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She glared across the table at him, eyes flashing, breathing rapid. Bruised, battered, incongruously dressed in scrubs and wrapped in blankets, her hair a damp-from-the-snow mass of loose waves, she was more beautiful than a woman could possibly be.
And what did that matter?
How she looked was unimportant. How her mouth tasted was equally unimportant. How she felt when he cradled her in his arms wasn’t meaningful.
Keeping her safe was all that mattered, and sex would only make that more complicated.
He had to keep reminding himself of that.
“Look, you have to be patient. I can’t just do—”
“What you can ‘just do’ is to stop treating me like an invalid. Or a child. This is my life.” She jabbed her thumb into her chest. “Mine, you hear me? And I have the right to know what’s happening to it.”
Did she? There were all kinds of laws and protocols about individual rights and what happened to those rights when someone was ill, but was amnesia an illness? What was she legally entitled to know? What was he legally obligated to tell her?
Goddammit, was he nuts? He’d lied, cheated, basically committed fraud on her behalf. It was a little late to worry about the law.
Besides, she was right. This was her life he held in his hands.
“All I want is the truth.”
He turned away from her and paced across the room. A line from an old Jack Nicholson movie danced through his head. You can’t handle the truth. Yes, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out she wasn’t in the mood for movies lines, old or new. Besides, maybe she could handle it. Maybe she could survive him telling her she was married, that her husband had started by saying he wanted a divorce before decided he wanted her dead.
“Can you even begin to imagine what it’s like not to know anything about yourself or your life except that you’re in some kind of awful trouble?”
“I’m only trying to protect you.”
“You can’t protect me by hiding me from the truth.”
“Stafford said—”
“I know what he said. That it could harm me to tell me everything. He’s wrong.”
“What if he’s right?”
That silenced her, but only for a second.
“Will you at least answer a few questions?”
“If I can.”
“You told Stafford you were my lawyer. Are you?”
He shook his head. “I told Stafford I was, but… No. I’m not your attorney.”
“Because if I’m in some kind of trouble with the law…”
“It’s nothing like that.”
“And we’re not lovers. That was what you said before, when I asked you if we were.”
A muscle knotted in his cheek. Everything in him urged him to lie and tell her he was her lover. If he did, he’d be free to do more than give her more than quick kisses. He’d be able to take her in his arms and take her to bed, make love to her, make her forget everything but him.
Cristo. Had he lost the ability to think straight?
“We’re not lovers, no.”
“Are we relatives?”
“Ariel. We can discuss this another—”
“Are we anything at all to each other?”
He hesitated. His answer would only make things worse, but she deserved the truth—or as much of the truth as he thought she could take.
“We’re acquaintances,” he said quietly.
“Acquaintances,” she said, as carefully as if the word belonged to a foreign language. “Not friends. Acquaintances.”
“Cara,” he said gently, “I know this must be upsetting.”
“Upsetting?” She felt something building within her. Anger? No. It was more than anger. She gestured around them, the sweep of her hand taking in the room, the fireplace, the discarded food wrappers, taking in everything including him, this stranger who knew all the things about her that she didn’t know. Who she was. What she was. Why she was filled with fear, why she was on the run. “You think I find this upsetting?”
“Honey,” he said, softly, soothingly, the way you’d speak to a child, and it finished her.
She spun away from him. One swipe of her cast and the things that remained on the table went flying.
“Didn’t you hear what I said? Do not talk to me as if I’m ten years old. And do not call me honey! I am not your honey. I am not anything to you. We are one step away from being strangers—and don’t look at me that way, Mr. Bellini. I may have lost my memory, but my vocabulary is still intact. I know what the word ‘acquaintance’ means. I just don’t know what in hell it means when an ‘acquaintance’ makes you his charity case, his good deed, his—his Boy Scout merit badge project.” She strode toward him, stopped an inch away, head tilted back so she could look straight into his eyes because, dammit, he was tall enough to be imposing, solid enough to be threatening, and yet he wasn’t, he was not a threat, she knew that in the very marrow of her bones, knew it by the way his hands felt when they touched her, the way his mouth felt when it touched hers.
As fast as her fury had come alive, it died and left her with a weariness so profound, she felt exhausted.
The room gave a heart-stopping spin.
She wobbled.
“Matteo,” she whispered.
She heard him speak her name, felt his arms close around her.
The world grayed.
Then there was only blackness.
CHAPTER NINE
She came back to consciousness on a sharply drawn gasp of air, like a swimmer struggling to rise from the depths of a drowning sea.
Her eyes flew open.
She was lying on a bed. A man was bending over her. No, she thought, no, no, no…
The man caught her hand as she knotted it into a fist. She arched like a bow, fighting him.
“Ariel,” the man said. “It’s me. Matteo.”
“Get away from me,” she panted. “Get away!”
“Cara. You’re all right. You’re safe.”
She didn’t hear him. He could tell by the way she fought him and by the look in her eyes. Fury swept through him. He could only imagine what she thought was happening. but he knew damn well it involved Tony Pastore.
“Ariel,” he said firmly. “Listen to me. It’s me. Matteo. And I’m not trying to hurt you.”
She went still, though she was still breathing hard.
“Matteo?”
He nodded. “Yes.” Gently, he stroked a tumble of gold hair back from her forehead. “Take a deep breath. Good. And another.”
“Wh-what happened?”
“You fainted.”
An understatement, if ever he’d made one. What she’d done was scare the life out of him. Her face had lost all its color, her eyes had rolled up and she’d dropped like a stone. He’d caught her just in time, but his heart was still banging like a drum.
She blinked.
“I did?”
He nodded again. She looked so small. So lost. He wanted to scoop her up against him and tell her everything was going to be all right, but he’d already told enough lies to last a lifetime.
“You did,” he said, deciding to try a light touch. “Very nicely done, too. Victori
an, through and through. The back of your hand to your forehead, a delicate flutter of your lashes, and you sank to the floor in an elegant heap.”
That won him a smile. A very tiny one. Still, it was a smile.
“I bet I went down like a rock.”
She was trying to sit up. He put his hand on her shoulder and eased her back against the pillows.
“Easy, cara. Lie still for a couple of minutes, at least until your color comes back.”
She sighed, but she did as he’d asked. Seconds slid past. He watched as her skin pinkened and her breathing steadied.
“Good. Much better.”
“I’ve never fainted in my life.”
“No?”
“No.” Her forehead creased. “I don’t know how I know that, but I do. I’ve never passed out before… What are you doing?”
“Checking your pulse.” He looked at his watch. “Fine. Nice and steady.”
“What does a lawyer know about taking a pulse?”
“I am a man of many talents,” he said lightly. “I took a first aid course in college. I was short two credits for my degree. It was either First Aid or Appreciation of Modern Art.”
She smiled. “Some choice.”
“Yes. I thought so, too. How’s your head? Any pain?”
“My head’s fine, except for the fact that it’s empty as a sieve.”
“Will you promise to lie still for another couple of minutes?”
She contemplated telling him he was making more out of this than it deserved, but the truth was, passing out had scared her silly. The way things had gone dark, the feeling of the floor rushing up to claim her…
“Ariel?”
She nodded. “I won’t move an inch.”
His gaze swept over her face; the look in his eyes changed and, for a second, she thought he might lean down and kiss her. The possibility made her heartbeat skitter. If he took her pulse now, he’d be in for a surprise—and wasn’t that crazy? That of all the things happening to her, she’d spend time thinking about how much she liked his kisses?
“Be right back,” he said and, of course, he didn’t kiss her, he didn’t even touch her.
All things considered, that was just as well.
He went into the bathroom. She heard the water run. He came back, sat down on the edge of the mattress, and placed a cool, damp cloth on her forehead.
