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‘Well, I suppose you don’t really think clearly when it happens. You just react by instinct.’
‘And you were upset and that was my fault.’
She stilled. ‘You told me that you didn’t have an affair with my sister.’
‘I didn’t. I’m blaming myself because I was so blisteringly angry that you didn’t trust me, I let you walk out instead of dragging you back and proving my innocence to you. If I’d done that, this wouldn’t have happened.’ The breath hissed through his teeth again. ‘Normally I’m not a believer in wasting time on regret but believe me, agape mou, when I say that with you, my regrets are piling up. But we?
??ll deal with that in a minute. Finish the story. You were very badly injured?’
‘Yes. They dragged me out of the car, attacked me with the bottle a few more times just to make sure I’d got the message and then took the car and my bag. I was unconscious, lying on the road—so I had no identity with me. I woke up days later in hospital with everyone wondering who I was. Initially they thought I was the victim of a hit and run.’
‘Did you have amnesia?’
‘No.’ Millie shook her head. ‘I remembered everything. They told me they’d found the car ten miles away, burned out and abandoned. Because no one had reported it missing, they hadn’t been able to identify the owner. I was so angry with myself.’ She frowned. ‘I should have noticed them waiting at the lights.’
‘You’re not exactly streetwise.’ Leandro toyed with her fingers. ‘You hadn’t even lived in a city until you married me. And on top of that, you were upset. Because of me.’
‘You’re not responsible for the carjacking. That was my own stupid fault for not locking my doors. But I wasn’t used to London. Where I come from we wind the windows down and offer people lifts. People leave their front doors open.’ Her frank confession drew a groan of disbelief from him.
‘You are ridiculously trusting. And I’m angry with myself for not teaching you to be more careful.’
‘Not your fault,’ Millie said gruffly. ‘Just another example of how I’m the wrong woman for you.’
‘How can you reach that conclusion? It’s becoming increasingly obvious to me that I had absolutely no idea what was going on in your head at any point during our short marriage. But we’ll come back to that later. First I want you to finish telling me what happened.’
‘I’ve told you everything.’ Millie shrugged. ‘I was in hospital for a while, obviously.’
‘Why didn’t the hospital contact me?’
‘At first because I had no identity. And later…’ She paused. ‘Because I asked them not to.’
Leandro greeted that confession with a hiss of disbelief. ‘Why would you do that? No, don’t answer that.’ His tone was weary. ‘You thought I was having an affair with your sister. You thought she was pregnant with my child.’
‘I thought our marriage was over.’
‘Millie, we’d been together for less than three months and I couldn’t get enough of you! Until you started turning your back on me, we were constantly together and it was good, wasn’t it?’
‘It was incredible. At first.’
‘At first?’
‘You worked very long hours. You were always jetting off to New York or Tokyo and you didn’t want me with you.’
‘Because I had trouble concentrating when you were around,’ he bit out, and Millie looked at him in surprise because that explanation hadn’t ever occurred to her.
‘Oh.’
‘Oh? What did you think the reason was?’
‘I…wondered if you had other women.’
His jaw tightened. ‘When, before that incident with your sister, did I ever give you cause to doubt me?’ Leandro released his grip on her hand and rose to his feet in a fluid movement. ‘When?’
‘I suppose I looked at the facts. When I met you, you were thirty-two, rich, good-looking and single. You’d never been committed to a woman, but you’d been involved with plenty.’
‘Before I met you.’
‘And they were all different to me.’
