Chapter 63 Vanessa
Conference Room - 3:12 PM
Vanessa Cortez was beautiful.
That was the first thing I noticed when I walked into the conference room with Adrian and Marcus. Tall, dark-haired, with the kind of elegant beauty that belonged on magazine covers. She wore a designer dress that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe, and a diamond engagement ring that could have funded a small country.
And she was definitely pregnant. Maybe fourteen, fifteen weeks based on the visible curve of her stomach.
She stood when we entered, her eyes going immediately to Adrian. "Adrian. Thank God."
"Ms. Cortez," Adrian said carefully, staying near the door. "I'm told you claim to know me."
"Claim?" Her voice sharpened. "Adrian, we've been together for eighteen months. Engaged for six. We were supposed to get married next month. And then you disappeared after that car accident, your parents told me you were dead, and now I find out you're alive and hiding in Scotland with—" Her gaze shifted to me. "—with her?"
"I don't remember you," Adrian said bluntly. "I don't remember dating you, proposing to you, or planning a wedding."
Vanessa's face went very pale. "What?"
"I have no memory of you existing," Adrian continued. "Which suggests that either you're lying about our relationship, or someone has been manipulating my memories more extensively than I realized."
"Manipulating your—" Vanessa looked genuinely confused. "Adrian, what are you talking about?"
Marcus stepped forward. "Ms. Cortez, we have reason to believe that Adrian has been the victim of a sophisticated memory alteration program. His memories of the past two years may not be reliable."
"That's insane," Vanessa said. "Memory alteration? This sounds like something from a science fiction movie."
"I wish it were," Adrian said. "But it's real. And if what you're saying is true if we really were engaged then they erased you from my memory deliberately."
Vanessa sank into a chair, her hand moving protectively to her stomach. "This can't be happening. This can't be real."
I found myself moving closer despite my better judgment. "Ms. Cortez Vanessa can I ask you something?"
She looked up at me with tear-filled eyes. "What?"
"When did you and Adrian start dating?"
"Eighteen months ago. We met at a charity gala in Manhattan. He spilled champagne on my dress, we laughed about it, he asked me to dinner to make up for it." Her voice was soft, distant, like she was reciting a beloved memory. "Our first date was at Per Se. He told me about his parents' company, his dreams for expanding it. I told him about Cortez Industries, the work my father had built. We talked for four hours."
"And when did he propose?"
"Six months ago. In Paris. He'd taken me to this little restaurant on the Left Bank, and after dinner, we walked along the Seine. He got down on one knee right there on the bridge and asked me to marry him." She pulled out her phone, scrolling through photos. "Look. Here. This is us."
She turned the phone toward Adrian.
I watched his face as he looked at the photo. It showed him unmistakably him down on one knee, holding out a ring box, while Vanessa stood above him with her hands over her mouth in surprise. The Eiffel Tower glittered in the background.
"I don't remember this," Adrian whispered. "I should remember this. Proposing to someone that's not something you forget."
"Unless someone makes you forget," I said quietly.
Vanessa looked between us. "Who would do that? And why?"
"That's what we're trying to figure out," Marcus said. "But Ms. Cortez we need to verify your story. The photos could be fabricated. The memories could be planted. We need independent confirmation that this relationship existed."
"Fine," Vanessa said, her voice hardening. "Call his parents. Call my father. Call any of the hundred people who attended our engagement party. They'll all tell you the same thing Adrian Cole and I were planning to get married. We were planning to merge our companies. We were—" Her voice broke. "—we were planning a life together."
I felt sick. Not just emotionally, but physically. The room was spinning, my stomach churning.
"Emily?" Adrian noticed immediately. "What's wrong?"
"I need bathroom—" I managed before stumbling toward the door.
I barely made it to the bathroom down the hall before I was sick, my body rejecting everything the stress, the revelation, the impossible situation.
When I finally emerged, weak and shaking, Dr. Ashford was waiting.
"I heard," he said gently. "Come on. Back to bed. You're supposed to be resting."
"Adrian's engaged," I said numbly. "He's engaged and I'm pregnant with his child and there's another woman who's also pregnant with his child and none of this is real. None of it."
"Emily—"
"My name isn't even Emily," I continued, my voice rising. "It's Evelyn. I'm a neuroscientist who created the program that destroyed Adrian's mind. And now he has a fiancée he doesn't remember and I'm carrying a baby that was probably conceived while he was engaged to someone else except he didn't know it because they'd erased her from his memory and—" I couldn't breathe. "I can't do this. I can't—"
Dr. Ashford caught me as my legs gave out. "Easy. Breathe. You're having a panic attack."
He guided me to a chair, keeping a hand on my shoulder while I tried to remember how lungs worked.
"Better?" he asked after a few minutes.
"No," I said honestly. "Not even a little bit."
"Do you want me to sedate you? For the baby's sake, stress like this isn't—"
"No," I interrupted. "No sedatives. I need to stay awake. I need to think."
"Then think about this," Dr. Ashford said. "Adrian has been the victim of extensive memory manipulation. According to what we know about Project Tabula Rasa, they could have implanted false memories of this engagement. Or they could have erased real memories. But either way what Adrian feels for you now is real. What you feel for him is real. The baby you're carrying is real."
"But what if—" My voice cracked. "What if he was happy with her? What if they erased a good relationship, a healthy relationship, to make room for me? What if I'm just another manipulation?"
"What if you're not?" Dr. Ashford countered. "What if you're the person his subconscious reached for because some part of him recognized you as someone who could help him? Someone he connected with four years ago, even if that memory was buried?"
I wanted to believe that. Desperately wanted to believe it.
But Vanessa's face haunted me. The genuine confusion and pain in her eyes. The baby she was carrying.
"There are two pregnant women in this house right now," I said. "Both carrying Adrian's children. Both claiming some kind of relationship with him. How is that sustainable?"
"It's not," Dr. Ashford admitted. "Which is why we need to figure out what's true and what's false. Fast."