Page 145 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

Casting his brooding glance over the tranquil scene, he decided that doing the right thing had never felt more wrong. Actually, who was to say itwaseven theright thing?

Even as the defiant thought was flickering through his head, he recognised the absurdity of ignoring a bunch of red flags.

In what world, he asked himself,would sleeping with your best friend, who turns out to be a virgin and who is also suffering from amnesia, be considered right?

Clemmie allowed the jets of water to wash the suds from her hair as she continued to work at the ring. No matter what she did, it remained jammed on her knuckle. Tears of frustration streaming down her face, she stepped backwards, hitting the tiled wall. With her right hand holding up her left, she glared at the ring, her thoughts drifting back to that moment in the library when the gaps in her memory had been filled in.

There had been no gentle transition from ignorance to knowledge. It had just hit her with a force real enough that even now she struggled to catch her breath.

Panic attack, diagnosed the voice in her head as her chest tightened.

She had imagined this moment—imagined relief, imagined the truth setting her free.

The opposite was true. This new knowledge made her feel helpless.

The low buzz in her head got louder.

Her legs were shaking.

She was shaking all over.

A whirl of black dots danced in front of her eyes as she stumbled out of the shower, her heart pounding so hard she thought it would burst out of her chest.

And then it was all a blur.

She didn’t remember pulling on the silky wrap, but felt it flapping against her wet legs as she raced down the stairs.

The kitchen bore signs of recent occupation, but no one was there. Then, through the arch at the end of the room, she saw movement in the orangery.

‘Joaquin!’

He swung back from his grim contemplation of the garden.

Clemmie was standing in the stone archway, barefoot, clad in a thin blue robe that ended just above her knees. Her hair was darkened with water that dripped over her face and left dark patches on the silky fabric of the robe.

‘I’ve remembered. It’s all come back.’

The confession came out in a rush.

She lifted a hand to her head, her brow puckering when it came away wet.

‘I was in the shower...’

The getting out of it was not too clear.

‘I was trying to get the ring off... Sorry I—’ She broke off as she suddenly found it impossible to explain her panic and the impetuous rush to share, which already seemed stupid. ‘I don’t know why I came to tell you...you already know.’

He did know—but not everything. He didn’t know the truth that had been too painful for her to remember.

Her eyes went to the ring on her finger—the ring that she had imagined on another woman’s finger. And that had made her realise that she didn’t just love Joaquin as a friend.

The searing truth that had hit her just before the collision was that she loved him, and that the idea of him marrying another woman made her want to curl up in a ball and hide away in a corner—which she supposed her brain had achieved its own version of when it had blanked her memory.

‘I kept trying to get it off.’

She tugged at it, to illustrate how hard she had tried, and at the first touch the ring slid off her finger and bounced across the stone floor. Eyes wide, she watched it before it vanished down a steel grating.

‘Oh, my God. I’m so sorry!’ she yelped, running over to the grate and falling on her knees. ‘I’ll find it. I promise. Do you have a screwdriver or a...a crowbar?’

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