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“Safe? Safe? The very people who are trying to kill us are the ones who gave me this face, so how is it keeping me safe?”
Again that silence, that pause. “Because the people who are trying to kill us aren’t the biggest problem out there.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling tears burn. Oh, shit, that certainly wasn’t anything she wanted to hear. What in God’s name had she been involved in?
He was evidently finished answering questions, because he fluidly got to his feet. “The food will be here any minute. You should probably get dried off. You can always have another soak if this one didn’t do the trick.” He got to the door, then stopped. “By the way—”
She looked up, stubbornly blinking back the tears. No way was she going to cry.
“I like your face,” he said softly. “It doesn’t matter. I liked your face before, and I like it now. You’re still you.”
Chapter Twenty-five
He’d never told her he loved her.
They lay naked in bed together, the curtains pulled against the night, against the whole world. The room wasn’t dark; one bedside lamp remained on, because she wanted to see him as much as he wanted to see her. Their lovemaking had been slower this time, longer, but just as exciting because a part of her couldn’t get over the fact that this was Xavier, and she had been so long without him. She was still caught between everything feeling so new and different and at the same time so familiar. Her head was on his shoulder, his arm was around her, one hand absently stroking over her side, her arm, then brushing the backs of his fingers over her nipples. How many times had they lain together like this? She had no idea, but perhaps that was what made the memory surface.
Her heart squeezed in pain. Maybe he didn’t love her. Even with the huge gaps in her memory, she knew that she loved him; that particular emotion came through loud and clear, despite everything.
He cared for her; it was evident in every kiss, in the way he touched her, watched her, in the controlled ferocity of his lovemaking. But caring wasn’t loving, and how much of it stemmed from a sense of protectiveness, of guilt? Whatever had happened in the past, they’d been in it together, but she was the one who’d paid a big price.
“Don’t feel responsible for me,” she murmured, knowing that whatever it was they had, she didn’t want him to feel bound to her for that reason.
He tensed beside her, the muscled arm under her head turning to iron. A few beats of time passed. “You said that before.” His voice was sharp as he pulled his arm free and jackknifed to a sitting position.
“Before?” She frowned at him as she propped herself up on an elbow, tugged the sheet over her breasts—not out of modesty, but because she was a little chilly, with the air conditioning blowing across her. “I did? When?”
“Before you let them wipe your memory,” he said curtly. “I was against it. There were … problems, but nothing I couldn’t have handled. You sent me off on a wild-goose chase, and by the time I got back, it was too late.” The black look he gave her said that he was still more than a little pissed about it, too.
“Wait a minute.” She wiggled to a sitting position beside him, staring at him in astonishment. “I chose this? I agreed to it?” That couldn’t be right; she couldn’t imagine willingly letting someone wipe out a huge part of her personal identity. Never mind that it had been very skillfully done; she’d been living a perfectly normal life, with her earlier memories intact, until that morning less than a week ago. My God—less than a week, and her life had been completely turned upside down.
“Nothing I could do after that except take steps to keep you safe.”
Damn it, this conversation was going in two different directions, and she wanted to follow both of them. “What steps? Keep me safe? And why did I choose to have my brain tampered with? What the hell was going on?”
He threw back the cover and got out of bed, stalking naked to the sitting area and coming back with a bottle of water. He twisted the cap off and drank deeply, then silently offered the bottle to her. She took it, sipped, then gave it back. “Tell me what happened. I don’t want to be kept in the dark any longer, no matter what happened.”
“You want to take the risk that not letting your memory recover at its own pace could cause some real damage?”
“I don’t see how it could. Brain damage is a physical thing.”
“How about emotional damage?” he demanded angrily. “I don’t know what could happen. Telling you stuff might prevent you from ever really remembering.”
This felt oddly familiar. She got the feeling that he seldom got angry, but that she’d always been able to push his buttons. She liked that; she didn’t enjoy making him angry, but she did like that she could get to him when no one else could.
“Let me ask you something. Exactly what are you planning to do about this situation?”
His expression was instantly veiled, all anger wiped away. It was as
if his face had been turned into stone. If he knew her as well as she thought he did, he probably already knew where this was going—and he didn’t like it at all.
“Are you going back?” she prodded. “To D.C., or wherever you have to go to take care of this little problem of people trying to kill you?”
“Yes.” Just that one word, his lips barely moving, his gaze narrow and hard. “This isn’t something we can run from. It has to be handled.”
“What were you planning to do with me? Stick me somewhere, come back to pick me up when it’s all over?”
“Exactly.” He said it without a hint of apology in his tone.
