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Frowning, she stepped forward and impulsively placed her hand on his chest. His sharp intake of breath took her by surprise, and she felt her insides quake with a strange mixture of fear and relief. She hardly dared to hope. She was unable to move, completely entranced by the blazing heat of his skin under her fingertips through the expensive material of his dove-grey shirt.
Almost of its own volition, her hand skimmed up a hard wall of muscle to where a glorious pulse thrummed at the base of his neck. Alive. She closed her eyes and felt a painful lump form in her throat at the cruelty of such a vision if this wasn’t real. If it was just another one of her vivid dreams, after which she would awake in the middle of the night and expect to see him lying beside her.
Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away, tipping her head up to find him staring down at her. His skin was still that rich caramel-brown, vibrant and healthy, so unlike the deathly pallor of that awful night.
She heard the tremor in her voice as she whispered, ‘Duarte...this is impossible...’
‘I’ve thought the same thing over the past months, believe me.’ One side of his mouth twisted in the same sardonic way she remembered. ‘But here I am.’
‘You’re actually here. You’re alive...’ Her voice was a breathless whisper as she felt a long-buried well of hopeless longing burst open within her.
Before she could stop herself, she closed the space between them and buried her face against his chest. He froze for a split second, and she feared he might push her away. She wouldn’t blame him, considering she was essentially the reason he had received that scar in the first place.
She stiffened, bracing herself for rejection, only to feel his strong arms close around her. She was instantly cocooned in his warm spicy scent and the glorious thumping rhythm of his heart. His beating, perfect heart.
Emotion clogged her throat as she was consumed by the urgent need to feel him, to hold on to him as though he were an oasis of hope in the unbearable desert of her grief. Her breathing became shallow and she was overcome with the need to kiss him, to feel his lips on hers once again.
From the moment she had first laid eyes on him in that crowded Samba club almost a year ago he had affected her this way. She had never reacted to another man with such primal desire, and he had told her that she affected him just the same way.
‘You bring out the animal in me, querida.’
He’d whispered that in her ear right before their very first kiss. They’d almost made love on the beach, in full view of the pier. It had been madness, and she felt that same desire humming through her veins just from being in his arms now.
She leaned back, looking up and expecting to see a reflection of the intense emotion she felt. Instead his face was utterly blank, and so confused it was like being doused with ice water.
This was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
Suddenly she felt a tiny kick within her, wrenching her back to the present moment. She forced herself to take a step back, putting space between them as she composed herself and took in a lungful of air. The rain had died down and around them the sound of the boisterous youths filled the street.
Suddenly the weight of reality came crashing down upon her. If this wasn’t a dream then it was a living nightmare. There was no question that this man was Duarte. And that meant her life had just become even more complicated.
She wrapped her bulky raincoat even tighter around herself and held her handbag in front of her stomach. If he was here, they were both in danger. This changed everything.
She looked around the streets once more, praying the blue car hadn’t returned.
‘How...?’ she breathed. ‘How are you alive?’
‘It’s a very long story.’ He rubbed at his freshly shaven jawline. ‘One that involves a medically induced coma and many months of painful rehabilitation. Let’s just say I’m a hard man to kill.’
She heard the gasp that escaped her throat and closed her eyes against the image it created in her mind. He’d been alive all this time...in pain, broken...
She fought the urge to cling to him once again, never to let him go. But a tiny voice in her mind was screaming at her to run away as fast as she could and pretend she’d never seen him. Even if walking away from him now might be more painful than losing him the first time.
It was too much... She could hardly breathe...
‘I hope you don’t mind me tracking you down,’ he said, and he spoke with a strange politeness to his tone that made her uneasy. ‘You were there with me, the night I was shot.’
‘Yes, I was there.’ She frowned, watching the relief that crossed his face at her response. He smiled, and her heart seemed to pulse at the sight of it.
‘Your care and kindness were the first things I remembered when I woke up.’ His gaze softened for a moment before he seemed to shake himself mentally, then cleared his throat. ‘I have a few things I’d like to ask you, if you wouldn’t mind?’
‘You don’t remember me.’ She spoke half to herself, processing the polite detachment in his gaze, the way he’d introduced himself to her—as though they were strangers.
It all came painfully into focus, like a movie replaying in her mind. He had no idea who she was...no idea what they’d been to one another.
‘My injury has caused some slight memory loss. It’s been a process—one I’m hoping you might help me with, actually.’ He put his hands in his pockets and looked at her through his thick lashes. ‘Is there somewhere private that we can talk?’
To any other woman his overtly calm posture would appear benign and almost welcoming. But Nora wasn’t any other woman, and she knew when she was being baited. He might not have any memories of her, or their history, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still possess the killer instinct he was famous for.
