When the Caged Canary Stops Crying Chapter 1

Tonight was the twentieth time Bennett brought a woman back to the penthouse.

She was young—certainly younger than me—with bold crimson lipstick and a clinging black slip dress that left very little to the imagination.

I sat on the corner of the linen sofa, watching them come through the foyer. The moment the heavy oak door clicked shut, they were already tangled together, mouths locked in a hungry, breathless kiss.

He was supposed to be my boyfriend.

Yet I had no right to object, no ground to stand on. Because in this house, I was simply an invalid.

"You don't remember anything, Tess," Bennett had told me more than once, his voice a low, steady murmur that sounded like care but felt like a cage. "Out there, you wouldn't survive a week. You’d die."

He painted the outside world as a landscape of sharp edges and predatory shadows, but the warning in his eyes was always meant for me.

Don't ever think about leaving, Tess. I’ll provide for you. You don’t have to worry about a thing.

He kept me the way someone kept a pedigreed cat. On good days, I was the beloved companion he stroked behind the ears; on bad days, I was an invisible fixture while he indulged in this.

Bennett scooped the girl up into his arms, carrying her toward the stairs. As they passed the sofa, the girl looked over his shoulder and caught my eye. Her gaze was sharp with open provocation.

There was something strangely familiar about that look.

It made no sense. My memory was a clean slate, wiped bare two years ago, yet a phantom ache pulsed behind my temples. Whenever that sensation flickered, the migraine followed immediately—as if my past were rattling its iron chains, trying to claw its way to the surface.

I stood up, intending to slip away to the guest room down the hall, but Bennett’s hand shot out and clamped around my wrist.

"Headache again?"

His tone carried the faint, irritated edge of a man dealing with an inconvenient pet.

"Don't worry, Mr. Hayes," I said, keeping my voice flat. "I won't get in the way of your evening. I'm sleeping in the guest room."

Twenty-one days makes a habit. My quiet compliance wasn't grace; it was the slow, steady hum of my heart going numb.

Before I could pull away, he scooped me into an embrace thick with the sweet, cloying scent of another woman’s perfume. He carried me into the master bedroom and laid me gently on the mattress.

"Where does it hurt?"

His large, calloused palm pressed against my forehead, his fingers kneading my temples with practiced, tender rhythm—just as he had done for hundreds of nights before.

Back then, the cold war between us hadn't begun. Bennett had been a master at soothing me. After I woke up in the hospital with no name and no past, it had taken him only ten days to convince me we were in love. I hadn't resisted his touch. In fact, I had leaned into it with a desperate, grateful wonder.

Bennett Hayes had the kind of striking, chiseled face people usually only saw on movie screens. The private nurses had whispered excitedly in the corridors, gossiping about how he was the city's youngest venture capital titan, commanding an empire before thirty. And yet, that very man had knelt beside my hospital bed, cradling my face in his hands with raw, bloodshot eyes.

I'm so sorry, Tess. I was too late.

My heart had hammered violently against my ribs back then. Even with all my memories erased, my body had reacted to him on pure, unadulterated instinct. I had fallen for him because it felt like breathing.

Now, his fingers worked the same soothing circles against my skin, but inside, my pulse remained dead flat.

"Aren't you going back to your new girl?" I asked quietly.

His hand hitched for a fraction of a second. "I'll go once the pain stops."

I caught the brief, stormy conflict flickering in his dark eyes.

"Are you pitying me, Bennett?" A faint, bitter smile tugged at my mouth. "Two whole years. It took me this long to realize what a brilliant actor you are."

I closed my eyes, refusing to watch him pull his hand away. I didn't want to see the cold detachment settling into his features. I was terrified I would find disgust.

"Tess Miller," he said, his voice dropping into a harsh, low register. "Even with your brain wiped clean, you're still just as full of thorns as you used to be."

The bedroom door clicked shut behind him.

A hedgehog. So that was what I had been.

The thbbing behind my eyes spiked violently. Staring at the dark wood of the closed door, fractured images slammed into my mind like shards of broken glass.

A crowded, neon-soaked lounge years ago. The smell of gin and expensive smoke. Bennett standing over me in a dim corner booth, leaving me stranded and defenseless while he walked into the swirling lights of the dance floor. No matter how softly I called his name, he had never looked back.

A born wanderer, an untouchable playboy. How did he have the nerve to call me thorny?

The dam was cracking. The memories were bleeding back in.