She hadn’t known until that time in her life how cold and manipulative her father could be. He’d called Caroline a traitor and refused to attend the wedding, preventing anyone else in her family from doing so, as well. That had hurt her deeply, but she’d been so in love with Damon, it hadn’t mattered. The weeks they’d spent together in Italy for their honeymoon had been the happiest days of her life.
Then she’d travelled briefly to London on her own after the honeymoon. From there things got fuzzy in her mind. She remembered she’d argued with Damon on the phone because she’d seen her father while she was in London. But she also remembered returning to this very house overlooking San Francisco Bay. She’d never even seen Damon that day, and she’d been trying not to notice too many details of their new, custom-built home so they could enjoy it together when he got home from work. Then, while she’d been staring out over the Bay, she’d heard him enter the house.
Only it hadn’t been him. After that, her memories of the ordeal were totally blurry. But she knew that day had been the beginning of a months-long nightmare. She’d been kidnapped and held for a ransom Damon never paid. He’d never informed her father at all. He hadn’t even reported her as missing; the story was absent from all the news sites she’d scoured online.
Grinding her teeth together, she felt the old signs of fear and claustrophobia, the racing heart and cold sweats. These were the physical symptoms of panic attacks she’d been working for weeks to overcome with the help of a good therapist. She still wasn’t able to shake the effect of weeks spent scared and alone, captive in a remote village somewhere on the Baja Peninsula, with guards who treated her humanely enough, but never let her forget that they would kidnap one of her younger siblings, too, if she didn’t do as she was told.
Thoughts of Damon rescuing her had gotten her through the nights. Along with the comforting knowledge of their child growing inside her. A child she hadn’t even been able to tell him about before the abduction.
“Ma’am?” A young man called to her through the wrought iron fence, making Caroline jump back from the scrolled gate. “Can I help you? Is the call button acting up out there or is the main house not answering?”
Her heart thumped so fast and so hard she couldn’t speak for a moment. Everything felt frozen while her pulse rate skyrocketed and the guy with a man-bun, and carrying a pair of gardening clippers, came closer.
Who would ever believe she had graduated with honors from a prestigious East Coast business program when she couldn’t even find her tongue to answer a simple question? Who would guess she’d helped her investor father to make millions on the two other tech start-ups she’d recommended he buy, back before her life fell apart?
These days, Caroline didn’t even trust her memory of what happened yesterday, let alone last year. She’d been drugged a few times during her captivity with roofie-style pills that made past events fuzzy. Between that and vicious bouts of morning sickness, her health had been in serious decline by the time her captors rowed her out to a remote island and left her stocked with enough food for a month, unguarded and alone. Thankfully, the drugs hadn’t harmed her baby, but she’d been too ill to try looking for help. When she’d regained enough strength to do so, just two months before her due date, a fisherman had found her and contacted her father.
“Ma’am?” The gardener tossed aside a handful of dead roses and set down his heavy trimmer. With just a tee on, he seemed oblivious to the chill in the air. “If you go around to the back entrance, I can let you in the service gate.”
Caroline swallowed down the panic as she remembered her therapist’s affirming words. You are strong and capable. Trust your instincts.
“Is Mr. McNeill home?” She had to see Damon. To learn for herself if he’d only married her to win a favorable review of his company for the sake of the investors. Was it just to cling to his CEO position for another year and keep control of Transparent?
Had her charismatic husband duped her completely, even going so far as to marry her for profit?
Or had her father been feeding her lies from the day he’d quietly brought her back to one of the family homes in Vancouver to deliver her baby? Damon had made it impossible for her to contact him directly—his cell phone was disconnected and he wasn’t responding to emails. Calls to his office weren’t returned, although she had been too afraid to leave her real name, worried her father would find out she’d gone behind his back and contacted her husband. All along, her father had insisted Damon wanted nothing to do with her, and her internet searches seemed to support that. Her father had shown her a tabloid article that speculated about how Damon’s grandfather had recently required his heirs be married for one year to inherit a portion of the McNeill legacy. Caroline hadn’t even known Damon was related to those McNeills, one of the richest families in New York, but now she wondered if their marriage had been purely for business reasons.
But she’d certainly discovered a few disconcerting clues in the last two weeks that made her think her father could be manipulating her. Transparent had a board meeting one week from now, and she wanted to learn the truth before her father maneuvered Damon out of his CEO position.
“I think Mr. McNeill is here today, but you need an appointment to see him.” The gardener peered at her curiously, perhaps wondering why any guest of a multimillionaire tech genius would show up at the gate with no vehicle and dressed more like domestic help.
She’d debated her strategy until she felt ill about it. But there was no other way. Damon had abandoned the cell number she had for him and wasn’t responding to her other attempts to contact him. He hadn’t launched a public search for her or filed a missing person report. If it was just about her and their marriage—maybe Caroline would simply walk away and start over.
But she had their six-week-old son to think about. And if there was any chance that what she and Damon had shared was real, she needed to understand what happened. Why he was carrying on his life as if she’d never existed.
“He’ll want to see me.” She hoped. She didn’t have to fake the nervous tremble of her fingers as she fumbled in the back pocket of faded jeans and removed the tattered piece of paper her sister had found hidden in their father’s den. “I want to ask him about this.”
The document looked like it had gone through the washer and dryer a few times. Or maybe it had fallen into the Pacific with her once, when she’d tried to escape her captors. Caroline genuinely didn’t remember. She’d suffered amnesia during the ordeal, but her memories were coming back.
Not that Damon McNeill needed to know.
“A marriage certificate?” Squinting at the washed-out ink, the gardener scratched the spot under the man-bun, shifting the dark hair side-to-side. “For Mr. McNeill?”
“I’m Caroline Degraff.” She pointed to the name on the second line, trying to recapture the sense of shock she’d felt when her sister first showed her the paper.
She hadn’t recalled the marriage for weeks after her father rescued her, yet he’d never mentioned it until she confronted him. He’d tried to keep her isolated from her family so she wouldn’t learn the truth. Her mother was dead, her younger brothers at boarding school and her sister had been at university in the States. What else had he kept from her about her marriage? About Damon? Her therapist had gently suggested that Caroline had been subjected to gaslighting.
The gardener’s gaze flicked up from the paper. “You’re Mr. McNeill’s wife?”
Her throat went dry. She remembered enough about Damon to know he might never forgive her for this deception she had