Read Online Forget Me Not (Escape Contemporary Romance) by Nina Blake - Free Book Online Page A

through the double-glass doors and into the foyer. Glancing around, Stefan took in the immaculate marble-clad walls and the steel elevator doors, and saw past the façade—this place was designed to impress rather than welcome, but he felt neither. Claire reached across to press the elevator button but found that Stefan had covered her hand with his. He felt reassured having her there. She felt soft and warm and human. There was an honesty between them— she was simply there to help.
    She pulled her hand away. ‘I thought you wanted to go.’
    ‘I do.’ He waited a beat. ‘Why did you say we’d come back there for drinks?’
    ‘Because they’re your friends, your colleagues.’
    ‘They’re not my friends.’
    He didn’t want to be difficult when Claire had been so helpful—there was warmth in her brown eyes, gentleness in her expression and a patience he couldn’t pinpoint. Veronica and Claire might both be blondes but that was the only thing they had in common.
    ‘You have to get out and see people,’ Claire said. ‘You can’t just stay home.’
    Stefan thought about the glimpse he’d just had into his working life, his career, and his colleagues, and wondered how he could put it nicely. ‘You didn’t tell me I worked with a bunch of assholes.’
    Her mouth fell open. ‘You’ve never talked about them like that before.’
    ‘Was I like them?’
    ‘No, you were in a different league from those people. You may have been arrogant but you had good reason to be.’
    He shook his head. ‘Claire, I’m not going to work with people like that again.’
    ‘You will.’
    Baffled, Stefan stared at her. ‘How can you say that?’
    ‘Because you’ll get your memory back and when you’re ready to return to work, you’ll be a brilliant lawyer again. I think probably even be more determined than ever to make up for the time you’ve lost, to prove you’re better than you once were.’
    ‘There’s a bit of a flaw in your argument, Claire,’ he said. ‘It’s based on the premise that I will get my memory back.’
    She jabbed the elevator button. ‘You will. I know you will.’
    ‘That’s not what the doctors said.’
    ‘They don’t know you like I do. Stefan, you’ve never failed at anything in your life, and you’re not about to start now. You’re relentless. You’ll keep going, learning more about yourself, putting together the pieces until one day you find whatever it is that will bring you back to yourself.’
    Her certainty was unflinching. Yet he sensed she had a point. He felt it inside, a passion to learn everything he could and grow. It was more than a desire—It was part of him.
    As the elevator doors opened and they stepped inside, Stefan realised Claire was wrong about one thing.
    There was at least one thing in his life at which he’d failed.
    His marriage.
    How had he let that happen?
    Claire pulled open the door to her apartment. ‘Mum! What a lovely surprise.’
    June Simons stepped into the entry hall. ‘I had to go into the city, and was practically passing right by here. So I thought I’d drop in.’
    Claire’s mother lived nearly thirty kilometres west of the city, out past Parramatta, so Claire knew full well she’d just been ‘passing by’.
    Her mother looked the same as always, had barely aged in the last ten years. Wearing camel-collared pants and a fitted steel -blue top, she was dressed somewhere between smart and sensible, and still had the figure to wear whatever she wanted.
    Though flecked with gray, her once-dark hair still looked youthful—thanks to a short confident cut —and her complexion was smooth. Claire only hoped she looked that good when she was sixty.
    ‘What’s this?’ Claire nodded towards a large, rectangular Tupperware container in her mother’s hand.
    ‘I made a lemon cake for you.’
    Claire put her hands on her hips. ‘You just happened to be in the area with a freshly baked lemon cake?’
    ‘That’s what I just said.’
    Her