FaCade (Deception #1) (14 page)

My breath hitched when I thought of Maria. Who was she? And as a fiancé madly in love, how would I ever be okay with my fiancé shoving his dick down her throat?

Opening the box of pizza and grabbing a slice, I followed him, finding him in an office with his head in his hands. I gingerly approached him, nervous of his mood. “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. I hated that I was doing this to him.

His head lifted, his arms reaching out. My body felt the invisible tug. Going to him, I crawled into his lap, curling my legs up and into myself. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, it will come.” I breathed in the whiskey from his breath as he spoke.

“Tell me about everything, Dante. Where was that place you held me?”

Waiting a few silent beats, he paused before he answered. “I have a lab and an office built on some of the property. I’m not one for sharing a work space. I made some remodels to accomplish what you had in mind.”

My stomach alerted me to the fact the cold slice of pizza was still in my hand and not my empty stomach. I flushed, a little embarrassed that he heard.

“Let me order fresh. I have someone who brings me what I need.”

What did he mean by that? Didn’t he just call a pizza house like everyone else? I shook my head and nibbled on the cheese around the crust. “Why did you let Maria… su…do what she did?” I tried to keep the jealously from my tone but I failed, making me wince faintly at my questioning.

He shifted me so my eyes met his. “She was your idea, Star. You said it would make things more believable.” I didn’t feel like he was talking about me. I hated that he let her do that now I know who he was and what we were.

“Did you do anything else with her?”

His deep laugh rocked my body with his. “You’re jealous? She was nothing, Star. I was thinking about you the whole time I was down her throat! And oral was all you would allow. You don’t like to share.” Now that sounded more like the person I was discovering I was.

“What about the others?”

His postures stiffened. “Malik works for me. I’ve known him for a very long time and we both trust him impeccably. The other one worked for you and is gone now.” A chill raced through me with the sickening feeling that accompanied any thoughts of Theo.

“What do you mean gone?” I had a foggy memory of him telling me Theo had paid with his life but he didn’t mean…did he?

His fingers pinched into the flesh of my thigh. “Gone. Don’t ask about him again.” I heeded his warning; his tone was deadly leaving a shiver to rattle through me.

Rubbing my hand over his to try to loosen his grip, I continued. “What do I do, work wise?”

Cupping my face in his palm, his lips stroked over mine. “You’re an artist. It was always your dream. I have some of your work over there.”

An artist? Wow! My eyes roamed the walls and stopped on a painting. It was of the house, the one in the south of France, only it was Dante instead of me in the image. It was so lifelike. “What about my family?”

He maneuvered me from his lap briskly, causing me to blink at him in surprise. “You’re asking a lot of questions.” Fidgeting from foot to foot now he’d removed me from his lap, I felt dejected and nervous. I hated not knowing his limits; hated not knowing the dynamics of us.

“I need answers because everything was erased. I just wondered if I had family,” I replied sharply, standing up.

His hands grasped the back of my neck, tilting my face up to his. “I’m your family! That’s all you need to know. Now it’s been a long day, you need to go rest.” He dropped his hold and pointed to the door. Embarrassment colored my cheeks. He was dismissing me like a child, sending me to bed.

I lay awake that night, until my body gave out. But I knew he never came in the room. Nor did he sleep in our bed.

THE HOUSE WAS HUGE, THE many walls, though countless and far apart, still felt claustrophobic in their need to contain me inside something I was unfamiliar with. I needed to get out, find open space, somewhere that would allow me room to breathe and feel free.

Dante had informed me a few hours ago that he would be in his office and I was to reacquaint myself with the house, to explore at my leisure. He laughed, saying I wasn’t a prisoner but his humor was lost on me; it was too soon for me to make jokes about everything that had come to pass. I thought walking around the house would help but it was as lonely as it was large. Nothing felt like mine, although my
fiancé
had been insistent that it was. The many pictures of the two of us adorning the walls soothed me in one respect, but they also taunted me, laughing at my inability to remember them.

Sighing, I climbed the wide staircase to the upper floor. Malik walked towards me with a warm smile on his face. His height would have given him an almost gangly appearance if it wasn’t for his width. “Hey. How are you?” His gentle eyes brought a soft sense of comfort.

I shrugged. “I…”

He reached towards me and placed his hand on the top of my arm, rubbing up and down in an effort to quell my unease. “It’ll come, Star. Just give it time.” Something flashed across his eyes, I couldn’t ascertain what it was but I smiled back.

“I know. It’s just… hard. I…” Tears filled my eyes and I blinked them back, pushing away the feeling of loneliness.

“Hey.” His arms wrapped around me, his warm body giving me reassurance as his chin rested on the top of my head. It felt strange having him be so familiar with me despite the fact he had seen me naked and played a big role in my fake kidnapping. I understood from what Dante had told me that I knew Malik and with only having memories of the few people around me from the past weeks, I felt connected to him and in a weird way. “I can’t begin to imagine what you’re going through but I know everything will work out.”

I nodded, though my words contradicted my optimism. “Will it?”

He sighed then reared back, his eyes flicking up to the camera sat in the corner of the ceiling. “I promise.” It was said in a whisper but his eyes held mine for a moment too long. “Dante is demanding more tests to be carried out on the drug they gave you. And I know Dante better than anyone. He’ll make sure it’s sorted soon.”

I narrowed my eyes and tipped my head. “You know him better than I’m supposed to? I thought we were childhood sweethearts.”

He chuckled. “You are, Star, but I’ve been his friend and have worked for him a long time. I know what time he wakes, what he likes for breakfast. Hell, I even know the length of his dick.” My eyes widened but he laughed and winked at me. “I have to go, the Master calls.”

A shiver racked through my body with his words, and although they were meant in jest, the way he called Dante
Master
prickled something inside me, memories of the last few weeks haunting me. He clicked his tongue and stroked my arm again before disappearing down the stairs. I watched him vanish then turned back and walked towards
our
bedroom.

Even though I’d only taken one step into the room, I hated how foreign it felt. A bedroom was a place of private time, somewhere that should hold many memories but for me it was an unfamiliar square space filled with strange objects. My eyes wandered over the room, trying to get a grasp on something, anything that felt recognizable.

Walking over to the dressing table, I lifted the lid on a small jewelry box. Many sparkling pieces blinked at me when the light hit them. A ring seized my attention and I slid my little finger into it and lifted it closer. It was a stunning piece, a platinum band holding a large chunk of diamond. My eyes widened and a shiver raced over me.

His hand looped a thread around my ring finger. The tears spilled free when I noticed the other end was looped around his own finger, a platinum band with a huge diamond sat on the end of his. He tilted his hand, making the ring flow free down the thread until it looped onto mine. I choked on a happy sob. “Promise never to leave me, to never love another man. Promise to be my wife, promise to complete us?”

A tear slid free and I lowered myself onto the stool. My reflection looked back at me from the mirror fixed to the table, a masked replica, an unknown image of a woman whose life meant nothing to me.

“Who am I?”

Sliding the ring onto my ring finger, I watched it take a repeat journey of what it had done many months ago, begging for the action to bring on further flashbacks but nothing else came, only a deep-seated need for knowledge. My eyes blinked back at me, my tanned skin and flushed cheeks glowed, my soft pink lips parted allowing life to stream in and out of me but I didn’t feel alive, I felt dead on the inside. My heart ached as my hollow soul begged for warmth and connection. One thing was for certain though, my spirit was still alive, it’s need for me to battle through allowing me to take each step of this new life and keep going. I had no other choice. I didn’t have anything to fall back on; or rather I didn’t know of anything I had to fall back on. Dante was the only thing that linked me to this world. The photographs and his knowledge about me were the only things that could grant me a vision into my past life.

I blew out a determined breath and gave myself a stern nod. “You have no choice, Star. You have to deal with this. Like Malik said, it’ll come, you just have to lean on Dante until it does.” I smiled at the echo of myself looking back at me. “He obviously loves you. He gave you a fantasy he didn’t want to participate in, he put your needs before his own and if that isn’t a sign of love then I don’t know what is.”

My pep talk gave me the courage to stand and scramble through the huge clothes closet until I found some pumps and slid them on. Air would do me the world of good, maybe a walk through the gardens. I wouldn’t trust myself to venture further afield; I couldn’t remember my damn name never mind the layout of the estate where we lived.

I secretly hope I had been a keen gardener. I craved to see flowers and greenery. I wasn’t sure why I needed to see nature but I did so I shrugged and went with it, smiling faintly at something else I had discovered about myself.

I couldn’t move, not that moving would make any difference. My eyes scanned the miles of ocean before me, my heart galloping with the realization that I was completely surrounded by open water. I had walked the entire perimeter around the house to be only greeted with shoreline. How the hell did one get off the island?

Although the crashing waves called to soothe me, they did the exact opposite, bringing terror with each white foamy surge of pure blue water. The vastness of nothing but sea gave me another feeling of confinement, its strangling hold squeezing my insides when I acknowledged the fact that I wasn’t going anywhere.

I knew deep inside that Dante loved me, he was my fiancé for Christ’s sake, but the feeling that I couldn’t have my own space was crippling. I needed time to think, think about what I wanted. But it was as though everything had been decided for me, leaving me no choice but to spend my time with a man I hardly knew. He said I wasn’t a prisoner but I was secluded with no escape. To me, that made me a prisoner. My brain was being rational; I wasn’t giving him the benefit of the doubt or considering that the old me maybe loved it here, but now it was all building inside me, making me panic.