Page 17 of Royally Romanov
The scattered papers and numerous piles of file folders made it look as if he’d been away a matter of minutes rather than days. A Montblanc fountain pen sat just in front of him, uncapped. He half expected to look up and see himself strolling in the door, back from a coffee break.
Someone did stroll into the office, but it wasn’t Maxim. It was a man dressed in a finely tailored suit and bow tie. Monsieur Joubert, Maxim presumed.
“Maxim.” He smiled and came around the side of the desk, stopping just short of Maxim’s chair. “You’ve no idea how good it is to see you. I’m relieved to hear that the rumors of your demise were exaggerated.”
“Merci.” Maxim got the distinct feeling he should stand and hug this stranger. Or at the very least, shake his hand. Apparently, they were friends in addition to being coworkers.
But something stopped him. If this person was such a friend, where had he been while Maxim was lying in his hospital bed?
The man shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. His gaze flitted to the papers on the desk and then back at Maxim. His smile broadened. “I wish I’d known you were coming. I would have had Joy straighten up your office.”
“Joy?” Maxim’s life was rapidly becoming filled with a cast of characters he couldn’t keep straight.
The other man’s gaze narrowed. “Your assistant. Surely you remember Joy? She’s relatively new, but she’s been with us at least a year now. A year and a half, maybe?”
Maxim shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t. I’m afraid my demise is worse than it looks.”
“How so?”
Maxim swallowed. The metal taste in his mouth had gotten so bad that he could feel himself grimacing. “I’m recovering from a concussion. Memory loss is one of the side effects.”
“I see. What else have you forgotten?”
Maxim’s gaze shifted to the unfamiliar desk, its unfamiliar papers and the unfamiliar uncapped pen. “Everything, pretty much.”
“Including me.”
It had been a statement rather than a question. Still, Maxim nodded. “Yes, including you.”
“I suspected as much.” He extended a hand. “I’m Gregory Joubert, VP of finance.”
Maxim stood, finally, and gave his hand a shake. “My boss, then?”
“Yes, but also a friend.” Gregory pointed to a framed photo on a bookshelf behind Maxim. The picture showed the two men on a tennis court with a large silver trophy between them.
So Maxim was a banker and a country-club tennis star, in addition to being an obsessive amateur genealogist. He was beginning to think he’d woken up in an alternate universe.
“Apologies.” Maxim still wondered why he hadn’t heard from his doubles partner while he’d been fighting for his life. But maybe Gregory had been there—he had been pretty out of it for the majority of his stay. Tsar Nicholas II himself could have turned up and he’d have never known.
“The doctors assure me the memory loss is only temporary,” he added, although his hope was growing dimmer by the day. His most vivid memory was still the vision he’d had of Finley Abbot. He kept having to remind himself that he’d never actually known her. She was more a stranger to him than the man standing in front of him.
Still, he couldn’t help glancing around the office in search of more pictures. He half expected to find a photograph of Finley that matched the image in his head.
He didn’t.
“Temporary?” Gregory blinked. “So you’ll eventually remember everything, then?”
Maxim redirected his attention to his boss. “Not quite all of it. Most head injury patients never regain the memories surrounding the time of the accident.”
Gregory lifted a brow. “Maybe that’s a good thing. Do you really want to remember being beaten in the street?”
He didn’t want to remember. He needed to. “If I don’t remember, I’ll never know what happened, will I?”
“Point taken. Do the police have any leads? A detective came to the office a few days ago to ask some questions, but he didn’t seem to have much to go on.”
Detective Durand had been to his office. Why wasn’t Maxim surprised? “None so far.”
“I was there, you know. At the hospital. I went as soon I heard, but they weren’t letting you have visitors. They said you were in a coma.” Gregory shook his head. “It’s just so good to see you.”
