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“My guess is that they took your memories. You seem to not remember anything at all,” the man explained.

My head pounded again. “I don’t understand. How can someone take memories away from another?”

“They must have been a witch.”

“A witch?”

The moment that word left my lips, momentary flashes of what I assumed was my life passed through my mind. I saw myself lifting my hands to levitate fallen leaves that surrounded me as I stood in the middle of a grove of trees.

I felt this man’s hand on my arm, and his icy touch pulled me from my vision.

His eyes went wide. “You really don’t know who you are?” the handsome man asked.

I looked back at him, trying hard to remember more of what I had just seen in that vision, but I still didn’t know whohewas. “Who areyou?”

He hesitantly grabbed my hand and squeezed. “I’m your boyfriend, Mercy,” he said. “You’re the love of my life.”

Boyfriend?

“I’m … I’m so sorry I don’t remember you,” I said. “What’s your name?”

A small smile reached his beautiful eyes. “My name is Maurice.”

CHAPTER 29

I BLINKED RAPIDLY.Maurice. The name did sound familiar.

I searched my thoughts and tried to remember him—to rememberanything. I knew what a boyfriend was, and the concept of a relationship, but people, feelings, and memories weren’t there. I had a vague flash of being in a home with my mom, who might have had brown hair. Or was her hair ashy-blonde?

Shit.

I cast my eyes around the room. “What is this place?”

Maurice smiled. “It’s our home,” he told me. “Look around more. Does anything here look familiar?”

The home didn’t trigger any memories, but when I looked back at him, I saw a flash of the two of us holding each other on the beach at night, looking out to the rippling waves of the ocean. His eyes alone sparked a familiarity.

“Wait, I remember something,” I beamed. “We were on a beach together at night. I felt your arms around me and your breath on my neck.”

His eyes lit up. “This is good. This means you’re strong enough to fight whatever they did to you. Come here.” Maurice grabbed my hand to pull me up, but my body tensed the moment he touched my skin. The awareness of how cold his hands were, made me feel uneasy. I wasn’t sure if it was the coolness that made my body freeze or the fact that this was new and scary to me.

“Mercy, you need to relax. I would never hurt you.” He leaned into my space and planted his lips on mine. I froze again, but I let the stranger kiss me for some reason. At least, the man who seemed like a stranger.

Fuck, he was so attractive that I was slightly annoyed that I had no real memories of him. The kiss, though, the kiss sparked a heated arousal in the pit of my stomach, slinking down between my legs.

As Maurice pulled back, more memories invaded my mind of the two of us meeting through a familiar face at a bar. I saw us laughing and holding each other close. Every moment I felt safe with and loved by him.

Maurice’s touch was soft and gentle. It felt nice. A little cold but nice. He smiled and squeezed my hand. “I’ll go get you some water, okay?”

I answered with a timid smile, but as soon as he left me, I scanned the room again to see if anything in the home would trigger a memory. I eyed the bookshelf in the back corner and looked at the picture frames lining the shelf. He and I were in them, looking happy together. At least, it appeared that way. Seeing myself in photographic memories that I couldn’t remember was so bizarre.

“That was our trip to Italy last summer,” Maurice explained. His voice echoed behind me, and he joined me at the bookshelf. He handed me the glass of water before saying, “I was born not too far from this shoreline, and you had just met my family for the first time.” He watched me out of the corner of his eye. “You’d never been outside the country but always dreamed of visiting Rome.”

Maurice placed his hand on my left hip, dragging me toward him. “We can visit again, just you and me.” He tightened his grip, leaning toward my cheek and kissing it softly, gliding his lips along my skin. Goosebumps covered my body, and as electric as it felt, I pulled away.

“I’m sorry, I just …”

“No, shit. I’m the one who should be sorry. You have no memory of me, and I keep putting my hands on you. You’re probably so freaked out right now. Everything we do from here on out, we’ll take it slowly. I’m sure the memories will soon return.”

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