8. Act of Chivalry

8

ACT OF CHIVALRY

SOPHIA

"You have to walk, unless you want me to get the aide to give you a sponge bath." The lack of animosity, of resentment in his tone tells me he doesn't want to strangle me to death. He sounds … tender, earnest even.

My worry evaporates when Mazen reaches behind my back, grasping the sides of my hospital gown and holding them in place. The gap of material closes in his fist at my spine.

"Let me help you. It's a little drafty, or I can get you some of the clothes Vanna got for you from the Target down the street." Silently, he bends to help me slide on a pair of slippers I've never seen before and then offers me his arm.

There's a boyish charm to his demeanor. It calls out to the still somewhat foggy recollection of him in my mind. Mazen is assessing me like he knows he's struck a chord in my memory. Still, I bite back the truth and take a step toward the private bathroom in my room.

"I want to shower first."

He nods.

"Then, I'll take the clothes."

"Yeah. Yeah. Sure. That works."

We walk a few feet until we reach the door to the secluded bathroom. I want to make a quip about his sudden act of chivalry. Deciding against it, I hold on to this strange peace that has settled between us. We've always been hot and cold. Our rapport with one another is as confusing as constructing an origami swan out of newspaper. This change between us feels tangible, like we've turned a new leaf.

Mazen's nearness is as disturbing as it is exciting. I want to ask him where my sister and everyone else went. I want to ask him if he knows about my injuries and how long I'll feel like complete garbage. To inquire what day it is and how long I was asleep for. I want to know why he's wearing a cape of calmness, not bombarding me with questions I know are lingering in his mind.

Mustering up the energy to ask any of it is too big of a task as I push my way into the bathroom. Instead, I take a page from his book, swallow down my troubling questions and let him plant me in front of the foggy mirror before he shuts the door behind him, offering a solitude he doesn't know I don't want.

The bathroom is already filled with steam, its warmth enveloping me. A snide retort about him being overly gentlemanly is on the tip of my tongue. I swallow it down, concealing all emotion, even my favored armor—humor. Preparing myself for a heavy dose of reality, I take a long, deep inhale and wipe away the fog on the mirror. Horror stares back at me.

Complete devastation starts at the soles of my feet and travels up each leg until it finally engulfs my entire body in its cocoon. My once-ivory-tinged skin tone is now a deep purple with flakes of yellow in several areas surrounding my left eye socket. The opposite cheek has a dusting of mauve alongside my jawline. My nose is covered in white bandages.

A sight to behold I am.

On a sharp intake of breath, I gaze at the woman in my reflection. I look as battered and broken as I feel on the inside. Long gone is the resilience I once wore like a cape. A cloak of courage. The woman whose eyes I connect with looks ghostly, hollow even. She's a shell of the spunky soul I was just days ago.

I was assaulted on the inside just as clearly as I was on the outside.

There are no words to describe how utterly shattered I am. It's not just because of my appearance. I'm not that flipping vain. It's … everything. The fight-or-flight stamina that rushed through my bloodstream is gone. I might have walked away from that basement, only to find myself in a new cage.

I feel completely defeated.

Trying to rein in my emotion, to keep it in check so that Mazen doesn't hear the wails that are fighting like hell to break free, steals the rest of my energy. It's a futile attempt because the next thing that happens in a slew of shitty things is that my legs give out. My body goes crashing to the cold tile floor in a thud that reverberates down to my core. The gown that he held shut is now puddled around me.

I'm left sitting on the ground, as confused and unclothed as when I entered this world.

Violent sobs break free from my lungs without prompt. Years of pent-up emotions spill out of me like a bucket overflowing in a rainstorm. My reflection is just the icing on the cake to everything that Julian Caddell stole from me. He took my heart, pulverized it, and placed it back into my gaping chest. Then patted me on the back like the good little payday that I am to him.

I yield to the compulsive sobs that leave hot lines running down my cheeks when the bathroom door creaks open. My mind and body, already on high alert, go rigid. My glistening pale face freezes when I go as still as a statue, immobilized by fear so irrational that I know I'll battle it alone for years to come.

"It's been a minute. Wanted to see that you're okay."

"No." My voice cracks. "Don't come in. I'm okay. Be out shortly." Lies. They're all I've ever fed him, apparently.

Reading through them, Mazen opens the door and steps inside. I wonder if he so easily cast aside my other lie as well. It's not lost on me that his eyes remain glued to the opposite wall, pinned just above my head.

"It's okay to not be okay."

That's all the permission I need for the dam to break once more. Tears cascade down my cheeks like a waterfall.

"What can I do?" His frame inches closer to my own.

Though I can tell by the pull in his shoulders that he's hesitant to embrace me. His stance is locked in place for a moment before he moves to kneel on the floor in front of me.

No words. Only sniffles are offered.

"I need you to tell me what to do. Rosella , please."

With the gap between us now closed, his large hands hold on to each of my exposed shoulders. His eyes lock on to mine. They don't waver once.

"I don't deserve your trust. I know I haven't earned it, but I can help. Let me help you even if you have no reason to grant me this. "

How many blows can one woman take?

The next words from his mouth cut me like a thousand shards of glass. "Sophia." My name is a plea on his parted lips. "Let me be what you need right now. Let me shoulder this burden. I won't fail you. You can trust me."

All the years of meaningless, faceless sex catches up to me as I allow my eyes to meet his—Mazen Wilde, the alleged father of my child, the man who just pledged to pull me from the wreckage I'm drowning in. He's looking at me like I'm both his saving grace and the detonator of a bomb.

Reckless.

Trusting him will be my undoing.

My naked body crashes into his embrace with so much force that it causes him to stumble off his kneecaps, his ass landing on the floor beneath him. The moment our bodies collide, he scoots backward to prevent us from tumbling over. Forcefully, his back presses into the wall. Mazen's hand hits the light switch in his haste to keep our bodies upright, and the room goes dark. Mazen welcomes me into his arms, shielding me with a strong hold. I hug him back like I'll die if I don't. My very existence will cease, like the memory of us when we first met did. He squeezes me back just as tightly, as if saying, I vow to go with you when the detonator is pulled.

There's beauty in being naked in front of someone in the dark. A certain level of trust forms. Water sprays hot in the shower still. I imagine it will turn cold before long.

Mazen's mouth finds the shell of my ear. "Trust that I won't let you go again," he whispers.

His plea packs a punch so forceful that my thoughts flounder between the past and present.

Tangled in sheets and his arms.

Flying down my apartment steps, unable to shield my stomach from each wooden ledge.

Raw agony as Roman's premature body was cut from mine, and he was rushed to the NICU.

The surgeon sewing me up, knowing that my uterus was lying in a metal basin somewhere next to him.

Knox's face, lined in hostility as he punched me in the face not once, but three times before he used my hair as a leash, dragging me down the basement steps toward his awaiting uncle.

"Breathe, Rosella."

I feel the warmth of his palm when he covers the area over my left breast in the most platonic embrace I've ever felt.

It's as if he's grounding me by both his touch and his words.

Mazen's voice is pained. "I need you to take a deep breath, or I'm going to pull that red wire and call for a nurse."

He's drowning under the weight of my unspoken sorrow, and I'm suddenly the anchor he's seeking reprieve from.

I gasp for air. "Mazen."

Every single memory, suspended behind a door in my mind that wouldn't unlock, floods into the forefront of my mind all at once. I feel like my brain has been comatose for years, though a part of me knows that I'm just naive. I'm a stupid whore of a woman who uses men and sex to feel something … anything … other than alone. We shared more than our bodies the night we met. That hard reality wafts over me as my breathing grows more labored.

There was no accident that stole my memories.

Only shame .

Shame that is lodged in my throat.

I blocked it out, every detail about the stranger who had grown up to be Mazen Wilde, rock star extraordinaire. A subconscious decision to protect my heart at all costs from a world that had already taken too much. There's no one to blame but myself and my constant need to numb a heart that was broken, damaged beyond repair by my mother's death. I let my grief devour me as my body consumed as much insincere sex as I could. I was irresponsible.

Evidence of my recklessness is now standing before me, clad in black, like my battered, on-the-verge-of-death heart. The man has the power to undo the rest of me like a ball of yarn.

Memories race like they're on a high-speed chase through my mind, each one vying for my attention, begging for me to piece them all together. To make sense of their madness. To make sense of the connection I feel toward him. I've always felt toward him. Yet, as he calls out to me, not with my name Sophia, but Rosella , a tidal wave of memories hits me at once. Forcing me to see past the carefully woven facade that he has crafted together over the last decade. He's as guilty as I am for guarding his heart.

The tattoo conference where we met.

The dark-haired ink virgin who flirted with me in my chair.

The same dark-haired guy who bought me a drink at the bar, who lured me into his deceptive web after charming me with his innocence.

The wild night of sex that left me aching in the best way for several days following it.

The morning after, when I awoke in an empty bed, nothing but a torn piece of paper remaining from the night before .

A note that read, Your crux is the moral war in your head. Rise above it, and you can conquer everything. It was signed with a single letter—the initial M.

Mazen is M.

The harsh reality of my past stabs at my chest like a knife. I'm impaled by a truth so ugly, so earth-shattering that I almost wish Caddell had taken me out. A deep pain gnaws from the inside out of my already-hurt heart.

How could I not have realized it sooner?

Mazen has known all along. The truth has been written in his eyes. He's been living with a ghost from his past.

I feel as if my throat is closing, a tunnel collapsing inward on itself. I'm on the threshold of surrendering to the nagging voice in my mind begging me to tell him the truth. Right here, right now. To spill the beans on everything, Roman's existence included, as if he doesn't already know.

Is this why he tortured me in the beginning? Making cruel remarks, fucking all but a light socket in front of me. Was he punishing me for not remembering him? Our sordid past, a past I didn't remember we even shared.

"Where is your son?"

The answer about our son causes my body to tremble from head to toe. The swell of pain in my chest is beyond tears. It's beyond words, and only I'm to blame.

It would be easy to cast some blame on Mazen too. The devastatingly beautiful man in front of me.

He left me the morning after a wild night of unprotected sex.

He left with nothing more than a scribbled note on a hotel pad. No name. No contact information.

Anger lights like a lantern in the pit of my stomach. I will not hold the weight of all this on my shoulders. I refuse to be the scapegoat for both of us .

Mazen's not the only victim of our wretched past.

I went through my pregnancy alone.

I went through the life-altering surgery that brought our son into this world after being pushed down the steps by Caddell's goons.

I birthed a child prematurely, only for him to succumb to his injuries a few days later.

I buried our son.

I carry the agony, the memory of holding his body—my heart—frozen in time.

And yet, despite the hurricane of emotions threatening to leak down my cheeks once more, I know this truth will break him. It would break even the stablest person, and despite the carefully coordinated mask Mazen has constructed over the years, he's not stable. He's a shell of the boy who lost his kid sister. He's eaten alive by his own depraved grief and guilt. It's bled into his music through lyrics crafted from despair.

Over the last couple of weeks touring with the band, I've learned that Mazen is a lot of things. He's condescending. He's cocky, entitled, and so fucking sure of himself that his arrogance drips off him like water droplets.

He's also deep. Carrying a tune that is only fueled by heartache. A beat that can only be strummed together from firsthand emotional torment. Like most musicians, their sorrow-leaden souls guide their music. It's what connects listeners to certain songs. Lyrics resonate in our hearts. From feelings of not being alone or understood, lyrics have the power to bind us, searing our souls in a way that many different forms of art lack. Music can encourage, ignite, and soothe.

As sure as I am that the sun will rise in the morning, I'm sure my answer to his burning question— "Where is your son?"— would wreck Mazen, sending him tumbling into a place that not even music could pull him back from.

The thought of looking him in his slate-metal eyes, telling him that he fathered a child—a child who is no longer alive, no less—makes my stomach twist. I refuse to be the reason for his demise. Even if the truth eats away at me from the inside out. Julian Caddell might have hinted that I was keeping secrets, but to my knowledge, based on the fact that Mazen hasn't totally shunned me yet, he didn't tell him about his suspicion that he's my son's father. I intend to keep it that way.

Swallowing down my own angst, I pale at the enormity of the secret that is cemented between us. It's thick and sour. I decide right now that it's a truth I'm prepared to take to my grave as unspoken words slide down my throat.

A beat passes before he finally says, "Sophia."

"Thank you for not leaving me alone." It's the only thing I can muster. My thoughts a mess.

I dead-bolt everything else I desperately want to add deep inside, smothering the desire to do what I know is right and tell him. Silently begging for his trust, like he begged for me moments ago.

Mazen is mine to protect. Even if my feelings for him are confusing, frightening, and muddled. There's no paternity test to prove Mazen is indeed Roman's father, and I hope there never is because no one—and I mean, no one—deserves to lose a child. Much less mourn one they didn't even know they had lost.

Hiding the shame in my tone, I attempt to guard this secret as best as I can. "I just needed to gather my thoughts."

We've been sitting together long enough for the water to turn cold.

Nodding, Mazen accepts my answer before saying, " Let's get you clean." He eyes the battle wounds littering my face. "It's the least I can do for allowing you to board that plane."

"It's probably cold now."

"Then, we'll sit here until it has time to warm up again. Do you want to talk about it?" His voice penetrates my ears, though I don't really register his question. "The nurse threatened to call security when I refused to leave you after visiting hours ended tonight." He sighs when he realizes my mind is elsewhere but keeps rambling. "I promised to double her salary by morning if she turned the other cheek."

My head pounds with every word he speaks. The battle waging inside consumes my every thought as the shackle I just placed on the truth begs to be unlocked and set free.

Mazen's voice becomes muffled, my thoughts ringing louder, echoing in my mind.

Tell him.

I can't.

He has a right to know he fathered a child.

He'll hate me for hiding it.

He'll hate you anyway. For not remembering him.

I'll never be able to forget him again.

I shrink from the cast iron of his watchful glare that cuts through my avalanche of thoughts.

What kind of woman forgets she slept with Mazen Wilde? His face is plastered everywhere from billboards—that taunted me for years, begging me to remember him—to websites and apps. His memory has prodded at my subconscious for years, only for realization to suddenly slap me in the face.

"Where'd you go there?" he whispers. His Italian accent thick, heady.

I feel his warm hands bracing themselves on my shoulders again. Gently shaking me from my stupor, trying to gain my attention once more.

Mazen's voice finally lulls me back. "Do you want me to call Ollie or Cannon?"

The question is loaded.

I'm not entirely sure how to answer him. Of course, I want him to call them both. I want us—all four of us—to ride off into the sunset shacked up in the bed of their tour bus together. That's not what he's asking, implying. He wants to know if I need them here instead of him.

That hurts my heart a little.

I steady a look at him through the darkness before I huff, lean forward, and hit the switch on the wall. A fluorescent light illuminates our bodies. We're still as close as humanly possible where we sit on the bathroom floor. I look at Mazen. Really look at him. Not with lust or amazement of his musical talent, but in awe of the possibility that he is the father of my son. Even without a DNA test, I have an inkling that he is. I feel it in my soul. We created a life together all those years ago.

Roman had a wealth of dark hair, just like Mazen. His skin was dark, tanned by their shared Italian roots. I close my eyes, thoughts drifting to Mazen praising his name in Italian when he took his first steps. A moment later, another picture comes into view. It's Mazen gifting Roman his first guitar. Nothing but pure pride is etched on his face.

My chest aches because these thoughts, hopes, will never come to pass.

The truth is on the tip of my tongue. Foolishly, I bite down, almost drawing blood, refusing to give in. I can't bring myself to say it. To voice the words begging to be unleashed into the world. Instead, I cry out, reaching for him to hold me once again. I'm desperate for his touch. When we collide again, my arms offer a sliver of truth, an olive branch.

He holds me as I cry. Not Oliver or Cannon. It's Mazen who bribed the nurse and was awarded a night alone with me. It's Mazen who's held my fragmented heart together in his tight hold. It's Mazen Wilde who I want here with me tonight, no one else.

"I want you to call them."

A quick shudder of his body follows my request.

"Tell them that I'm okay and I'll see them tomorrow."

I sense his relief like it's my own.

He nods repeatedly before saying, "Shit."

"What?"

"I broke my phone after your plane left. I'll have to use the hospital's to call Ollie. Give me a minute. Stay here, and I'll be right back." He goes to stand.

Still high on the only truth I can muster, the word, "Wait," blurts from my mouth.

Instantly, Mazen freezes, knees still bent.

"I remember. Everything." The next sentence flies out in a rush of garbled syllables. "The convention. The bar. The night we were together. Your note. I remember it all. I don't know why I forgot or how it was even possible to block out that period of my life. I'm sorry, Mazen. I … I remember everything."

"What?" His question is a whisper on his lips, a plea.

My outreached hands cup his face, guiding him back down so that we're eye level once more.

"I remember you. Us. Chicago."

"Finally. Thank the fucking stars." The relief in his voice threatens to shatter my resolve. "Rosella." His voice is pained, though I know it's excitement in his tone. "I've been waiting so long for you to remember. Fuck. "

Warm arms blanket me faster than I was prepared for, and in a second, I'm straddling his lap, his face buried in my neck. I should blush because I'm still naked, but I don't. I've never felt more cherished or protected in my entire life than I do right now.

"You remember." His breath is warm against the hollow of my neck.

"I didn't at first. Not when we met … again. Then—"

"What triggered your memories?"

Caddell's backhand must've been stronger than I thought. It beat Mazen's memory back into the forefront of my mind. His question hangs between us as we sit in the quiet of the bathroom, two strangers tethered together by a bigger secret I'm not ready to share. A truth that could crumble a life. His life. I hold back, only offering my recollection of knowing him.

I decide to offer him a semi-truth, admitting that since Caddell and I are both from Chicago the connection must've jogged my memory of Mazen, and my night spent in each other's arms eons ago.

The rest of it I conceal, including my plan to finish the tour and pay off Caddell and the fact that he let me go on nothing but a promise. One that he and I both know I'll make good on.

The lives of everyone I care about depend on it.

The truth could abruptly end my time touring with the band. Not being able to fulfill my contract and tattoo them on tour means not cashing in and possible death when Caddell shows back up to collect and I have nothing to offer but my life. This uneasy feeling that has lingered in my chest since receiving Lacey's frantic call is embedded deep. It's now doubled—no, tripled—in size.

One earth-shattering dilemma at a time , I tell myself .

"I'm going to kill that bastard for doing this." He cups my jaw, his finger grazing against my cheek. "I don't know why, after weeks of living with you, you now remember. I don't even fucking care. I'm so relieved."

"I didn't realize you cared so much."

"Seriously." He pauses for a breath.

I don't know if it's a statement or a question. When his sword-colored eyes meet mine again, the glare that encompasses his face says more than his words.

"You have no clue how much I care. I've loved your ghost for ten goddamn years, Rosella. It would have been excruciating, but I'd have waited ten more just to hear you say you remembered me."

A rock star and a lying tattoo artist, reunited at last.