dressing room. But it was so big, so packed with stuff it didn’t really qualify for that description. Racks and racks of shoes and bags lined the walls in glass cabinets. Rails and rails of zingy, colourful garments hung in readiness. It was a feast of conspicuous consumerism, a rebuttal of the ‘less is more’ mentality, and she thought, Oh, dear heaven, I’m greedy and extravagant and spoilt rotten! And then a calmer voice switched on inside her, reminding her that being a fashion icon had sort of been her job. She forced herself deeper into the room to browse through the clothes, hoping for something to jar her memory, glancing at labels and surprised that she only recognised the household names of famous designers that everyone knew. In the general knowledge sense, her fashion antenna seemed to be running on an empty tank.

‘Of course, you’ll have to throw it all out.’

Brooke whirled, violet eyes huge. ‘Throw it out?’ she gasped incredulously.

‘Because everything in here is old and out of fashion now.’ Lorenzo tossed out that award-winning lure with deep satisfaction because he had already worked out how best to occupy his soon-to-be ex-wife. ‘Your wardrobe is out of date. You’ll need to start from scratch again and replace it all.’

‘But that would be horribly wasteful,’ Brooke framed in disbelief, fingering through a rack of jeans, searching for an ordinary pair but finding only slashed, sparkly or embroidered ones, marvelling that her former self had apparently never succumbed to a desire to simply wear something comfortable.

‘It’s the way that you live.’ Lorenzo shrugged, brilliant, thickly lashed dark eyes cynical and assured. ‘Every season you start again, so I imagine you’ll be shopping until you drop for weeks.’

Brooke nodded jerkily since it seemed to be what he expected from her. ‘It seems a very extravagant way to live,’ she remarked uneasily.

‘I can well afford extravagant,’ Lorenzo intoned, wondering why she wasn’t one bit excited at the prospect of shopping, wondering why she looked kind of lost standing there in the middle of the room, rather like a little girl contemplating a giant dress-up box that frightened her. This was Brooke’s world, from the fashion magazines piled on the coffee table to the immaculate shoe collection. And she didn’t recognise any of it, he acknowledged grimly.

At least now, she could explore her life, Brooke reminded herself, for there had to be personal things tucked away somewhere within the two rooms, surely photos of her late parents and that kind of stuff, she reasoned as Lorenzo departed. As for the fashion end of things, she clearly wasn’t able to become a fashion icon again in her current state of mind and she would just have to move on from that and find something else to keep her busy. Reinventing yourself was all the rage these days, she reminded herself dully. It was not as though she had a choice when she couldn’t imagine wearing a see-through lace dress or jeans that exposed her bottom cheeks.

That reflection, however, threw yet another obstacle into her path. Almost certainly that more audacious woman was the woman Lorenzo knew and had chosen to marry. Brooke paled at that acknowledgement. A sexier woman. Was that the common denominator at the heart of her marriage? That together sexier Brooke and more reserved Lorenzo meshed like magnets? Was that why Lorenzo was now so distant with her? Because she wasn’t putting out the right vibes any longer with her clothing and her manner? Well, she was just going to have to fake it, wasn’t she?

What do you know about being sexy? she asked herself limply. But she had to know those things to make such daring clothing choices! She relived that kiss and a slow burn reignited low in her pelvis and she shifted restlessly. Maybe she was sexier in bed than she imagined and when it happened it would all just come seamlessly together for her...but what if it didn’t? What if her apparent stock of general knowledge didn’t include the bedroom stuff? What if she lay there like a graven image and freaked him out? And why was she even having these thoughts, she asked herself, when to date even getting a kiss out of Lorenzo had entailed practically falling on him? Maybe she was the partner who made all the sexy, inviting moves, she thought anxiously, and if that was true, the onus would be on her...

Perhaps Lorenzo had simply been waiting to bring her home, she reasoned, and tonight, when she was tucked up in bed, he would visit?

CHAPTER FOUR

‘I’D LIKE SOME details about the accident,’ Brooke declared over dinner two weeks later.

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Lorenzo informed her lazily.

For the first time ever, Brooke wanted to slap her husband for still treating her like a vulnerable child to be protected from every ill wind. ‘I disagree. Since I wasn’t driving—I mean, you told me that—who was driving?’

‘An employee. I’m afraid that he died,’ Lorenzo told her smoothly.

Brooke lost colour and stilled. ‘Oh, how dreadful! I should go and see his family. Will you give me the address?’ she pressed.

‘He didn’t have a family as such. He lived with an elderly mother. I’ve ensured that she is financially secure. You don’t need to get involved,’ Lorenzo assured her.

‘I think the least I can do is visit his mother to offer my condolences,’ Brooke responded firmly.

Lorenzo almost rolled his eyes at this new caring, sharing display of Brooke’s. He compressed his hard mouth. Every time he saw her, she annoyed him by being so beautiful, so...tempting. There she sat, hair foaming in ringlets and cascading round her like some cartoon mermaid, triangular face bare of cosmetics, violet eyes bright and friendly and natural and, in truth, she remained drop-dead gorgeous. Yet she was wearing jeans, simple plain jeans, and flat shoes. She was another almost unrecognisable incarnation of Brooke and one he didn’t intend to waste time on because the transformation wouldn’t, couldn’t possibly last. Inevitably, her indomitable will, her piranha-fish appetites for sex, media exposure and money would resurface and he, for one, would be a great deal happier.

He didn’t want to be reminded of that treacherous kiss in the clinic when he had inexplicably contrived to overlook all the other men she had betrayed him with. Of that kiss, it was enough to recall that she had burned him alive and filled him with a hunger he refused to satisfy. He was even more astonished that she could still have that effect on him. Only days before the accident he had enjoyed the definitive proof that he was completely impervious to her looks and her seductive wiles. He could only suppose that being forced into a protective role for so long with his estranged wife had somehow softened his previous hard shell of cold disinterest. After all, he had never been the kind of foolish man who returned to explore his worst mistake and that was what Brooke genuinely was to him: his worst mistake.

‘Do you want the full story of the accident? Even if it’s distressing?’ he prompted, reminding himself that keeping such secrets from her wasn’t doing anything to help her adapt to her return to the land of the living.

Feeling a little threatened now and worried about what he might have held back from her, Brooke nodded urgently. ‘Yes.’

‘There was another woman in the limo with you and she died as well. We don’t know what she was doing with you because, although I looked into her history before the funeral, I couldn’t see anything relevant that would have brought you together that day.’

Brooke’s smooth brow furrowed. ‘That’s a puzzle. Who was she?’

‘She was a waitress in a London café, although she’d quit her job that same day, quoting a family emergency, but when I investigated it turned out that she had no family and there was nothing of interest about her,’ Lorenzo recounted with a fluid Italian shrug of dismissal. ‘I suppose we’ll never know what she was doing in the car with you that day unless you regain your memory.’

Brooke was troubled by the discovery that some mystery woman had been with her on the day of the crash. She had already discovered a severe absence of personal possessions in her bedroom. She had waded through a dozen files packed with press clippings and some rather suggestive headlines, depicting her with other men in nightclubs, but she hadn’t found a single picture of her parents or indeed of anyone else. Her life, evidently, had been lived solely through the media and nothing else had much mattered to her, and that saddened her because her previous existence now seemed shallow to her and empty of real purpose.

As for her marriage, she ruminated regretfully, it didn’t appear to be much healthier than her lifestyle had been because she barely saw Lorenzo except at the dinner table. When she had made the effort to rise at dawn to breakfast with him, he had not seemed remotely appreciative of her company and had buried his nose back in the Financial Times, the one and only media publication that came to the house.

It was ironic that she had actually been spending more personal time with her husband when he had been visiting her at the clinic. Now that she was back home, he was perfectly polite and pleasant, but it was almost as if she didn’t really exist on his terms, which was weird, wasn’t it?

But everything was weird in their relationship, she conceded wretchedly. Why didn’t he sleep with her? Why didn’t he want sex when popular parlance suggested that men always wanted sex? What was wrong with her? Or what was wrong with their marriage? She had tried to ignore the signs that something was not quite right but after a fortnight of being treated like a house guest rather than a wife, Brooke felt that she could no longer disregard suspicions that were a deep source of concern to her. After all, if Lorenzo didn’t want her any more, what was she doing living in his house? Obviously she could only be uncomfortable with the fear that she wasn’t truly welcome below the roof of the place she had mistakenly assumed was her true home.

‘Why do you never take me out anywhere with you?’ Brooke asked with a directness she had not dared to utilise with Lorenzo before.

Lorenzo glanced up from his plate, beautiful dark deep-set eyes shrewd and level, and she experienced that same maddening little prickling of awareness that his gaze always evoked and her heart started to thump faster inside her tight chest. ‘We’ve always had separate social lives. And, unhappily, if we are seen in public together, you would be mobbed by the paparazzi because you are the former beauty maven who has now returned from the dead and many people are very curious about you. I don’t like press attention in my private life...however, you do.’

‘Oh...’ Brooke breathed, crushed by those truths delivered so instantaneously. ‘You think there might be headlines?’

‘I know there would be. Brooke...’ Lorenzo sighed and lounged back in his chair, devastatingly good-looking and infuriatingly calm. ‘There have been cameras waiting at the foot of the drive to catch a photo of you since the day I brought you home. If you’d even once gone shopping, you would’ve seen them there. Maybe you don’t feel like having that media attention right now?’

‘I don’t,’ she confirmed.

‘But it’s still a very large part of who you used to be,’ Lorenzo reminded her. ‘And the paps aren’t going to give up and go away any time soon.’

Having dealt that final blow, Lorenzo left for the Tassini Bank while Brooke retired to her white bedroom to read a book she had bought online about Italians, seeking in some small way to redress her ignorance of her husband. But there seemed little point reading about how Italians highly valued their families and seeking such a trait in Lorenzo. He was diligent in assuring that her medical needs were covered with regular online sessions with Mr Selby and physio sessions with a personal trainer, but his care never ever got more personal than that. She was fed, housed, clothed, medicated and that was that.

Along with jeans and casual tops, she had bought a dress, low-necked, short and scarlet in hue, and high heels. She viewed the more decorative fitted outfit as a move forward, a first step in becoming the woman whom Lorenzo obviously expected her to be. Now, sadly, she wasn’t even sure she would have the nerve to wear it because he had shut her down again.

Two other people had died in that accident and she had survived. She was much luckier than she had ever appreciated, and she knew that her first outing would include a visit to the driver’s mother and a respectful call at the cemetery to the grave of the woman who had been with her that day. Maybe she had been a friend, Brooke reflected sadly, for she could hardly have failed to note that she didn’t seem to have friends in the way that other women had. Hadn’t she liked other women? Hadn’t other women liked her? The lack of a friend or relative to turn to sometimes made her feel very alone...

Blasted self-pity, she told herself off firmly, and returned to her book while wondering if she had the nerve to wear that dress for dinner and whether Lorenzo would even notice what she wore, because he didn’t seem to look at her that much.

Just then, however, when she was least expecting it, the door literally burst open and she jerked bolt upright on top of the bed, her violet eyes wide with surprise.

The very image of innocence, Lorenzo thought in a rage as he strode across the room to slap the newspaper he had bought for that purpose down on the foot of the bed. The lurid headline ran: She Doesn’t Know Who She Is!

He was furious with himself most of all for starting to trust her again even though he knew she was a liar and a manipulator. It wasn’t like him to lose his temper, but when he had seen that newspaper headline, he had felt betrayed, and then he had wondered why he felt betrayed when Brooke was only doing what she had always done in seeking to shape her public image and stoke press interest. He should’ve been better prepared, should’ve expected such behaviour from her. It was his own fault that he felt as though she had deceived him. When, after all, had he begun to forget what kind of a woman she was?

‘I should’ve guessed that you’d have your own more direct but sly way of dealing with the media!’ Lorenzo fired down at her.

Brooke was frozen to the spot in disbelief by his behaviour because Lorenzo had never once raised his voice to her before. But at this moment, he was ferociously angry with her and it showed in every honed, hard lineament of his lean, darkly handsome features. ‘Go on...look at the article and tell me you’re not responsible for this outrage!’ he challenged with contempt.