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He had no time to maneuver. She would be hurt. He could lose her. He flung his arm out to protect her even as he tried to avoid the unavoidable.
He woke up. Lying beside the road. His head hurt and he could make little sense of the sounds swirling around him.
"Doesn't look good…blood…nothing we can do…unlikely… survive…" He slipped back into unconsciousness, certain his wife and unborn baby were going to die.
Aristide sat at his desk, shaking and sweating.
His wife had survived the crash, but had his baby? He remembered she had not been at his bedside during his coma… Kassandra had convinced him it meant Eden did not really care about him. But she had been hospitalized herself…not merely for a minor concussion…but for a miscarriage as well?
He picked up the phone and asked to be put through to the hospital in New York in a voice weak from the horror of his memories. Some time later, he put the phone down again, relief coursing through him. She had not lost the baby, but once again she had not told him about it either. Why not?
Then he laughed derisively at himself and his obtuseness.
She'd told him he married her solely for the sake of their unborn son and she had believed it. She had kept the baby out of the equation this time because she wanted to be the deciding factor in the way he felt about their marriage now. Or did she?
According to the memories torturing his mind, his wife wanted a divorce.
Bile rose in his throat. He had never told her he loved her and she believed he didn't. She had spent their entire time together believing she was nothing special to him when she was the very air he breathed.
He had not said the words, but, damn it, how could she not have known? He needed her in a way he had never and could never need another human being.
She hadn't left him after the hospital. In fact, she had acted like she wanted to salvage their marriage. Did she, or was that an act born of her tenderhearted nature? Was she holding off leaving him because of his amnesia? If he told her he could remember, would she walk out?
She certainly hadn't believed him when he told her he loved her last night, so in her mind, nothing was changed between them. She still didn't trust him and why should she? He'd done little enough to earn that trust. But he had fired Kassandra.
That had to be good for something.
None of it mattered if he couldn't convince her that he loved her, though. His mind spun with possibilities and he thought he came up with just the way to do it, but first he had to finish the courtship he'd started the day before.
He picked up the phone again; this time, he called a florist.
Eden felt like laughing out loud as yet another delivery arrived.
The first had been a huge bouquet of scarlet roses. The card attached had read, "You have my passion forever."
Then every hour on the hour, a new delivery arrived, each of them an arrangement of six yellow roses in a crystal vase. The card with these all read the same thing: "Yellow roses are for everlasting love…these are tokens of mine."
He really wanted her to believe he loved her. She was beginning to think that, regardless of what he had felt for her for three years, he really did love her now…maybe even as much as she loved him.
At four o'clock, there was no ringing of the doorbell with another delivery, but at four-fifteen, Aristide walked into the living room.
She was playing with the baby like she did every afternoon, this time facing the hall. She had been waiting for him and only now realized it. Her hungry gaze took in his features with joy.
He was dressed in one of his custom-tailored business suits and carried a crystal vase filled with six yellow roses just like the others.
She surged to her feet like a puppet on strings, controlled by his presence.
He smiled at her. "Agape mou, you look beautiful."
She laughed. She couldn't help it. She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans like she usually did when playing with their rambunctious son. Not exactly beauty queen material.
Aristide presented her with the flowers.
She took them and immediately buried her face in the fragrant blooms. "They're wonderful."
"Yellow roses are for everlasting love."
She lifted her head. "So the cards all said."
"Each one represents a month I have felt that way about you."
Including this vase, that would make thirty-six…the total number of months since they met. "That's impossible. I told you—"
His finger pressed against her lips. "I know what you believed, but you were wrong, my precious Eden, so very wrong."
She stared at him…had he remembered? But, no, he would have said. "How can you be so sure?"
"Because I know myself and I know that I could not love you this much now and not have loved you at all before. That is quite impossible."
Could it be true? Had she misjudged her husband's feelings for her? Like she had told Aristide, he had never once told her he didn't love her, he had just never told her that he did.
She turned and put the flowers on a nearby table then turned back and threw herself in her husband's arms. "It doesn't matter, if you love me now. It doesn't matter."
But it did. Aristide wanted to tell his wife he remembered, but he didn't want to risk her walking away before he got a chance to convince her of his love. She needed to believe without a doubt that his love for her was genuine. He hoped the plans he had set in motion today would be sufficient evidence.
They were in bed that night when he told her about firing Kassandra.
"She said you were on the verge of divorcing me," he said, fishing for her feelings on the matter now.
Eden paled, but she nodded. "It's true."
"Do you still feel that way?" he asked.
She looked down at their entwined naked bodies pointedly. "What do you think?"
"I think you are very generous, but why did you stay with me?"
"The doctor said not to upset you, that it could be very risky to a concussed patient. I thought telling you that the wife you could not remember wanted a divorce fell under the label of upsetting news."
He hadn't considered that angle, but it supported his worry that she stayed out of concern for him, not desire.
"I love you."
A shadow passed through her gaze, but she nodded and then kissed him long and hard. She still wasn't sure of him, but she would be.
Eventually, she settled back against his arm. "How did Kassandra know about me asking for a divorce?"
"She placed a pen with a listening device in the rental car."
"That's deranged!"
"Or determined. I put security on it immediately. They discovered that she had purchased two such devices over the Internet a month before our trip to New York. The other one was found in her apartment when it was searched."
"She let you search?"
"She was facing major charges being filed if she did not."
"She wanted to marry you."
"Yes, but she did not understand that love cannot be replaced by sex and ambition. She does not and never did love me, but she wanted more power than she had as my personal assistant. She thought she deserved it because of our lifelong friendship."
"I still say that makes her sick."
"Probably. It also makes her virtually unemployable."
"You're not keeping it quiet? What if the press picks up the story?"
"She should have considered the possibilities before playing her ruthless games with my life."
"Greeks really do have a thing with revenge, don't they?"
"My father used to say that bad behavior is its own revenge. He was right. Everything happening to Kassandra right now, she brought on herself through her actions."
"I'm glad she's out of our lives."
"I am too."
She was silent so long it made him nervous. "What?"
"I just can't believe everything is so different now."
"Wait until Christmas and you will find out how different."
She sat bolt upright and demanded, "What kind of different?"
"You will have to wait and see."
She immediately started badgering him for answers and he laughed, reveling in his ability to remember this endearing trait. She couldn't stand knowing she had a surprise waiting for her…she wanted to know everything right now.
She had wanted to know the sex of their child before Theo's birth and had spent hours researching genetics trying to figure out what color of eyes and hair he would have.
In the end, the only way to stop her questions was to make love to her and it was no hardship.
CHAPTER TWELVE
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They went to the island for Christmas. No one minded the change in plans, but Eden wanted to know if it had something to do with her surprise. Aristide refused to enlighten her.
