Thin Lines (Donati Bloodlines Book 2) (25 page)

Calisto couldn’t have just … forgotten two and a half
years.

That wasn’t possible!

“How so?” Affonso asked.

“Was there something that happened two years ago to
Calisto that would make his brain want to essentially … erase the event?” the
doctor asked, posing the question quietly. “This event would have needed to be
extremely traumatic for him in an emotional way. Something that might have
changed his very person—who he believed he was, even. It might have affected
his entire outlook, his ideals might have taken a different direction, or
something of that nature. It would have literally been life-altering.”

Affonso cleared his throat. “There were a couple of
things.”

“Like what?”

“His mother dying, for one. He was very close to her.”

“According to him, his mother is alive,” the doctor
said.

Affonso swore under his breath. “And I’ll be left to
explain to him that she’s dead.”

“It would be best if it was someone he cares for, yes.”

“He … said he cared for me,” Affonso said slowly, not
even posing it as a question.

“He’s been asking for you since he woke up,” the
doctor replied.

Jesus.

That was not the Calisto that Emma knew. He would not
ask for Affonso. His love for the man had been tainted when he found out the
truth about his mother and Affonso’s past.

“Huh,” Affonso murmured.

“You seem surprised.”

“It’s been a rough couple of years, that’s all.”

“Ah,” the doctor hummed. “I see. Anyway, no this isn’t
that uncommon. His brain has done what it’s supposed to do, and essentially
protected itself from something that hurt it greatly.”

“And his memories, the lost years, what of them?”
Affonso asked.

“It could filter back to him over time.”

“How long might that take?”

“Some people take days to regain things, others weeks,
more months, and some take years,” the doctor explained calmly. “It’s hard to
say. Certain things might trigger his memories, and give him flashbacks that
could fill in some blanks. The swelling on his brain has gone down in the last
two days, and that in itself should have brought maybe a few things back. It
usually does, for the majority of amnesia patients.”

“But not him,” Affonso said.

“Not him.”

Emma couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

She refused to.

Her stomach rolled, and her heart splintered as the
emotions overwhelmed her. If Calisto had lost two years of his life, he
wouldn’t even know her.

He wouldn’t remember what happened to his mom.

He wouldn’t know the things Affonso had done.

And her … he wouldn’t remember their stolen moments,
his sweet words and the things he had done for her when her life had been
falling apart. He wouldn’t even be able to recall the fact that they had been
sleeping together for months.

How could she explain to a man who didn’t know her
that she was pregnant with his child, and married to a man he was now back to
adoring like a king?

Oh, God.

Calisto wouldn’t love her—Emma needed him to love her.

Emma didn’t believed it.

No way.

She spun on her heel and pushed open the door with the
curtains drawn. It was Calisto’s room. She had to see it for herself, without
Affonso’s presence watching her every move.

Calisto sat shirtless on the side of the bed, flipping
the poker chip between his fingers while he held the rosary in his other hand.
He didn’t seem to notice Emma enter his room.

For a moment, with the way he stared at the items he
was holding, Emma thought he might remember.

He might know.

Calisto turned to her, his face less swollen and
bruised than it was just days ago when she had visited. His brow crumpled as he
took her in, but he still smiled.

In his confusion, he still managed to give her one of
his sexy smiles.

“Hi,” Calisto said.

Emma’s mouth was dry. “Hey.”

He tipped his head to the side, like he was taking her
in for the first time.

Like he didn’t know her.

Emma knew it then.

She knew his next words.

She could see it in his soul-black eyes.

This was not the man who loved her.

This was not the man she had met, learned, and fell in
love with.

This was the man who came before her.

A man who loved a liar, and didn’t know it yet.

Emma’s soul fell apart as Calisto spoke again, still
staring at her like it was the first time he’d ever seen her. It felt like
someone had shoved their hands inside her body, and just ripped what was left
of her heart away.

Three words.

That was all it took.

“Who are you?”

Emma

“What are you doing, Emma?” Affonso growled.

Emma turned around quickly, staring her husband right
in the face. Affonso’s anger clouded his features as he looked around the
hospital room.

“I … I …”

She couldn’t find the right words to say.

“
Zio
,” Calisto said.

Emma nearly flinched at the affection in Calisto’s
tone.

Affonso moved past Emma, smiling widely. “Calisto, my
boy.”

Calisto stood from the bed, balancing on his one good
leg. Awkwardly, he one-arm hugged his uncle, and then sat back down on the bed.

“Where have you been?” Calisto asked.

“I was on vacation,” Affonso explained, chuckling.

Calisto nodded in Emma’s direction with a grin. “I
think she wandered into the wrong room,
zio
. I don’t mind, look at her.”

Affonso’s smile faded away as he looked back at Emma.
“She didn’t wander into the wrong room, actually.”

The confusion on Calisto’s handsome, bruised features
was heartbreaking. He didn’t understand, and he was struggling to figure it all
out.

“I don’t …” he started to say, trailing off quietly.

Affonso lifted his left hand, showcasing a wedding
band that matched Emma’s feminine version. “She’s my wife, Cal.”

Calisto’s brow furrowed, and he stayed quiet.

Emma stood against the door and watched as Calisto’s
world changed once again. Everything he thought he knew after waking up from
his coma was different from what it actually was. She stayed silent as Affonso
explained the two years of Calisto’s life that he had lost, and the things that
had changed in that time.

Affonso left a lot out.

Like the things Calisto’s learned about Affonso’s
attack on Camilla.

Calisto’s paternity.

His anger.

His resentment.

The pain he’d been in for two years.

Affonso said nothing of that, he didn’t even broach
it. Calisto’s pain was still clear to see as he learned all over again that his
mother had died, and she was buried in a grave at their family’s church.

Calisto asked about Emma, when the marriage had
happened, but little else. Affonso explained the arrangement between the
families, but he left out the lost pregnancies, and the friendship that had
been gained between Calisto and Emma over the past year.

Just like that, Calisto looked past Emma.

Suddenly, she wasn’t important to him.

She was no longer a woman he loved and knew.

She was now the wife of his uncle.

A man he adored.

Emma was entirely off-limits.

Maybe she should have been before, but he had given
her a chance, and that little bit of care had gone a hell of a long way.

But what could she say?

Calisto kept holding onto that poker chip, and the
rosary. He rubbed the beads between his fingertips, and flicked the chip in his
other hand.

Emma grabbed onto that.

Did the items feel important to him?

Somewhere inside, did he know?

It was hope for her.

But for the child in her body growing, she could have
let Calisto go. They could have started over with no one any wiser, especially
him. It could be the one chance for them both to survive their crazy, wrong
love.

Their secrets would be safe.

All the lies they created together and the thin lines
they walked would be unknown.

But she couldn’t do that.

So yeah, Emma watched him hold onto that chip and the
rosary …

And God, she
hoped
.

Three months later …

Emma’s worry compounded hard in her chest as she
called again for Midnight, and he didn’t come. She had just gotten home from an
update appointment with her doctor.

She hadn’t needed to go to a lot of them since April.

In no time at all, Spring had melted into a warm Summer.

Emma watched the rain patter away until the sun was
high and the days were long. As with the seasons changing, and the months
passing her by, other things changed, too.

Calisto spent a month in the hospital. He did rehab
and therapy. The rehab helped with his shattered shoulder and broken femur,
while the therapy was supposed to help with his lost memories.

It didn’t.

He still looked at her like she was new to him.

He talked to her like she was just the wife of his
uncle.

Affonso had Calisto moved into the Donati home the
moment he was released from the hospital. Calisto was put into a room on the
bottom floor, and was given a nurse who helped him daily.

Mostly, to her dismay, Calisto passed Emma by.

“Midnight!” Emma called.

Where had her little pup gone?

Three months hadn’t done much for Midnight’s small
size. The black pup was still small enough to fit into one of her bags, and he
could get lost in just about anything.

Emma couldn’t always take him with her, though.

The hospital wouldn’t allow him in, and as it was, she
needed to sneak around Affonso to meet her appointments.

Today had been an important one.

She finally passed the twelve week mark.

Her first trimester was over.

The baby survived, the heart was beating, and the
child was thriving.

The amniocentesis results had come back today as well.
Emma now knew that the baby had no genetic disorders, and the gender was clear.

A boy.

She was having Calisto’s son.

But who could she tell?

“God, Midnight, where are you?” Emma asked herself,
dropping her bag to the floor.

She searched the bottom level of the house, but the
pup wasn’t in his kennel where she had left him. Sometimes, Affonso would let
the puppy out to roam if he whined too much. But then her husband would bitch
if the dog accidentally made a mess on the floor because no one let Midnight
outside when he cried at the door.

Finally, Emma found her pup.

And Calisto.

Biting her lip, she leaned in the library entryway as
Calisto played a simple tune on the piano with his one hand. He was sitting in
his wheelchair, a device he proclaimed to hate on a daily basis. Unfortunately,
he was required to use it during the daytime to prevent further injury to his
femur. The doctors had apparently promised to let him begin using crutches in a
week or two if X-rays came back looking well.

Little Midnight rested on the top of the baby grand.
Curled into a tiny, furry ball, the pup slept as Calisto played a song that
Emma didn’t recognize. When he came to the end of the piece, Midnight’s ears flicked
as if he were praising the song in his sleep.

Emma couldn’t help but laugh.

Calisto quickly spun his wheelchair around to face
her.

She sobered at the cold look on his face.

“I’m sorry for interrupting,” she said quietly.

Calisto cocked a brow. “It’s not that—I don’t like to
be spied on is all.”

“Sorry.”

He seemed to take note of the confusion and hurt on
Emma’s features, and his own lips curved into a frown.

“Did I play for you before?” he asked.

Emma thought about that.

She thought about her head in his lap, and his fingers
in her hair. She thought about her back on the piano, and her hands hitting the
keys as he loved her in the best way. She remembered his private pain when he
played, but how he loved it all the same.

Those weren’t the things she could say.

Calisto wasn’t that man right now.

“You did,” she settled on saying.

Calisto nodded. “Your dog was whining in his kennel
when you were out. Affonso wasn’t happy about that, so I went and got him out.”

“Thanks, Cal.”

“Don’t mention it.” Calisto turned his chair around,
and grabbed Midnight off the piano. Emma walked over and took him from his
embrace. She hugged the dog to her chest, because he was just a little piece of
her time with Calisto, and she always held him close. “Affonso said I gave you
the dog.”

“It’s okay that you don’t remember,” she said quietly.

But it wasn’t.

Calisto scowled down at his hands. “I feel like I
should, though.”

Emma had to hold back the tears. “Maybe you will
again.”

“Hopefully. I don’t like this—it’s almost like I’m
suspended in time, and the world is still spinning. It’s seen all kinds of
things that I haven’t.” He caught sight of Emma’s frown, and laughed. “Sorry,
I’m rambling.”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind hearing you talk.”

Calisto tipped his head to the side, smirking in that
familiar way of his. Despite their situation, his grin still made her stomach
clench with need.

“Is that so?” he asked quietly.

More than he knew.

This was the first real, decent conversation they had
together since that night in the bathroom three months ago.

“Yeah,” Emma said, smiling. “I don’t mind.”

Calisto chuckled. “Maybe we’ll have to do it more
often then.”

“Maybe we will, Cal.”

Emma pulled out another drawer in her vanity only to
find her prenatal vitamins weren’t in there, either. She had been searching for
them for an hour.

She always left them in the top drawer.

Hidden safely away.

Before she went to bed, she would break one into two
and pop it back with a glass of water. It was a part of her nightly ritual.

Where had they gone?

Panic swelled in her throat, making her choke.

Emma put a hand over her flat stomach, instinctively
wanting to protect the baby boy thriving within. Someone must have taken her
vitamins—someone would know she was pregnant.