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Callie
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Callie had a vague recollection of conversing with Bruno during the ride back to the Garment District, but no idea what they'd actually said. Outwardly she must have seemed normal enough. If she hadn't, the big guy would have taken her straight to Bastion if he'd suspected that anything was wrong.
Like, you know, her being on the verge of a complete breakdown. Her emotions were too raw and exposed. She felt brittle as if one wrong movement would shatter her fragile grasp on reality. Because all of her preconceived notions had been annihilated, leaving her an emotional basket case.
She'd been foolish to taunt Ford the way she had, but a part of her had wanted him to remember her. To remember them. To explain how and why he had walked away from what they had shared without a word. But finally learning the truth had been more devastating than she could have imagined possible.
She kept going over everything he had said and there was only one plausible conclusion. If the accident had left Ford with amnesia, and he truly didn't remember her, then everything that she had believed for the last decade was based on a lie. If his head trauma had been as severe as he claimed, then he wasn't the heartless bastard that she believed him to be.
He'd been an innocent victim, just like she had been. All those months she'd spent hoping and praying that he'd come back had been a wasted effort because he hadn't even known he'd left her behind. He didn't remember her or the love they had shared. The knowledge was as liberating as it was debilitating.
This proved that her faith in him hadn't been misplaced. She had spent all these years hating him and he hadn't even known she existed. Or what they had meant to each other. Damn him, damn him, damn him for dredging all of these feelings back to the surface. The pain of losing Ford was as fresh as if it had just happened.
By the time Callie entered her loft, a surge of overwhelming panic had consumed her. Her heart was palpitating and she didn't know if she was going to puke or pass out. Her breathing was short and choppy, she kept flashing from hot to cold and she was shaking like a leaf. Yep. It was a full-on panic attack.
Unable to deal with the riot of emotions assaulting her on every level, Callie went into her bathroom and removed a bottle from the medicine cabinet with a hand that shook almost uncontrollably. For reasons she still couldn't fathom, she had begun experiencing anxiety attacks as a child and her doctor had prescribed a mild sedative to calm her.
She hated using them, but if ever there had been a need, this was definitely it. The hell with trying to be strong. Callie knew her limits and she was well past them at this point. She washed the pill down with water and walked into her massive closet. As if on autopilot, she removed her clothes and pulled on her most comfortable lounging outfit.
Sitting cross-legged in the center of her bed, a lone tear slid down her cheek followed by another and then a third. A broken inhale was expelled as a sob of pure anguish. Once the dam broke and a decade of pain and desolation had been released, there was no stopping it. She cried for all that they had lost, for what might have been, and for what they could never have again.
––––––––
Ford
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Ford sat on his couch staring at the picture of Callie on his phone. He'd made it earlier in the evening when she first arrived at the Belvedere. The image showed her standing at the retaining wall, gazing out at the castle's reflection on the water. The sight of her beautiful face was almost too painful to look at.
The poignant expression she wore made it even worse. Knowing that he was the reason for her unhappiness was agonizing. Because she should never be sad. Those stunning amethyst eyes should always sparkle with happiness. Or be clouded by desire. He was a fucking asshole for upsetting her.
Baines had been right.
What kind of selfish bastard forced a woman to date him? Looking back at his behavior over the last week, Ford was ashamed of himself. He'd harassed her relentlessly to get what he wanted without taking her feelings into consideration. That was not the kind of man that he was. And it sure as fuck wasn't the kind that he wanted to be.
Baines should have kicked his sorry ass.
Hell, he still should.
Ford was the first to admit that he'd been spoiled by women his entire life. His father had been trapped in a miserable marriage to a wife he despised and couldn't divorce, so he'd surrounded himself with beautiful women. They had doted on his beloved son and shown him more affection than his mother ever had.
Like his father, Ford had earned his playboy reputation, but it wasn't all about sex. He also enjoyed spending time with them outside of his bed because he genuinely liked women. Everything about them was fascinating. The tilt of a head, the way their eyelashes brushed their cheeks, the curve of their lips. And the pleasure to be found in their bodies.
He had been with a lot of women in his life, and something about Callie was special. The shrink was right about that. She got to him like no one else ever had. Her happiness was important to him. She made him want to protect her, and it had seriously pissed him off to think of her loving another man.
But whatever the reason, the one thing that he knew for certain was that he owed her a hell of an apology. The odds of her agreeing to meet him again were nil, and he wasn't convinced that she'd answer his call either. Ford finally bit the bullet and called her anyway. It rang so many times that he was sure it was going to send him to voicemail.
His finger was already hovering over the End Call icon when the ringing stopped and the screen indicated that the call was live. "Hello, Ford." The softly spoken words were the sweetest sound he'd ever heard. She had known it was him and she'd still answered the call. That alone gave him hope.
"Callie, I'm sorry," he said heavily. "I didn't mean to... fuck. I don't even know what to apologize for first because I fucked everything up. I shouldn't have pressured you into a date you didn't want. I just wanted you to give me a chance. That's all I want. The chance to get to know you." There was silence except for the sound of her breathing.
"Something about you calls to me. It's like you've breached the deepest recesses of my soul," he admitted in complete honesty. "You make me feel things I've never experienced, yet they seem so familiar. You seem familiar. It's like I know you. That probably sounds like a really bad line, but I swear it's true. I just..."
"I'm sorry," Callie interrupted his rambling brokenly. "I shouldn't have left like that."
"Hey, it's okay. Really," he hastily assured her and was stunned that she had offered him an apology. "I did everything wrong, and I'm so fucking sorry for upsetting you."
"You didn't do anything wrong," she assured him. "If anything, you did everything right."
"Then why did you leave?" He asked and sounded as confused as he felt.
"Because it was too much to process," she confessed quietly.
"The accident. Fuck, I'm sorry. I'm not usually prone to oversharing," he replied apologetically as he rose and started pacing the floor. "In my defense, I thought it would make it easier to see where this will lead if we knew more about each other."
"Ford... there can never be anything between us," she stated and he could hear the sadness in her voice.
"Sweet Callie," he sighed patiently. "There's been something between us since the moment our eyes met. I'd like nothing better than to see where it goes."
"It won't go anyplace it hasn't already been."
"What are you saying?" He asked with his heart in his throat.
"That we've done this before and you don't remember."
Fuck. The shrink had been right! He had known her before the accident. "You and I... dated?" He asked in the hope that she would finally reveal the reason behind her aversion to him. If he knew that, he might still have a chance to salvage the situation before she wrote him off completely.
"Yes."
Heart hammering with anticipation, he asked, "When?"
"Ten years ago, in Vegas."
That it happened during his trip to Las Vegas explained everything. Severe head trauma and permanent amnesia were the only things that could make him forget Callie Rose. It also gave him a damn good idea of why she didn't want anything to do with him. "How did we end?" He demanded anxiously. "Fuck. Why did we?"
"Ford... this is all ancient history," she replied wearily. "It really doesn't matter now."
"It matters to me," he assured her and meant every word. "I need to know what happened."
He waited with bated breath for her response and when it came, it confirmed his greatest fear. "You just disappeared and I never heard from you again," Callie explained. "End of story."
"It had to be the accident," he deduced because nothing short of a coma would have kept him away from her. "Do you recall what the date was the last time we were together?"
"April 3rd," came without hesitation.
It warmed the cockles of his heart that she remembered the exact date after all this time. That had to mean that he'd meant something to her. "The date of the accident," he imparted in relief. "Callie, I never would have walked away from you of my own free will. Trust me when I tell you that only a traumatic event would have kept me away."
"Please don't," she pleaded brokenly. "It took me a long time to get over you. I can't go there again. Goodbye, Ford."
"Callie, wait. Don't hang... up," he said to the disconnected line.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Barely resisting the urge to throw the phone, he dropped it onto the coffee table and sank heavily onto the couch. Elbows on knees, face in his hands, and shoulders stooped in dejection, Ford sat there and played the entire conversation over in his mind.
Callie had loved him. He knew it. Just like he knew that he had loved her. Because it felt right. So right that there was no way in hell that he was wrong about this. The question was, did he have a hope in hell of getting her back? Or the right to even try?
––––––––
Callie
––––––––
"How did your date go?" Soraya asked in a concerned tone.
"I had to take a sedative when it was over, so you tell me," she responded blandly.
"Oh, God. Was it that bad?"
"Honestly, it would have been the perfect date if he'd been anyone else," Callie admitted.
"Really?" Her best friend asked in surprise. "Where did you go?"
"I insisted on having Bruno drive me, so Ford told me to meet him at Opulent," she explained. "When I arrived, there was a horse-drawn carriage waiting for me."
"Ooh, nice touch."
"It was, but I balked at the idea of being delivered to an unknown location, so I refused to ride in the carriage," Callie said with a hint of amusement. "I told the driver that horse-drawn carriages were inhumane and really pissed him off. He called Ford to complain and Bruno wound up driving me."
"Where did you end up?" She queried curiously.
"Belvedere Castle."
"This just gets better and better," Soraya enthused.
"A romantic setting, haute cuisine, and a string quartet," she replied. "Like I said, it could have been the perfect date."
"It sounds like the asshole wanted to make a good impression."
"No doubt about that," Callie agreed.
"So what went wrong?"
"I found out why he left and never contacted me again," she confessed heavily. "Ford was in an accident and remained in a coma for nearly a year. Due to a head injury, he has traumatic amnesia, which means he doesn't remember me or us being together."
"Jesus Christ!" Soraya exclaimed in surprise. "Are you serious?"
"Never more so," she confirmed. "So, he's not the heartless bastard that I thought he was. Ford is as much a victim of circumstance as I am."
"Wow. It's no wonder you needed a sedative," she opined. "Your head must have been reeling after that."
"I honestly didn't know how to react," she admitted. "So I left, came home and had a panic attack. A couple of hours later, Ford called to apologize for forcing me into the date. Thanks to that damn sedative lowering my defenses, I wound up admitting that we'd dated before."
"How did he take it?"
"He sounded surprised and hopeful, but I told him that I couldn't go there again," she explained as she walked over to the window and leaned her forehead against the glass.
"Do you think he'll back off?"
The sight of none other than Ford fucking Hammersmith waving at her from across the street had her replying, "Not a chance in hell."
––––––––
Ford
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Ford had no intention of backing off. Not now that he knew they had a history. First of all, he needed to know what their history was. If they had been in love as he suspected, they owed it to themselves to try and rekindle what they had lost. Although he knew that convincing Callie was not going to be an easy task.
No way in hell was he going to pressure her again. From what little she had shared the night before; the woman had been hurt badly when he disappeared without a word. He was going to have to restore her faith in him before he tried to rebuild their relationship. Not to mention everything hinged on whether or not she would even talk to him again.
Which was why he'd been outside of her building for the last hour.
While he'd been cyberstalking her, Ford had discovered that Callie had purchased a historic building in the Garment District and renovated it. The ground floor housed her exclusive design showroom, the executive offices and a private residence occupied the second floor, while the upper floors were where the garments were manufactured.
As far as he could tell, the only way to access the building was through the showroom, which wasn't open yet, or the rear service entrance, neither of which had a doorbell. There was a balcony with a retractable fire escape on the second floor, so he felt fairly safe in assuming that was where her residence was located.
He was still debating whether to wait until the showroom opened or calling her to request entrance when a movement caught his attention. Callie was standing in front of the window talking on the phone. He waved to get her attention and could have sworn he saw her smile before she ended the call and raised the window.
"Ford, what the hell are you doing here?"
The smile must have been wishful thinking because she sounded exasperated. "Would you believe I was in the neighborhood?" He called back as he crossed the street.
"Not unless you're camping out for Black Friday sales," she snarked. "If so, you're three months early."
He laughed in delight at the wisecrack because she'd loosened up enough to joke. "My plan to get a jump on the crowd is working."
"Seriously, what are you doing here?"
"I was hoping to talk to you," he admitted. "Can I come up?"
"I don't think it’s a good idea," she denied.
She hadn't said no, so he decided to press his luck. "Please? I don't want my last memory of our time together to be of you running away in tears," Ford confessed.
Her expression softened before she replied, "Go around to the front and I'll let you in."
"No need for all that. I'll just climb up," he said as he jumped up to reach for the bottom rung of the fire escape ladder and missed it by a mile.
"You've got to be kidding."
"Nope," he denied and then failed his second attempt as well. The damn thing had to be nine feet off the ground. He needed something to stand on.
"Stop before you hurt yourself. I'll let you in," she offered.
"Hang on. I've got this," he assured her and ran back across the street to where his Jaguar waited. Ford made a U-turn and parked on the sidewalk beneath the fire escape. His car might get towed, but he didn't care. He climbed atop the roof, grabbed hold of the ladder and started climbing. "See, nothing to iiiiiit!"
"Ford!" Callie's scream sounded from above a split second after he was thrown backward. Before he had a chance to fully process what had happened, trembling hands framed his face as she choked out anxiously, "Oh my God. Are you alright?"
"Just fucking peachy," he grumbled from where he was sprawled flat on his back across the windshield and hood. Even though he felt like a complete fool, Ford reveled in her tender concern. Because it was proof that she still cared. "What the hell happened?"
"Your weight activated the manual release and the ladder fully extended," she explained and then scowled down at him as she rose to her feet. "You scared the hell out of me."
The breath left his lungs in an audible rush of air as he got a look at the skintight one-piece outfit she was wearing. His mouth went dry and his cock sprang to life at the sight of her curvaceous body. "Only you could make a toddler's onesie sexy as fuck," he practically groaned the compliment.
"How can you be fixated on my clothes at a time like this?" Callie asked in exasperation.
"Because it's sexy as fuck," he repeated as his eyes raked over her again.
"Focus, Ford," she said impatiently and gestured toward his feet. "Your car has been impaled by a ladder."
Dragging his eyes away from the temptation she presented, he realized that the ladder had smashed through his sunroof and into the car's interior. He looked up at her with a sheepish expression and admitted, "I guess I miscalculated."
Callie burst out laughing before clapping a hand over her mouth to hide her mirth. "You're still a lunatic," she accused between laughs.
If the smile on her face and the sparkle in her gorgeous eyes were the reward then he'd gladly play the fool on a daily basis. "It was worth it to see you smile," he admitted and rolled to his feet to assess the damage. All of the airbags had deployed so he couldn't even see inside the car. "I don't think my roadside assistance package covers this."
"We need to lift the ladder back into place and move the car off of the sidewalk," she suggested.
"I'm not sure the damn thing will start now that the airbags have deployed. If it doesn't, I should be able to push it off the curb," he replied. "Climb back up so you don't get cut if more glass is dislodged." Once she was safely on the balcony, he easily lifted the ladder out of his car and back into place.
Five minutes later, his mangled Jaguar had been pushed into a parking space waiting to be towed to the dealership and he was once again staring up at Callie from the sidewalk. "After all of that we're right back where we started," he said in a combination of amusement and disgust.
"Stand clear," she directed and pressed a lever mounted on the side of the building. Much to his surprise, the ladder glided smoothly down the track and stopped directly in front of him. "It's motorized so I can operate it from up here."
"You couldn't have mentioned that before?" He complained and started the climb again.
"I offered to let you in, but you had to do it the hard way," she reminded him in amusement.
"I was trying to impress you," he confessed as he stepped onto the balcony. "I thought it would be romantic like that cheesy as fuck scene from Pretty Woman."
"You love that movie," she accused and managed to surprise him.
He did love that movie. Ford was a sucker for romantic movies, but it wasn't the kind of thing a man advertised. He flashed her a grin and replied, "You obviously know me pretty well."
"I thought I did," she confirmed as she climbed through the window, giving him an excellent view of her gorgeous ass in the process. "But that was a long time ago."
He followed her inside and stopped to survey his surroundings in genuine appreciation. The loft's brown and gold-toned brick walls and hardwood floors gave the massive space a warm, inviting feel. Low profile furniture and area rugs in neutral colors added an element of coziness. Huge wrought iron chandeliers hung from fourteen-foot-high ceilings to balance the ten-foot-tall black framed oval arched windows that lined the exterior wall.
In keeping with traditional loft style, the living, dining, and kitchen areas all flowed together in an open concept. A wall of opaque glass set in black framework to mimic the windows ran the width of the space on both the left and right sides, presumably to afford a measure of privacy for the bedroom and bathroom.
