doctor gave an impatient sigh. ‘You haven’t given us details of your next of kin. There must be someone. Or do you think it’s possible that you are suffering some degree of memory loss after all?’
Faith opened her eyes. ‘My parents died nearly three years ago and I’m an only child,’ she said wearily, wondering how many times she had to repeat herself. ‘And my memory is fine.’ Unfortunately. Given the nature of her memories, she would have paid a great deal for a serious bout of amnesia. Nothing too dramatic. As long as she lost all knowledge of the last couple of months, she’d be happy.
She wanted the whole nightmare erased from her head for ever.
But in her case it wasn’t forgetting that was the problem, it was remembering.
She remembered everything and the memories tortured her.
All she wanted to do was cover herself with the duvet and just sob and sob and the fact that she felt like that was terrifying because it was so unlike her.
Where was her energy and drive? What had happened to her natural inclination to fight problems with grit and determination?
She’d always been resilient. Life could be tough, she knew that.
But although she’d always known that life could be tough, she’d had no idea it could be quite this tough.
Panicked by how truly awful she felt, she rolled onto her back and stared up at the cracked ceiling—but somehow the cracks looked like the curve of a beach and soon the images in her head were of a laughing, naked woman and a spectacularly handsome man.
She gave a groan of denial and covered her face with her hands. It didn’t matter what she did or where she looked, the memories were everywhere. She felt drained and empty, lacking the physical or emotional energy to drag herself out of the dark pit of despair that was sucking her down and down.
In the bed opposite, an old lady rambled and muttered, confused and disorientated by her surroundings. ‘Doctor, doctor!’
Muttering something under his breath to the nurse, the doctor turned. ‘Yes, Mrs Hitchin?’ His manner and tone were a study of exaggerated politeness. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘You can marry me, that’s what you can do!’ The old lady’s tone was sharp. ‘No more messing me around! Do what you promised to do and stop running away from your responsibilities.’
The nurse covered her mouth with her hand to conceal the laugh and the doctor’s face turned a deep shade of beetroot.
‘You’re in hospital, Mrs Hitchin!’ He raised his voice and separated each syllable, as if he were speaking to a very slow child. ‘And I’m a doctor!’
‘Well, I’m glad you finally made something of yourself.’ The old lady waggled a finger at Faith. ‘Don’t believe a word he says to you. Men are all the same. They want all the fun and none of the responsibility.’
Faith gave a choked laugh. ‘I could have done with that advice a few months ago, Mrs Hitchin.’ Then perhaps she wouldn’t have made such a complete and utter wreck of her life.
Another nurse hurried into the room, her cheeks flushed and her eyes glowing. Excitement radiated from her like a forcefield and she had the look of a woman just bursting with serious gossip.
Her eyes slid to Faith and her expression changed to one of awe and fascination. ‘I know you think your memory is fine, Faith,’ she said sympathetically. ‘But I’m afraid we now have evidence that you are suffering from amnesia.’
Faith gritted her teeth. ‘My memory is fine.’
‘Really? Then why can’t you remember that you’re married? You’re married to a billionaire,’ the nurse said faintly. ‘And he’s standing outside right now waiting to claim you. I mean, he’s gorgeous, sexy—’
‘Nurse!’ Dr Arnold interrupted her with a scowl and the nurse blushed.
‘All I’m trying to say,’ she muttered, ‘is that he just isn’t the sort of man any woman would ever forget. If she really doesn’t remember him, then she definitely has amnesia.’
Simmering with impatience, Raul glanced at the Rolex on his wrist, oblivious to the fact that the force of his presence had brought the entire hospital ward to a standstill. Like a thoroughbred racehorse at the starting gate, he radiated coiled, suppressed energy, as confident and unselfconscious in this environment as he was in every other, his powerful legs planted firmly apart, his intelligent dark eyes fixed on the room straight ahead of him.
Female members of staff suddenly found reasons to hover around the central nurses’ station, distracted by the unexpected presence of such a striking man.
Raul didn’t notice.
He was entirely focused on the task in hand and this brief, unexpected delay in reaching his final objective was a thorn of irritation under his richly bronzed skin.
A lesser man might have spent the time worrying that the information he’d received might be wrong, that it wasn’t her. Raul had no such concerns. He only employed the best. His security team had been hand-picked and the possibility that they might have made a mistake didn’t enter his head.
Barely containing his impatience, he stood still for a full thirty seconds—which was twenty-five seconds longer than he’d ever waited for anything in his life before—and then took matters into his own hands and strode purposefully across the corridor and into the six-bedded side ward.
The doctor greeted his sudden entrance with a murmur of disapproval that Raul ignored. His gaze swept the room and came to rest on the slender figure of the woman lying in the bed by the window.
The anger that had been building inside him erupted with lethal force and he ran his hand over the back of his neck in order to stop himself from punching something. And then he took a closer look at the solitary figure staring up at the ceiling and the anger died, only to be replaced by a surge of very different emotions.
Emotions that he didn’t want to feel. Primitive urges that mocked his belief in his own sense of discipline and self-control.
Raul almost laughed. The weakness of man was woman, and that hadn’t changed since the beginning of time. From
Eve in the Garden of Eden and Pandora with her box, for every man there was one woman who seemed to be designed for the express purpose of complicating life.
And for him, that woman was lying in front of him.
He could negotiate the most complex business deal without once losing his clarity of thinking but here, in the same room as her, a witch’s cauldron of emotions stirred to life, clouding everything.
‘Faith.’ His strong voice reverberated round the small room and her head turned, her expressive green eyes widening with horror and disbelief as she saw him.
‘No!’ Immediately she shrank under the blankets and her reaction was like a fist in his gut but the biggest shock was seeing the remains of the bruises on her face and shoulders before they vanished under the covers.
‘What happened to you?’ Two weeks
