Rachel Bailey: MILLION-DOLLAR AMNESIA SCANDAL

“The hospital’s allowing us to leave by a little used staff entrance, so we can bypass the media pack out the front.” He took the bag from her fingers as a stocky man in a hospital uniform appeared with a wheelchair.

Determined to at least have enough independence to leave the hospital under her own steam, she shook her head. “I’m more than capable of walking to a car.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” the hospital worker said. “Hospital policy.”

Seth stepped forward and laid a hand on the wheelchair’s handle. “I’ll take her.” The other man nodded at Seth and left the room.

Seth politely indicated her seat with a wave of his hand, as if the contraption was a reasonable mode of transport. “Shall we?”

April bit down on her lip. Having medical staff push her in a wheelchair was one thing; but having this man-a man who overwhelmed her, yet only wanted an asset back-do the same, was frustrating. Closing her eyes, she took a breath and let it go. No matter how she wished she had her memories and could resume her life, this was the position she was in for the moment, and fighting it wouldn’t help. She opened her eyes and sat in the chair.

When they reached the hidden entrance, he told her to wait while he went for his car, then appeared again minutes later in a sleek, midnight-blue sedan. He held the door open, waiting while she buckled herself in, before closing it and rounding the car.

Seth slid into the driver’s seat and, as he smoothly joined the stream of cars, a dark suburban pulled out behind them. The move had been far from covert so it wasn’t alarming, but she watched its progress in her side mirror. Did Seth have bodyguards? Did she?

“Who’s that following us?” she asked.

“Your security detail. They’ve agreed to work with hotel security while you’re in Queensport. You won’t even notice them.” He reached behind into the back. “This is for you,” he said, passing her a folder.

Drawing her eyes from the side mirror, she opened the folder and scanned the first page: Background Report: April Fairchild.

“What’s this?”

“I had my staff put it together. To jog your memory,” he said, his face inscrutable.

His attention remained on the road and traffic, which gave her an unobserved moment to stare at the folder on her lap. She’d been wanting to know more, desperate even, but now that she had information literally at her fingertips, her shoulders tensed and she had to force herself to open it, to ignore the fear of what she’d find.

She turned past the title page and her lips parted in surprise. Page Two had a biography with a photo that was undeniably of her, but nothing like the reflection she’d been seeing in the hospital mirror. This version of her had professionally styled hair, long and sleek. The colors were the same mix of autumn browns and golds, but it sat perfectly. She ran a finger over the picture on the page. There had obviously been a makeup artist as well-though it was subtle, she looked more beautiful. Her good features highlighted, her faults minimized.

Jazz singer April Fairchild burst onto the scene as a thirteen-year-old, and her fan base has only grown stronger and larger over the past fifteen years. The daughter of a small-time jazz singer, the late George Fairchild…

Her father was dead? Yes, she could feel the deep, stark hollowness in her chest that his passing had left. They’d been close-even without remembering him, she knew that. And for some reason she hadn’t asked her mother about him since she’d awoken, as if part of her had known.

…she began her career performing duets with her father, April playing the piano and George on the guitar. Her ability to attract crossover fans has been the key to her phenomenal success…

April flicked to the next page, looking for something, anything, she felt a connection with-that felt real. Photos of her at an awards night, dressed in a sparkling gown, on the arm of a man in a tuxedo she didn’t recognize.

More pages, more facts about her career, more photos of her. For twenty minutes she read, absorbed in what felt like the life of another woman. But it had all happened to her. Besides her reaction to her father’s death, nothing else had sparked any kind of memory or emotional acknowledgment. When she’d finished the last page, feeling a little wrung out, she closed the folder and let it lie on her lap.

Seth’s eyes flicked over at the movement, and then returned to the road. “Finished?” he asked, voice deep and smooth.

“Thank you, I appreciate this information.” She knew he was doing it for his own ends, but that didn’t detract from its value to her.

“Any of it familiar?”

She hesitated, debating how much to share about something so personal. But if he was to help her regain her memory, she needed to be honest. She stroked her fingertips across the folder’s cover. “My father. I felt something when I read that he’d died.”

He didn’t react even by a flicker of an eyelash. “You remember him?”

“Nothing that strong. No.” How to explain the powerful yet hazy sensation she’d felt? “I just knew it was true that he’s dead.”

“That was the only familiar part?” There was a cynical twist to his mouth.

“You still don’t believe I can’t remember?”

Seth shrugged his broad shoulders, his eyes on the road ahead. “I’ve made my way in the world by never accepting things at face value.”

She took in the too-casual way he’d shrugged, the tense set of his jaw, and something underscoring his words that was just out of her reach. There was more to that statement.

She held the seat belt in one hand and twisted to face him. “People have judged you in the past by something false?”

“You could say that.” Again, the tension in his body belied his offhanded tone.

“If I were to get my staff to make a dossier like this-” she lifted the report he’d given her “-on you, what would I find?”

“The usual mix of media lies and half stories,” he said, seemingly unconcerned by the prospect.

“But if they dug?”

His mouth curved into a sardonic half smile. “I’m sure they’ll find the story of my parents. It’s something of an open secret.”

Despite the heavy subject matter, a sliver of something close to contentment stole through her body. This was the first real conversation she’d had since waking. Besides Seth’s first visit to the hospital, each time she’d spoken to someone, it’d been about her physical condition. A discussion felt surprisingly good.

She settled back into her seat and watched him drive. “Since my history is already on the table, why don’t you save me the effort of having a dossier made and tell me?”

“With or without the lies and half stories?” he asked with one eyebrow raised.

She bit down on her lip. There was an old, harsh pain he was masking, and it called to a place deep inside her. “Whichever you prefer,” she said softly.

A long minute of silence sat between them and she thought he wouldn’t answer. But she waited anyway. Then he spoke.

“My brother, Jesse-” he paused and swallowed “-and I are the sons of Warner Bramson. Assuming you don’t know who he was, Warner Bramson was a billionaire and a business genius.”

She cocked her head to the side. It was a strange way to refer to his father, saying they were the “sons of Warner Bramson.”

“Didn’t you know him?”

“I knew him very well,” he said, voice even. “He spent a lot of time with us.”

April tapped a finger against the seat belt she held as she watched him. Perhaps she’d be this interested in anyone’s past, now that she’d forgotten her own, but she suspected it was some indefinable quality about Seth Kentrell that was drawing her in.