Chapter Three

Steve's eyes moved from the naked woman beside him to her identical counterpart in the doorway and his heart sank, then shattered. The resemblance was incredible – right down to her voice and the blue, green and gold flecks in the irises of her eyes – but Steve knew with instant, nauseating certainty who was who. The woman in the doorway had used her key. He threw his pants on and jumped to his feet before the impostor could lay another finger on him.

Lisa stretched languidly, in no hurry to dress or even cover herself. She knew the game was over, but she'd gotten exactly what she came for: ecstasy in the loving, gentle arms of a man more concerned with her pleasure than with his own. Jaime walking in on the tail end of things was merely an added bonus – a cherry to top the most delicious sundae she'd ever known. She smiled at Jaime, a cat-like and evil victor's grin. "Sugar-Pie," she purred in a heavy Southern drawl, "now I know what you saw in him; this one is all man, and he is goo-o-od! Why you'd ever give this one up is beyond me."

Her words stung both Jaime and Steve like a sucker punch to the stomach, and Jaime was instantly standing over her, delivering a well-deserved slap across Lisa's face with all the strength her left hand could muster. Tears streaming quietly down her face, she headed wordlessly for the door. Steve intercepted her, needing to say...something.

"Jaime...I am so sorry," he pleaded. He could barely breathe. "I didn't...I thought -"

Jaime brushed the hot trails from her cheeks. "This...it isn't your fault," she said very softly. "You aren't the first person she's fooled."

"Still," Steve began, struggling to find the right words, "I..." He had held back in saying this to her since her amnesia, not wanting to hurt her any further, but right now, he had to tell her; she had to know. "I love you, Jaime," he said simply. He reached out to try and comfort her, but in spite of her words, Jaime backed away.

"Not...now," she stammered. "You need to call Oscar, and...I need air. I'll be outside." She made it as far as the bottom step of the front porch before sinking to the pavement, her head cradled in her arms, overwhelmed by emotions that were coming too fast to make any sense of.

Steve glared at Lisa as he reached for the phone. "Get dressed," he ordered in a cold, angry voice. "And if you even think of trying to run, I'll break one of my cardinal rules and for the first time in my life, I will hit a woman. And I will lay you out." He kept a close, wary eye on her as he dialed Oscar's number.

"Oscar, it's me. Lisa Galloway is here. I won't let her leave. And," he glanced outside at Jaime's huddled-up form on his front step, "you'd better bring Rudy."

Steve hung up the phone, still glaring at Lisa. He longed to join Jaime, to take her in his arms and make things right again, but he understood why she'd backed away from him. Those same arms had just held...someone else. He stood at the window, one eye on Lisa and the other on Jaime's back. Her shoulders were trembling visibly, and Steve ached with the knowledge that she was crying her eyes out, all alone.

Jaime was trembling, in part with anger toward Lisa and horror over what she'd just witnessed, but also at the images that were flashing rapid-fire-style through her mind. She could vividly see Steve and Lisa, on the floor, doing...what they'd been doing, but suddenly the picture changed. It was a different room (a bedroom), a different time (Jaime wasn't exactly sure when) and...she was with Steve, making love and enjoying the emotional union every bit as much as the physical one.

What the hell? Where did that come from? It was a memory she knew was hers, but Jaime couldn't remember ever seeing it in her mind's eye before. Another image quickly followed – also new – of herself and Steve in a tree house, savoring the afterglow of another session of the most perfect, complete kind of closeness. Jaime shivered; she didn't know what was happening to her, and while she yearned to run to Steve, to tell him and let him share her newfound knowledge (knowledge she knew he'd never lost), she didn't dare. The pain in her heart (and, she was sure, in Steve's, too) meant this simply wasn't the time for happy memories.

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