Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 104185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Our wedding? His return? Or both?
I dressed in a pair of black leggings and a black tank top and made my way to the dance studio where the box of ballet shoes had remained. I still couldn’t bring myself to try them out. Instead, I pushed PLAY on the sound system, and classical music filled the space.
I’d been foolish enough to think there was a chance that if I came down here all my memories of dance would come pouring back. But my head stayed as empty as the room.
I pulled the pointe shoes out of the box and found a small canister beneath. It was some sort of blister relief balm, and when I unscrewed the cap, a strong medicine scent invaded my nose.
That smell.
I knew it better than anything. Without thought, I slipped my foot into a shoe, crossed the ribbons, and wound them around an ankle, tucking the knot to the inside. I did the other, moving with confidence. I remember this.
The next two hours in the studio were a blur. Ryan had asked me not to push myself too hard, but it was impossible not to. I was a sweaty, exhilarated mess when the phone he’d left me rang.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I’m horribly out of shape, that’s what’s wrong,” I muttered. In the background, someone spoke German, and he responded in kind. “Where are you?”
“Berlin. We just landed.” He’d given me so few details about his business or this trip, it felt like he was being secretive on purpose.
“How many languages do you speak?”
“I don’t know, five? That’s counting French, which I try not to use because I sound awful.” I pictured him on the other end of the call wearing a displeased look at how out of breath I’d become. “You’re not overdoing it, are you?”
“Nope,” I lied.
“I’m calling because Dr. Vorbusch asked to move today’s appointment to one.”
I glanced at the phone’s screen and annoyance heated inside me. “That’s in thirty minutes.”
“Sorry, darling.” Since he was a thousand miles away, I let my disdain play out across my face. This term of endearment felt off. Wrong. Like it had been forced and not earned.
My hair was wet from my shower when Plavko ushered the doctor into the library and vanished right after. I wondered what he did all day without his boss around—but then Dr. Vorbusch asked me about my progress, and I was more focused on that than my bodyguard.
She was angry when I told her about the balcony and what I believed I had been doing on the wrong side of the railing days earlier.
“I want my memories back,” I said, trying to defend myself.
“And in that process, you lost them all. Do you understand you caused your setback?”
Shit, she was right. My gaze dropped to my lap in shame.
“If you continue to push,” her tone was uncharacteristically harsh and cold, “it will happen again, and all of this work I’ve done will have been wasted.”
All the work she’d done?
I frowned. “I need to know who I am.”
Blackness closed around me. My stomach pitched and rolled, and every inch of my body was cold.
A sound cracked in the darkness. What was that? A gunshot?
I fell out of my pirouette, my gaze scanning the audience in front of me as a woman screamed. The memory rushed along like it was playing at double-speed. I was on the floor, a dying man’s eyes locked onto mine and his blood staining my costume.
I came out of the memory as abruptly as I’d plunged into it, and the sensation had me doubled-over on the couch, the book-lined shelves of the library all around me.
“That is just the beginning,” Dr. Vorbusch snarled. “Do you want to go to the parking garage next?”
“No,” I gasped. I was still trying to recover from seeing the man’s lifeless body, the pained expression fixed on his face. I couldn’t handle anything else right now.
What had she done to me?
She said it with absolute command. “Mr. Juric and I both want you to leave it alone.”
“Who?” I asked, instantly wishing I could take it back. I stood too quickly from my seat and my vision faded, my legs woozy. “I think you should leave.”
When I blinked, the doctor was no longer in her chair. She stood in the doorway, and I lay across the couch, my head heavy and aching. The shadows cast by the window were long, signifying it was late afternoon.
“What the hell just happened?” I demanded.
She simply smiled.
My blood ran cold and my heart raced with panic, and I reached for the only safety I had. “Plavko!”
“There’s no need for that,” Dr. Vorbusch said.
He appeared out of thin air, as if he’d been just outside the door the whole time.
“Get her out of here,” I ordered. “I don’t want to see her again.”