The fog in my head is starting to lift.

A dull ache throbs deep inside my skull. I reach for a thought—any thought—but there’s nothing there.

Nothing except a sound that won’t stop.

A beep.

My pulse?

My eyelids feel like dead weight. I barely manage to pry them open, and it takes a few seconds for the room around me to sharpen into focus. Then the light hits me full force.

I squeeze my eyes shut—a tear slips down my cheek.

It’s too quiet in here.

Except for that fucking beeping.

Pain stabs through my temple. I lift a hand toward it, but even that takes more effort than it should. Something clipped to one of my fingers pulls tight, stopping me short.

My breathing quickens.

I give up and raise my other hand instead. When I finally reach my head, my fingertips don’t touch skin.

They hit fabric.

And the beeping speeds up right along with me.

I drop my hand and, eyes still closed, feel around for whatever the fuck is attached to my finger.

I yank.

The sensor comes loose, and the sound changes instantly.

My hands fly to my ears.

Everything blurs. My senses overload. There’s too much of everything, and somehow not enough air in my lungs.

Panic?

Am I having a panic attack?

I open my eyes.

My hands fall onto the blankets.

I look around—nothing is familiar.

White walls. Spotless. Sterile.

That fucking machine is still making noise. A sleek black couch with sharp lines. Beside it, a glass table nearly buried beneath an obnoxiously large bouquet of peonies.

Peonies in September—stupid choice.

I have no idea why I know that.

I look away.

Two doors. One is shut across from me. The other, beside the bed, gives me a partial view of a sink.

Bathroom.

The door on the far side of the room opens.

Sound floods in with it.

Voices. Conversations. Footsteps. A language I can’t quite place.

A woman in a spotless white uniform rushes inside. A sleek electronic ID badge hangs from a lanyard around her neck.

Beneath her name is one word.

Infermiera.

The meaning comes immediately.

Nurse.

I don’t know why that does absolutely nothing to reassure me.

“Che cosa è successo?” she asks as she hurries toward me. “Sta bene?”

The translation surfaces in my mind before I can even think about it. What happened? Are you okay?

I open my mouth—nothing comes out.

I shake my head.

She reaches for my hand, trying to put that damn thing back on my finger.

I jerk both hands away and push myself higher against the bed.

“Stia tranquilla, la aiuto io.”

This time, the meaning doesn’t come.

“Don’t touch me.”

That comes out effortlessly.

“Eh…” She hesitates. “I…”

She backs away a few steps and glances toward the door.

Her pale eyes return to mine. “Doctor… one moment.”

My pulse keeps climbing.

I’m panting before I even realize it.

The nurse approaches the machine and silences it. Then she looks at me. “Signorina… si calmi. Respiri.” She moves one hand slowly in front of my face, trying to make me focus on it.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

Pain explodes behind them. The beeping is still echoing in my ears, only now it sounds different. Farther away. Like it’s coming from inside my head.

The nurse moves beside me. I don’t know what she’s doing.

“Stia tranquilla,” she says, taking hold of my wrist.

I rip my arm out of her grasp and snap my eyes up to hers. That’s when I see the syringe in her other hand. The needle gleams beneath the harsh white light.

“No!”

The word comes out too fast.

The nurse freezes.

“Don’t put that in me.”

I don’t know if she understands me.

I don’t fucking care.

I try to get farther away, but my back slams into the headboard. Nowhere left to go.

And she’s still right there.

A burning sensation begins crawling across my back. I reach for it with my hand, and only then do I realize almost every one of my fingers is bandaged. All except the one that had the fucking sensor on it.

I look at the other one.

Purple bruises spread across the skin. The cuts are beginning to close, and several of my nails are split.

The nurse keeps talking.

I’m not listening anymore.

The room feels like it’s closing in around me.

The syringe. The woman. The confusion.

Everything is too close.

“Signorina, si calmi…”

I shake my head. “No. No.”

The door opens again.

“Basta, Anna.”

A man’s voice.

Firm.

The nurse turns.

A man steps into the room wearing an open white coat over a dark shirt. A folder is tucked beneath one arm, and he looks exhausted, like he’s walked into exactly the situation he expected to find.

“Dottore, io stavo solo cercando di aiutarla…”

“Lo so. Grazie. Ci penso io.”

He looks at the syringe.

Then at me.

And switches languages.

“Do you speak English?”

I understand every word.

It feels normal.

“I think so.”

He sets the folder on the medical cart at the foot of the bed and slowly raises both hands where I can see them. “No one is going to touch you without telling you first.”

My eyes drop to the syringe.

He follows my gaze. “Puoi andare, Anna.”

“Ma, dottore…”

“Dopo.”

Anna lowers her hand and heads for the door.

Some of the tension slips from my shoulders.

The man takes one step toward me. “I’m Dr. Rell.” He pauses. “And I need to ask you a few questions.”

The door clicks shut behind Anna.

Dr. Rell pulls a tablet from the pocket of his coat and unlocks the screen. “I’d like to record the audio from this evaluation, if you’re okay with that.”

I look at the tablet, then at him.

Calm face. Brown hair combed neatly back. Everything about him seems far too put together for whatever the hell is happening to me.

“Record me?”

“Audio only, for your chart. If you’d rather not, I won’t.”

“Just audio?”

His gaze drops to the tablet. “Just audio.”

“Go ahead.”

He taps the screen. His thumb runs restlessly along the edge. “Do you know where you are?”

I glance around the room. “A hospital?”

“What country?”

I think of the nurse. Infermiera. The voices in the hallway.

“Italy?”

“Yes.” A short pause. “Do you know your name?”

The question catches me off guard.

I search. Not a name. Not an initial. Not even that strange almost-there feeling of having the answer sitting on the tip of my tongue.

I could tell him that.

But I don’t.

Saying out loud that I have no fucking clue who I am feels like handing him something I can’t take back.

“Do you know what day it is?”

My eyes flick toward the date glowing in the corner of the monitor—significant, but not personal to me. “September eleventh.”

His gaze follows mine to the screen. “That’s cheating.”

“You never said there were rules.”

Something almost amused flashes across his face before it disappears. “Do you know why you’re here?”

I open my mouth.

Close it again.

Not a fucking clue.

“What’s the last thing you remember before waking up here?”

I turn inward again.

The harder I look, the more aware I become of the emptiness.

My breathing starts to catch.

“Miss Watt.”

My head snaps up.

The word takes a second to register.

“Watt?”

He studies the screen for a moment. “Your last name.”

I stare at him.

He continues. “American. Twenty-two years old. Single.”

My gaze drops to my hands.

No ring. Obviously.

Not that my hands are much help. Between the bruises, the cuts, and the bandages, I can barely tell what my skin looks like, let alone whether I’m supposed to look twenty-two.

Dr. Rell clears his throat. “I’m American too,” he says. “Thirty. And, for the record, I’m not wearing a wedding ring either.”

I blink.

I try to make the information mean something.

It doesn’t. It barely sticks.

At some point, he must have set the tablet down on the medical cart at the foot of the bed. “Stop looking, Miss Watt.”

I bite the inside of my cheek but don’t lift my head.

“We had this exact conversation yesterday.”

“Yesterday?”

“Yes.” He leans back slightly against the edge of the couch. “But today you’ve answered more questions.”

“How long have I been here?”

“You were admitted on September seventh.”

Fifth fucking day.

And I don’t remember a goddamn thing.

“If you keep improving at this rate, there’s a chance you could spend your birthday at home.”

I frown. “My birthday?”

“September twenty-third.”

Not even the number feels familiar.

“Why am I here?”

Dr. Rell straightens. “I was hoping you might be able to help me with that today.”

My teeth find the inside of my cheek again.

“You were found unconscious. You had a head injury, severe dehydration, and several other injuries consistent with physical assault.”

I look down at my hands. “Someone attacked me?”

“That’s what we believe. But we don’t know what happened before you were brought here.”

“And my memory?”

“When you woke up on the ninth, you couldn’t tell us your name, where you were, or what had happened. At first, we didn’t know how much you’d lost.”

It’s hard to wrap my head around the idea that a person can lose herself completely and still be sitting here inside her own body.

“And now?”

“Now we know the memory loss is selective. Your language skills and general knowledge appear intact.” He crosses back to the cart and picks up the tablet. “Today made that clearer. What you can’t access is your autobiographical memory.”

“Autobiographical?”

“Your life.”

The words hit hard.

They mean nothing. And somehow, they mean everything.

Dr. Rell takes a step closer.

My entire body goes rigid.

“If it helps, you are improving.” His gaze stays on mine. “At least you didn’t pass out this time.”

“Pass out?”

“This is the third time we’ve had this conversation. You lost consciousness during the first two.”

For fuck’s sake.

“If you’ll let me, I’d like to run a few tests.”

“What kind of tests?” I pull the sheets a little higher over myself.

“Nothing that requires me to touch you.”

I hesitate, then nod.

Rell sets the tablet back on the cart and pulls a small penlight from his coat pocket. “Look at me.”

Light flashes across one eye, then the other.

“Don’t follow the light. Keep your eyes on me.”

I do.

“Your pupils are responding better today.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Apparently, I wasn’t doing much right yesterday.” He studies me. “We didn’t make it much further than this.”

Great. Apparently, today I’m exceeding expectations.

He pockets the light.

“Squeeze my hands.” He holds both of them out in front of me.

“I thought this wasn’t supposed to involve you touching me.”

“I’m not touching you.” He gives a small shrug, hands still exactly where they are.

I swallow the comeback. Then I wrap my fingers around his.

“Harder.”

I squeeze.

“Good. Now raise both arms.”

I do.

“Keep them there. Close your eyes.”

“Is this also part of not touching me?”

“Technically.”

I close my eyes.

“Don’t lower your arms.”

I wait.

A few seconds pass.

“Open.”

I do.

My arms are still exactly where I left them.

Rell nods like I’ve just passed an exam I didn’t know I was taking. “Now touch the tip of your nose with your index finger.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

I touch my nose.

“Now my finger.” He holds one finger out in front of me.

I move from my nose to his fingertip.

He shifts it to the side.

Again. Higher. Again.

“What are you checking?”

“Coordination.”

“And?”

“You still have it.” He runs two fingers down one of his own forearms, then the other. “Now do this. One arm, then the other.”

I copy him.

“Does it feel the same on both sides?”

“Yes.”

“Any tingling? Numbness?”

“No.”

“I want you to sit on the edge of the bed.”

I draw my bare legs in beneath the sheets and sit a little straighter against the pillows. The burn in my back is barely there now.

“I can ask Anna to come back in and help you with this part, if that would make you more comfortable.”

That does absolutely nothing to make me more comfortable.

I’d rather he offer me some fucking pants.

Apparently, the thought is written all over my face, because something in his expression shifts.

“There’s something else I think you should know.” His voice lowers. “We found no physical signs suggesting sexual assault.”

I go completely still. “Are you sure?”

“There was nothing in the examination to indicate it.”

Air rushes out of my lungs before I realize I’d been holding it.

“And while you’re here, no one will examine you or touch you without explaining exactly what they’re going to do first.” His expression stays steady. Professional. “This is a doctor-patient relationship. Nothing else. But you can call me Luca.”

My thumb is in my mouth before I even realize I’ve put it there, my nail caught between my teeth—I jerk my hand down.

“Let’s keep going.” I push myself upright.

My legs slide across the mattress until they hang over the edge of the bed. My feet aren’t even remotely close to the floor.

Luca hooks a small step stool with his foot and drags it closer. “I’m going to help you down. You can hold on to my forearms, okay?”

I nod.

My hands close around his arms. I lower myself until the soles of my feet find the step.

For one second, the entire room tilts sideways.

I grab him harder on instinct.

“Easy,” he says. “Dizzy?”

“A little.”

“Nauseous?”

“No.”

He waits until the room stops moving. “Okay. Stand up.”

I press my lips together and straighten. My legs tremble slightly, but it feels more like disuse than actual weakness.

I step carefully down from the stool, still holding on to his forearms, until both feet are flat on the floor.

Cold seeps into the soles of my bare feet.

“Good. Feet together.”

“Is this another test?”

“Everything is a test.”

I bring my feet together.

“Look straight ahead.”

I keep my eyes forward.

“Now close your eyes.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea.”

“That’s why I’m standing here.”

I close them.

“Let go of me. If you start to fall, I’m going to catch you.”

I release his arms and let mine fall to my sides.

For the first few seconds, nothing happens.

Then my body starts drifting slightly to one side.

His hand closes around my arm before I can lose my balance. “That’s enough. Open your eyes.”

“Was that bad?”

“Not particularly. You’ve spent several days in bed.” He lets go. “I want you to walk to the door and back.”

I look at the distance between me and the door. “That’s it?”

“For now.”

I take the first step carefully. Then another. My legs know what to do even if I can’t remember ever walking before.

I reach the door and turn back.

“Now walk heel to toe. Put one foot directly in front of the other.”

The first step is clumsy. The second is a little better. By the third, I’ve found the rhythm.

I keep going until it stops feeling strange.

He waits another second before reaching for the tablet and typing something into it. “Much better.”

I head back toward the bed.

He doesn’t move to help me up yet. “If you’re still not dizzy, we can try something a little farther.”

My eyes go to the door. “Out there?”

“Just down the hall. Nothing exciting.”

“What’s out there?”

Luca doesn’t answer right away.

I sweep my eyes around the room again.

No windows. No maps. Nothing that tells me where the hell I am.

“What part of Italy am I in, exactly?”

His thumb stills against the edge of the tablet.

The handle turns before he can answer.

The door opens.

A man appears on the other side of the door.

White coat. Dark polo underneath. Black hair, slightly disheveled—the only thing about him that doesn’t look controlled.

“Dr. Di Laurenti,” Luca says.

Di Laurenti doesn’t look at him. He looks at me.

My hand catches the hem of the hospital gown and tugs it lower over my thighs.

Di Laurenti starts toward us. “How is she?”

Luca folds the tablet against his chest. “More alert.”

Di Laurenti keeps watching me.

Not the monitor. Not the bandages.

Me.

“Oriented?”

“Partially.”

Di Laurenti takes another step toward the bed. “Headache?”

I blink. “A little.”

“Dizziness? Nausea?”

“Dizzy when I stand. That’s it.”

Luca turns to him now. “I’ve got her, Dr. Di Laurenti.”

Di Laurenti’s head tilts a fraction. “I didn’t say otherwise.” But he doesn’t move away. “I’m not here as her doctor.”

I turn to Luca.

“Harper, do you know who I am?” Di Laurenti asks.

“Harper?” I repeat.

“Your first name, Miss Watt,” Luca answers. “Although yesterday you made it very clear you’d rather not be called that.” His attention shifts to the other doctor.

Days I don’t remember. Conversations I don’t remember. And now another doctor I’m apparently supposed to know.

I step back too quickly.

My heel clips the stool behind me, and I stumble.

Luca catches me around the waist before I can go down.

“That’s enough,” Di Laurenti says.

Luca doesn’t let go. “She’s unsteady.”

“I can see that.”

The answer comes too fast.

I wait a second for my balance to settle. “I’m fine.”

Luca loosens his grip, but he still doesn’t fully let me go.

“She said she’s fine.” Di Laurenti moves toward the medical cart at the foot of the bed, opening one of the drawers.

Luca’s hand drops from my waist.

Di Laurenti pulls out a piece of clothing and holds it toward me.

I take it, confused.

Pants.

I head into the bathroom and close the door behind me.

I press my back against it and let out a breath.

Voices bleed through the bathroom door.

Luca says something too low for me to make out.

Di Laurenti’s answer comes through more clearly. “I said I’m not here as her doctor.”

Silence.

“All right,” Luca says. “I’ll come back later.”

I turn toward the door and crack it open, still holding the pants in one hand. “No.”

Both men look at me.

“Luca, stay.”

Di Laurenti’s gaze shifts to mine.

“Give me a minute,” I say. “Then we’ll talk.”

A faint smile touches his mouth.

I close the bathroom door.

I pull on the pants as best I can with one bruised hand and the other half-bandaged. The room tilts the second I balance on one leg, and I have to grab the edge of the sink.

They’re way too big. Not even remotely mine.

The fabric bunches around my ankles. I try to bend down and roll the cuffs, but the floor pitches sideways again.

Fuck it.

I straighten and catch myself on the sink.

Then I look up.

Oh, fuck.

A girl stares back at me.

No.

I stare back at me.

At least, I think I do.

A dark bruise stains one cheekbone. My lower lip is split. There’s faint swelling beneath one gray-blue eye, and the skin around it has already started to yellow at the edges.

And there’s a bandage wrapped around my head.

I don’t recognize a single fucking thing.

My hands fly to the bandage. A sound rips out of me.

The bathroom door flies open.

“Are you okay?” Di Laurenti asks.

“No.” I look straight past him at Luca. “Tell me I have hair under all this shit.”

“You do,” Luca says. “A lot of it.”

“Cazzo, Harper,” Di Laurenti mutters. “You’re serious?”

“Wake up in my situation and then question my priorities,” I snap.

Di Laurenti closes his eyes for one measured second. A muscle ticks in his jaw as he exhales.

I don’t know why I notice that.

My attention drops.

Bad idea. Now I get a better view of the rest of him.

I swallow and turn away.

I try to take a step, but the pants catch under my heel.

Di Laurenti crosses the distance before I can fall, one hand catching my arm, the other steadying my waist.

My fingers close around his shoulder on instinct.

“Still stubborn.”

I lift my chin to look at him, but from this close, my eyes catch on the hard point of his throat instead.

It shifts when he swallows.

I notice that too.

“I can manage,” I say.

He crouches in front of me. “Stay still.”

“What the fuck—”

The rest of the sentence dies when he starts rolling up the cuffs of my pants. He finishes one, then the other.

My hand stays planted on his shoulder. My fingers twitch with the urge to slide into his hair.

He brushes my ankle.

The contact sends a stupid little spark up my leg.

He looks up. “Better?”

I hate that he means the pants. “I was doing just fine before you decided to rearrange me.”

His gaze drops to my bare feet. “Stay here.”

“I’m literally in a bathroom.”

He straightens. “Good. Don’t move.” He hooks the small bath mat near the shower with his foot and drags it closer. “Stand there.”

“Seriously?”

“Harper.”

I step onto the mat.

He turns toward the door.

Luca is still waiting outside. “I should finish my notes,” he says. “I’ll check on you later.”

“Okay. You can go.”

His eyes flick once toward Di Laurenti before he leaves.

Di Laurenti crosses the room to the bed, crouches, and pulls a pair of hospital slippers from beneath it. When he comes back, he sets them directly in front of me. “Put these on.”

I hesitate over the slippers.

The room door clicks shut behind Luca.

“I can carry you, if you’d rather,” Di Laurenti says.

I take a step back.

“I’m joking.” He nudges the slippers closer with his foot. “I’m not going to pick you up.”

My eyes snap up to his.

“Unless you ask me to, obviously.”

“Am I supposed to know you?” I ask.

He studies me. “I don’t know.” His fingers flex once at his side. “You tell me.” He still hasn’t looked away. “I live with you.”

My mouth falls open.

My attention drifts over him again.

Okay. I can see the logic.

“Do you remember me?”

I shake my head.

“You sure?” His gaze drops for half a second to where mine had lingered.

Heat crawls up the back of my neck.

I nod a little too quickly.

He gives a small shrug. “We’ll go with that, riddle.”

The word lands somewhere strange inside my head.

Familiar enough to make me stop.

Not enough to give me anything back.

He steps aside, clearing the way, and arches a brow.

“I still don’t know who you are, Di Laurenti,” I mutter as I pull on the hospital slippers.

“Matteo,” he corrects, pushing the bathroom door open a little wider so I can go first.

“Mat—” The name catches. “Teo.”

I blink.

Where the hell did that come from?

“I think your mind remembers me better than you want to admit,” he says, nudging the step stool back into place beside the bed.

He offers me his hand.

And my fucking hand takes his before I can stop it.

Great. My body has opinions now.

I step onto the stool.

He keeps hold of me until both feet are steady.

There’s no ring on his hand either.

“Not married.”

“But we live together,” I press.

“We do.”

“That sounds married-adjacent.”

His grip tightens slightly. “You’d hate taking my last name.”

“I would.”

He lets go of my hand. “Good. I like Watt better anyway.”

A smile tugs at my mouth.

My eyes land on the peonies. “I’m guessing those are from you.”

“Stupid choice, right?”

My head turns back to him.

“But they’re your favorite.”

The smile disappears from my mouth.

I look at the flowers again.

My favorite.

Nothing.

Teo watches me. “You’re sure you don’t remember me?”

“Pretty sure.” I leave out the part where his nickname apparently came out of my mouth on its own.

He steps closer.

I hold my ground, shifting my feet on the step to steady myself. The edge of the mattress presses into the backs of my thighs.

His gaze drops briefly to my mouth, then returns to my eyes. “Nothing?”

“I said I don’t remember you.”

“You also said you were pretty sure.”

My fingers curl into the sheets behind me. “Do you always interrogate people from this close?”

“Only when I think they’re lying to me.”

I roll my eyes. “Then maybe you don’t know me as well as you think. Otherwise, you’d know I’m not.”

“Want to test that?”

I bite the inside of my cheek. “How?”

“Recognition.”

“Of what?”

His eyes drop to my mouth.

Oh.

I should move.

I don’t.

His hand lifts, stopping just short of touching me. “Harper.”

“What?”

My pulse kicks hard.

“Tell me to stop.”

I don’t.

He leans in—

And stops.

“Nothing?” he asks quietly.

“You’re very committed to this test.”

“You’re very committed to avoiding the answer.”

“Maybe I don’t know what the question is.”

His hazel eyes, shot through with gold, stay fixed on me. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

My pulse is doing something profoundly unhelpful.

“Is that supposed to help my memory?”

“No.”

“Then what exactly are we testing?”

One corner of his mouth shifts. “You.”

I reach for his shoulders before I’ve decided to move. His hands settle at my waist.

The contact feels disturbingly natural.

I rise onto my toes on the step, tipping my face toward his. He leans in the rest of the way.

I kiss him before I can think better of it.

He goes still for half a second.

My hand slides into his hair. A low sound catches in his throat. Then his arm tightens around my waist and pulls me against him.

His mouth moves harder against mine. He tilts his head, deepening the kiss, and my fingers tighten in his hair.

Fuck.

His other hand settles at the back of my neck. I press closer before I can stop myself.

My toes curl inside the slippers.