Blank: Alpha Billionaire Romance Read Free

was being syphoned from my body, and I didn’t know why.
    Where the hell was I?
    I was in bed. There was a window next to me. It looked bright and sunny outside. Next to the bed was a chair, but it was empty.
    I turned my head, painfully slow, to the other side. Monitors attached to thin metal poles wrapped in tubes trailed back to my bed. I squinted to read the teeny words on the machine. I saw my blood pressure, my heart rate, and some other acronyms I wasn’t entirely sure about. Was this a hospital? Why was I here?
    I skimmed my body and was shocked to find a bandaged IV in my arm, a monitor pulsing on my left index finger, and a blood pressure cuff on my upper right arm. I hesitantly lifted the crumpled, white hospital blanket to find cuffs around my calves that periodically tightened and loosened.
    What the hell? Did I have surgery or something? Was I still woozy from the anesthesia? I frowned, fighting to recall how I got to the hospital. I couldn’t remember much of anything. I thought hard about what had brought me here…and drew a blank.
    Nothing.
    It took less than a minute for stark panic to set in.
    “Help!” I tried to cry out, only my voice was hoarse and weak. “Help me, please!”
    No one answered.
    Was I alone? What had happened to me? A giant gray remote control sat beside me on the bed. The minuscule cartoon picture of a nurse next to a red button was a shining beacon of promise. I scrambled for the remote and jammed my finger on the button repeatedly, desperate for answers.
    The door to the room swung open almost instantly, and a nurse flew in. “Doctor!” she shouted over her shoulder. “She’s awake!”
    “Who are you?” My voice broke. “What’s going on?”
    A gentle-looking man with dimpled cheeks and a wide smile strode into the room, “Miss Keats,” he grinned. “Welcome back.”
    Welcome back? From where? The look on my face must have given away my confusion. A bright light was shone in my eyes while I was bombarded with a million and one questions.
    How did I feel? Did I hurt anywhere? Did I know how I got here?
    My reflexes were tested, my coordination checked out. Every inch of me was poked and prodded until, finally satisfied with the results of my physical examination, the doctor sat down on the edge of the bed.
    “It’s wonderful to see those stunning eyes of yours, sweetheart, such a relief. I’m Dr. Edwards,” he ventured, “Now, I know this might be difficult, but do you remember your name?”
    I opened my mouth…but nothing came out. The harder I tried to remember, the more frustrated I became. Nothing. What the hell was wrong with me? The question was something any child could answer, but I couldn’t. “You called me Keats when you walked in, right?” I asked.
    “Well, her short-term memory seems to be working well enough,” the doctor observed, then nodded to a nurse who was taking notes. He turned back to me, “Yes, Miss Keats, I did. Do you remember your first name?”
    “No,” I managed to say, eyes burning as the tears threatened to spill over. I gulped at the air, combating the urge to cry because I knew that if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop. What happened to me? “No, I don’t remember.” Dr. Edwards seemed concerned, but unsurprised. “And you have no memory of the events that happened before you came here?” he asked.
    Again I shook my head. I didn’t understand what was happening. Why didn’t he just tell me?
    He took my hand delicately in his. “Miss Keats, your first name is Preslee. Preslee Keats. You’re nineteen years old. You were on your way home from a night class when your car was struck by another vehicle.”
    A car accident? I didn’t remember owning a car, let alone driving one.
    He let that sink in for a moment, then continued. “The police haven’t been able to find the person who hit you, though they are still looking. You had no purse or identification in the car, so at first, there was no way of knowing who