Page 20 of Unlocking Melodies

Chapter 4

What Remains

Clara's Place was exactly what you'd expect from a small-town inn - floral wallpaper that had seen better decades, creaking floorboards that made stealth impossible, and an antique writing desk that had probably witnessed a century of travelers' stories. The “best suite” felt worlds away from my usual luxury hotels, but right now, that seemed fitting. Everything about this town felt like stepping into an alternate universe where simple things like coffee shops and dive bars held more weight than board rooms and corporate towers.

I forced myself to stop pacing. Thirteen steps from door to window. I'd counted them fifty times in the last hour, as if somehow the number would change, as if anything in this town would give me the control I desperately needed.

My coffee-stained suit jacket hung over the chair like an accusation. The logical thing would have been to send it to be cleaned immediately - there was probably still time to save the Italian wool. But I couldn't bring myself to erase the evidence of that moment, that collision, that look of perfect non-recognition in eyes I'd spent eight years trying to forget.

I'd prepared for everything. Anger. Hatred. A door slammed in my face. I'd written mental scripts for every possible scenario except the one that actually happened - Jimmy looking at me like I was a stranger. Just another clumsy patron who'd ruined his shirt.

My hands shook as I poured myself a drink. The local bourbon tasted nothing like my usual single malt, but the burn felt right. Felt like penance.

My laptop chimed with Mia's signature efficiency:

“Board meeting rescheduled for next week. Reuben handling the integration presentation. And I've moved all non-essential meetings. PR team prepped to cite personal emergency if needed. Try to sleep.”

Sleep. Right. Because that was going to happen.

I opened my emails, letting myself fall into familiar territory. Numbers. Plans. Action items. Things I could control. The quarterly reports needed review, acquisition proposals needed responses, the Beijing team needed decisions. Normal problems with clear solutions.

My cursor hovered over the police report file. I couldn't open it. Not yet. Not until I talked to Liam, who was probably already planning seventeen different ways to make me regret coming back.

The bourbon wasn't helping. Neither was the pacing. Or the way my eyes kept drifting to that coffee stain, remembering how for just a second, I'd forgotten all my careful plans. Forgotten everything except how it felt to be that close to him again, to breathe in that familiar mix of coffee and whatever random drugstore shampoo he still used, to see those blue-gray eyes up close and find no trace of recognition in them.

No trace of hurt either. No betrayal. No hint of that last day at Rosewood Academy, when I'd walked away from everything thatmattered because I thought I was protecting him. At least that Jimmy had known me.

This Jimmy? This Jimmy just smiled politely and apologized for a collision that was entirely my fault.

My phone mocked me with its dark screen. I'd drafted and deleted six text messages before finally sending that formal, corporate sponsorship offer. As if money could fix this. As if anything could fix this.

Sleep was a lost cause. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him.

Early morning, I found myself deep in medical journals, reading about retrograde amnesia until the words blurred together. Terms like “traumatic memory loss” and “recovery rates” and “cognitive rehabilitation” swam across my screen. I drafted emails to every neurologist in Cole's medical research division, deleted them all, drafted them again.

My laptop chimed again:

“It's 3:17 AM and your login shows you're researching amnesia. Go to sleep. - Mia”

I ignored it, just like I ignored the next three messages:

Mia

Seriously, boss. Sleep.

Watching you read medical journals remotely is sad.

You can't fix this with science or money. Also, I'm billing you overtime for this.

She was right. I knew she was right. But knowing something and accepting it were very different things. I'd built an empire on the principle that every problem had a solution if you just worked hard enough, thought smart enough, controlled enough variables.

But there was no algorithm for this. No business strategy for handling the fact that the person you'd spent eight years trying to protect didn't even remember you existed. No spreadsheet could quantify the way my chest ached every time I remembered his polite, distant smile.

Dawn painted the town in watercolors, turning even the most mundane scenes into something worthy of a small-town tourism brochure. Early workers trudged toward Sarah's Diner, their breath visible in the morning chill. A life so far removed from board rooms and billion-dollar deals that it might as well have been another planet.

Eight years ago, I'd convinced myself that leaving was the only way to protect Jimmy. From my father's interference, from my world's expectations, from everything that came with the Cole name. Now here I was, watching strangers get their morning coffee while the man I'd left didn't even remember he needed protecting.

If there was a god of irony, they were probably laughing their ass off right now.

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