His vision swam in front of him and a slow sinking sensation began to pull him down towards the floor.
That scent.
He knew it.
He knew it, but he didn’t know why.
There was something completely wrong about it, but also completely right.
Elena and that scent went together.
But not in a good way.
Images began to cloud his mind’s eye: of the two of them at university, studying in each other’s rooms, laughing together. He felt flashes of happiness, then insecurity, then a cold hard rage that swelled up from somewhere deep inside him, dragging the breath from his lungs.
‘Caleb? What’s wrong?’
He heard Elena’s voice as if it was coming to him from a distance. Nausea welled in his gut and he pushed her away from him, needing to be free of her hold, to get away from the smell that was causing his mind to rebel against him. His head pounded as if his brain had suddenly swollen and was pressing against the walls of his skull, the pain so intense he stumbled forwards, grabbing a chair to steady himself.
He felt her hand on his shoulder but he shrugged her off, not wanting her to touch him.
Then, like a floodgate opening, it all came rushing back: the soul-crushing disappointment and the hurt and humiliation he’d endured after he’d opened himself up to loving her back then. The way he’d trusted her implicitly with his heart and she’d taken it, played with it for a while then smashed it to pieces at his feet.
He’d made a total fool of himself for her.
After leading him to believe she cared about him as much as he did her and promising to come back after the Christmas holidays free to be with him, he’d gone home to Spain for the holidays, actually feeling happy for once to be going back there so he could tell his mother about the woman he’d fallen in love with.
She’d been so pleased for him; in fact it had been the first time they’d connected on any kind of emotional level since he’d been a young boy, perhaps because he finally understood how she could love someone so much she would do whatever it took to have them—that loving someone would be worth being estranged from others for.
After what had seemed like an interminable amount of time at home he’d gone back to Cambridge, desperate to see Elena after having promised not to call her whilst she was at home, to give her the time and space to deal with breaking up with Jimmy in a gentle and kind manner, only to find she was avoiding him.
He’d thought he was being paranoid at first, that it was bad timing when he kept missing her at her college. Until he’d finally tracked her down, panic surging through his veins, and she’d been visibly reluctant to see or speak to him. The cold distant look in her eyes had sent shivers of horror through him, which only increased when she’d told him in a toneless voice how she’d decided to stay with Jimmy after all, how she felt that he, Caleb, was too wild for her, too dangerous a proposition, too unpredictable. She needed to be with someone like Jimmy because she needed stability and calm in her life.
He’d felt belittled, rejected, foolish, but most of all heartsick at losing the woman he’d felt so sure felt the same way he did.
Taking a deep, much-needed breath, he finally straightened and turned to look into Elena’s beautiful, deceitful face, feeling a deep, hot rage overtake him.
It hadn’t been an undeniable romantic attraction that had connected them with such intensity over these last few days: it had been hatred.
‘I remember, Elena,’ he said, his voice raspy and strained as he forced the words past his throat. ‘I remember why we stopped being friends.’ He spat the last word out, feeling disgusted with himself for allowing her to take him in like this.
She’d used his memory loss against him to wheedle out what she wanted from him. And he, like a fool, had fallen for it. Fallen for her. Again.
‘What are you talking about? Caleb, I don’t understand. What just happened here?’ She looked panicked by his pronouncement, as well she should.
He crossed his arms. ‘I know exactly what’s been happening over the last few days. You’ve been using the fallout from the accident to get close to me.’
She stared at him, her cheeks flushed with colour and her brow pinched so tightly white lines formed on her skin.
‘Did you invite me here tonight to humiliate me in public? To pay me back for what happened fifteen years ago?’ she whispered, blinking as if trying to hold back tears.
He pushed away a sting of misplaced concern, forcing himself to remember that she was the one in the wrong here. ‘No, of course not! I only remembered it all just now. The perfume you’re wearing... It triggered something.’ His head gave another throb of pain and he squeezed his eyes shut until it receded.
‘Caleb? Are you okay?’ The worry in her voice hit him straight in the chest, winding him.
‘I’m fine,’ he growled, not wanting to feel the way she was making him feel with her concerned, soothing act. The only person she’d ever cared about was herself and he needed to remember that.
‘I see you for what you really are now, Elena,’ he bit out angrily.
She swallowed hard, her face blanching, and glanced around her anxiously.
He suddenly realised that the room had become awfully quiet. When he looked round he saw that all the diners near them were staring their way in morbid fascination.
‘Look, shall we sit down and talk about this rationally?’ Elena said with a quaver in her voice, pulling out her chair with a shaking hand and sitting on it.
After a moment of indecision he pulled out his own chair and sat down opposite her, folding his arms. He was interested to hear how she was going to try and explain her self-serving actions away.
‘What do you mean, you’ve only just remembered what happened?’ she hissed, leaning forwards and putting her hands onto the table between them. ‘You said your memory had fully come back!’
He shrugged dismissively. ‘No. I lied about that. I didn’t want you to think I was weak.’ He leant back in his chair and narrowed his eyes at her. ‘I pieced a story together from what you’d said about us and...’ he paused, struggling to unclench his jaw to force out the name ‘...Jimmy. But I remember now. I remember the way you led me on then pushed me away when you changed your mind about who would serve your needs best.’
She held up both hands towards him in a halting gesture. ‘I thought you understood how sorry I was about that. How I knew it had been the worst mistake of my life. I’ve been trying to make amends for the way I behaved then.’
‘So you could manipulate me into getting what you wanted.’
Her hands bunched into fists now. ‘No, Caleb, it wasn’t like that.’
‘So why did you stay after I’d told you I didn’t want anything more to do with you and your business? Why were you so keen to look after me at the hospital?’
‘Because I care about you, Caleb!’ she shot back passionately. ‘And there was a misunderstanding between the hospital staff about who I was to you that I got caught up in. But I was there because I felt awful about you getting hurt.’
‘Because you were responsible for it.’ It all made sense now. Cold, cruel sense.
‘No! At least not directly. You were crossing the road to talk to me and you didn’t look properly.’
‘And why was that?’
She didn’t seem to be able to meet his eye. ‘I guess you were distracted.’
‘You mean I was angry with you for not taking no for an answer?’
She visibly swallowed. ‘Yes.’