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Hell, he’d turned into a pervert in two minutes flat.
She gulped at the hot chocolate as if she needed to do something with herself. He watched as she swallowed it back. The scent of the warm liquid assailed his senses. It was the first time in ages he’d regarded food as anything other than fuel. He looked at the speck of creamy milk left on her lip and his mouth watered.
‘Are you sure you don’t want some?’ Her eyes were wide and her voice a mere whisper.
Any other woman and he’d have thought it was a come-on, but the candour in those eyes spoke volumes.
He ought to tell her that she’d left a bit of chocolate milky foam on her lip, but he wasn’t going to. Too much of a cliché. He would not notice. He was well practised at eliminating extraneous thoughts from his mind. All that mattered was his work and rebuilding his company into something better than before the accident that had almost destroyed him.
No one would ever know how bad his injuries had been or the degree to which he’d suffered. The public perception of him—the belief in his knowledge and skill—needed to be unshakeable. Because he was his company.
No one could ever know the truth. He could never allow himself to be that exposed.
As he silently regarded her, her pupils grew and that sweet colour deepened in her cheeks as she realised the double entendre she’d inadvertently uttered. She caught her lip with her teeth. And then—to his surprise—she smiled again.
Grimly he stared at her, unable to speak. He wanted to kiss her—taste that smile and the sweetness deep inside her.
‘Tomas?’ Her voice was the thinnest of whispers now and uncertainty had stolen into her expression as she looked into his face.
No, she wasn’t one of Jasper’s ladies of pleasure. She was too confused by this undeniable electricity that arced whenever they so much as glanced at each other. But she couldn’t help the way she looked at him or hide the hazy desire evident in her eyes and in the way her breathing quickened the nearer he got to her.
She was as thrown as he. Only Tomas was a master of hiding everything now.
But the temptation was almost too great.
‘I’ll get your bag from the car,’ he said abruptly.
‘I’ll go tidy the kitchen.’ She turned and all but ran from him.
He watched her go.
No, he wasn’t doing anything about this sexual attraction no matter how intense. He didn’t have the time or the desire to fool around. And he couldn’t risk exposure.
Except all he could think about were her curves. And her mouth. And the irrepressible sparkles in her eyes. She was like a sensual pixie specially sent to torment him.
Damn Jasper.
CHAPTER THREE
‘You can’t sleep?’
ZARA WAS STILL trembling when she made her way to the kitchen. She’d been so overwhelmed by the desire to kiss him, she’d almost leaned into him. But she’d mistaken that look in his eyes, because he’d then looked so forbidding. She’d almost humiliated herself all over again.
She fished her phone out of her bag, frowning at the low number of battery bars. She needed to charge it soon. Before anything, though, she needed to talk to Jasper.
She hit him with it the second he answered. ‘Why didn’t you tell me the truth?’
‘Zara?’
At his sharp reply her bravado faded. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Tomas?’
There was a pause. ‘What did he say when he saw you?’
‘He has no idea who I am.’
‘He didn’t recognise you?’ Jasper’s disappointment was more than audible; she felt it echoing over the ether.
‘Why did you tell me his staff had walked out on him?’ she asked plaintively. ‘You lied to me. You set me up.’
‘I thought it might work,’ he answered a touch belligerently. ‘It was my last—’
‘What might work?’
‘That he’d see you again and...’
She waited. Then she guessed anyway. ‘You hoped he’d remember me.’
‘Zara.’
‘That’s what you meant, isn’t it? When you said he had injuries, you meant his memory. Because there isn’t anything else. He’s very...fit.’ She drew in a shuddering breath and leaned against the kitchen counter. ‘I’m right, aren’t I? He’s lost his memory.’ She waited for his reply. ‘Jasper?’
‘I can’t tell you. I promised him.’
‘I’m different.’ She wasn’t just anyone. She’d been the man’s wife.
‘No. Not even you,’ Jasper muttered, sounding older than his years. ‘He saved my life too, you know.’
‘Jasper—’
‘He needs help.’ Jasper suddenly interrupted her. ‘He’s not left that house all year. All he does is work—’
‘He doesn’t need my help. He needs professional help.’ She wasn’t a professional anything. She blinked back the tears as she whispered, ‘I’m not the right person. He deserves better than this.’ He deserved better than her.
Jasper had been wrong in setting them both up like this. He’d lied to Tomas and made her an accessory. She hated that.
The phone cut out a couple of times and she guessed someone else was trying to phone Jasper, but he ignored it.
She thought of that lonely gallery up there with Tomas’s life in pictures and articles on the wall. The notes he had and what must be a desperate attempt to make sense of it all. ‘Can he remember anything?’
‘I can’t talk about it, Zara. I promised him I wouldn’t. But he’s lost so much. You can see how isolated he is. I thought if he just saw you...’
But she’d been nothing in Tomas’s life—only a moment, a whimsy. She hadn’t truly touched him or made any lasting impression on him. He’d turned her world upside down, then walked away without so much as a backwards glance. All done in a little over a day.
She’d meant nothing to him.
‘I can’t stay here,’ she said. Jasper had trapped her in a situation she’d never have agreed to had she known the truth.
‘You must,’ Jasper said firmly. ‘It will take a couple of days until I get there. Work as his housekeeper. I can get him to agree to that.’
‘No—’
‘You can’t leave, Zara.’ He overrode her.
‘Why not?’
There was a hesitation, then a sigh. ‘Because you’re still married to him.’
‘What?’ Every muscle in her body weakened and she almost dropped the phone. ‘What?’
‘You’re still married. The annulment was never processed. I’m sorry.’
She was still married to Tomas? Goosebumps skittled over her skin. She drew in a breath so jagged it seemed to slice her lungs. ‘How is that possible?’ she whispered.
‘After the accident, I was so distracted it slipped my mind.’
‘But the paperwork... I signed—’ She broke off, too stunned to speak.
‘It burned in the car. We were in hospital for weeks. Tomas was there for months. Then I was concerned about him—protecting him.’
She’d read in the newspaper about the car accident in France less than a week after their crazy wedding. She’d felt sick at the time as she’d learned how Tomas had fought to get Jasper free of the wreckage before the car had exploded. But they’d both survived the accident and the blast and, according to the reports, both were going to be fine. There’d been little about the man in his bio on his business website. Other online searches had been business related and largely fruitless.
Not long after that that she’d forced herself to stop searching for information on him. She couldn’t turn into some sad obsessive. She’d had to forget him to move forward with her life. But her repayment plan had always burned in the background. In the long term she’d aimed to track him down, successful, a whole new woman. With the money plus interest to return to him. She’d wanted to impress him with her transformation and her success.
She’d never do that now.
‘No one knows?’ She turned and s
tared at the dark window but she could see nothing but her own pale face in the glass.
‘No one knows anything about you. Only his medical team know about...’
She felt the ground had been cut out from under her. All this time they’d been married? And all these months he’d been so hurt?
‘You’re coming here now, aren’t you? Please,’ she begged. She couldn’t handle this alone. ‘He has to know,’ she said, her old anxiety rushing to the fore. She should go in there right now and tell him, but she couldn’t do it. More than that, he wouldn’t believe her. She had no proof. He’d think she was crazy. And she wouldn’t blame him. ‘Please, you have to tell him...’
She didn’t want to do more harm than good. She didn’t want to make anything worse for him. And she didn’t want him to know how weak she’d been.
