The Agreement

ChapterFour

My heart was beating fast now. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do." He reached out, slowly, and touched my face, just his fingertips against my jaw, so light I barely felt it. "You just don't remember yet."

I jerked back, standing so fast the chair almost tipped over.

"Don't touch me."

"I won't." He stepped back, hands raised slightly. "Not until you ask me to."

"I'm not going to…"

"You will."

The certainty in his voice sent shivers down my spine.

"I'm leaving."

"Elena…"

"Don't call me that."

I started for the door. I needed to get out. I needed air and needed to be anywhere but in this room with this man who looked at me like he knew things I didn't. But before I could take two steps, he spoke again.

"Five years ago, you were in a car accident."

I stopped.

"You were hospitalized for three weeks. When you finally woke up, you had lost six months of memories. Selective retrograde amnesia, the doctors called it. You couldn't remember anything from March to September of that year."

How did he know that?

I turned around slowly.

Adrian was still standing by his desk, watching me.

"Your family told you it was stress," he continued. "That you'd been working too hard, that the missing months were just a blur of exams and exhaustion. And you believed them. Because what else could you do?"

"How do you know this?"

"Because I was there."

My blood went cold.

"You don't know me."

"You don't remember me," he corrected. "

I shook my head. "This is insane. I've never met you before today."

"Haven't you?"

He walked to the bookshelf, pulled out a frame I hadn't noticed before, and handed it to me. It was a photograph. A charity gala. Elegant ballroom and people in formal wear.

And in the center, was a couple. A man in a black tux. A woman in a red dress, laughing, her hand on his arm. The man was Adrian.

The woman was me.

I stared at the photo for a long time. The woman's face was mine. Same eyes, same hair, same small scar above my left eyebrow from when I fell off a bike at twelve. It was me. No question. But I'd never owned a red dress like that. Never been to an event that fancy and never stood next to a man who looked at me the way Adrian was looking at the woman in this photo, like she was the only person in the room.

My hands started shaking. The frame felt too heavy and too real.

"When was this taken?" My voice sounded weak.

"Five years ago. October."

October five years ago was in the missing six months. March to September. But this was October.

"That's after…"

"After you woke up," Adrian finished. "Yes."

"But I don't remember…"

"I know."

I looked closer at the photo. At my face. I wasn't just smiling. I was glowing. Happy in a way I hadn't been in years. Maybe ever. And my left hand, the one resting on Adrian's arm, there was something on my ring finger. The angle made it hard to see clearly, but the light caught something metallic.

A ring.

"No." I shoved the frame back at him. "This is fake! Photoshopped. I don't know what kind of game you're playing, but…"

"It's not fake." Adrian set the frame down cautiously, like it was something he cherished.

"And you know it's not. Because you recognize something in that photo. Don't you?"

I did. That was the worst part. Looking at that woman (at myself) felt like looking at a stranger. But somewhere deep, in a place I couldn't reach, something whispered You know him.

"This is fake," I whispered.

"It's not."

"It has to be. I don't remember this."

"I know."

"Then how…"

"Because you forgot." Adrian took the frame back, set it

on his desk. "You forgot me. You forgot us. You forgot everything we were building."

"We weren't building anything. I don't know you."

"You did." His voice was quiet, almost gentle. "And you will again."

I backed toward the door. "You're insane."

"Maybe." He didn't move, didn't follow me. Just stood there, hands in his pockets, looking at me like this was all going exactly as he'd planned. "But you'll come back."

"No, I won't."

"You will. Because your brother's debt won't disappear unless you do. And because part of you (the part that hasn't forgotten) already knows I'm telling the truth."

I wanted to tell him he was wrong, scream at him, call security, and run.

But I couldn't.

"I don't know you," I said again, but my voice was shaking.

Adrian picked up the contract, walked over, and held it out to me.

"Take the weekend," he said. "Think about it. If you decide to stay, come back Monday at 9 AM. If not, I'll have your brother's debt transferred to someone less patient than I am."