Page 19 of Desire Me
“He did.” Remi’s voice was rough with irritation.
King crossed to stand beside Saint. His friend was breathing heavy still, a thin sheen of sweat along his brow. The target had given them a good run, it seemed. But why? What the hell was going on?
Rae shifted on the bed, breaking the tension in the room. Leah turned back to her patient—friend? What were they to each other?—her fingers reaching for the controls. They stayed silent as the bed adjusted to allow Rae to sit up once more.
Saint’s patience finally broke. “Who’s going to tell us what the hell is happening here?”
Remi Agozi’s frown would have had a less determined man pissing his pants. “How about you two tell us what the hell you’re doing here?”
Saint couldn’t stop himself from glancing at Rae, every cell in his body expecting her to acknowledge him, acknowledge what they were to each other. Instead she stared nervously at her lap, fingers plucking at the thin sheet that barely protected her. “Rae?”
How many times was he going to say her name as a question? And how many times was she going to ignore him?
Agozi and his significant other shared a glance, then turned as one to stare back at him. A united front of silence. Frustration surged hard in his gut, and he opened his mouth—to say what, he wasn’t sure.
King cleared his throat just in time. “Maybe we could take this out into the hallway.”
Remi nodded, but as everyone except Saint turned toward the door, it was Rae who protested.
“No.”
Steps slowed and eyes sought her out.
She flushed, the color making her seem far healthier than she had since he’d walked into the room. “No,” she said again, this time stronger. “This is about me, right?” She stared hard at Leah as if the woman was her lifeline. “You’re not going to discuss me withoutmebeing involved.”
Leah hesitated, then nodded. As she returned to the bedside and retrieved a glass of water from the tray to hand to Rae, King leaned in close to Saint. “She okay?”
Was she? Truth was, he had no idea. Shock and injury didn’t go well together on the best of days, and this obviously wasn’t Rae’s best day. “I don’t know.”
Rae stopped drinking, set her glass aside, then brought her hands to her face and rubbed hard at her eyes. A heavy sigh escaped her, but her voice was threaded with steel when she said, “What happened, Remi?”
The chiseled edge to the man’s jaw softened as he took in Rae’s obvious fatigue. “We chased the target into the stairway, but he managed to lose us in the basement halls before escaping.”
“It’s a warren down there,” Leah murmured absently. Saint had been down there before, and she was right. The morgue was situated at the back of the hospital on the underground floor, but the rest of the area was a maze of maintenance, housekeeping, and other practical facilities, not to mention corridors of ductwork and pipes feeding the massive building above it. The perfect place for a perp to hide. Their target was smart in that regard.
Rae dropped her hands into her lap. “So we’re no closer to finding out who he is.”
Something that looked like regret flickered across Remi’s expression. “No.”
“We’ll figure it out, I promise. We won’t leave you unprotected,” Leah assured her.
“We know he has to be tied to the hit-and-run,” Remi said. “We’re not giving up.”
The words sent a jolt of shock through Saint. “The target was responsible for Rae’s accident?” He’d known the guy was a threat—Remi’s attack and Leah’s protective stance had told him that much—but somehow his overworked and under-rested mind hadn’t made the connection with the car that had caused Rae’s injuries. Some part of him had assumed the hit-and-run was an accident. Why would anyone want to run Rae down on purpose?
Now it was his turn to rub his eyes. King gripped his shoulder, squeezed down hard, steadying him as his mind raced at the implications.
Saint felt more than saw Remi’s attention zero in on him from across the room. “What exactly do you two have to do with this? Why are you here?” His voice took on a rough growl. “And who the hell is Rae?”
Saint threw a cautious glance in Rae’s direction, assessing her steadiness before he answered that question for the second time tonight. “Why do you keep asking me that?Sheis Rae.”
King’s grip slid from his shoulder as his friend straightened away from the wall. “They keep asking because Rae can’t remember,” he said quietly. Saint jerked around to face him, alarm bells sounding in his head. “She has amnesia, Saint. She doesn’t know her name.”
“What?” He understood the words, but somehow their meaning got lost between his ears and his brain. Or maybe that was his chest, because his heart was thundering so loud he couldn’t think straight. “She…she…” His head swiveled on his shoulders without his conscious command, staring now at Rae huddled in that hospital bed. “What?”
Rae’s gaze dropped to her lap, tracked to Leah and Remi, back to her lap. He was making her uncomfortable, he knew, but he couldn’t turn off the laser focus after days of searching so hard for this woman, of building up their reunion in his mind and imagining exactly what she would do and say when he saw her again. But everything he’d imagined was wrong. They’d been wrong from the start, from the moment he and King had entered the corridor outside. Still, he’d never imagined that she not only wouldn’t want him here, but that she wouldn’t remember him. Rememberthem, together.
A strangled groan left him.
