it hadn’t happened,” he told her roughly. “Just don’t tell me that.”
His tone caught her by surprise. He seemed to feel strongly about it. But what the heck, so did she. Her chin rose. “All right. I won’t tell you. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
He looked at her for a moment, then the anger slipped away and he relaxed until he had a soft laugh for her. Shaking his head, he said, “Shayna, you can twist things around so that they mean exactly the opposite of what they are supposed to mean. You drive me nuts.”
“The feeling is mutual,” she said, trying to maintain a huffy exterior but failing on all counts. She shook her head, exasperated but somewhat amused at the same time. “This is too much. You’re doing just exactly what you did before.”
His face was a picture of innocence. “What I did before? What did I do?”
She threw out her hands. “These patterns must be ingrained in you somewhere. Even if your mind doesn’t remember, your body does.” She gave a short, humorless laugh. “Your body doesn’t have amnesia, Marco. Isn’t that remarkable?”
He frowned, trying to understand her. “Will you tell me what you’re talking about?”
She heaved a sigh and shrugged. “You’re re-creating what happened when I brought you here the first time.”
He made a face. “Because I kissed you?”
“Yes.”
His brow furrowed over that one. “Shayna, any man worth his salt is going to want to kiss you, anytime, anywhere. He doesn’t need to have his body especially trained for it.”
“Oh!” He was being frustratingly dense and she gave up, turning away. “Never mind.” She looked toward the sea, then back at him. “So that’s over now. Don’t feel this changes anything. We’re back to being wary adversaries.”
“We are?” He looked adorably bewildered. “I mean…I didn’t realize that was what we were in the first place.”
“You don’t pay attention.” She studied him, the set of his jaw, the way his eyelashes made lacy shadows across his cheeks in the sunlight, the slight stubble of his beard that was beginning to show, his mouth—oh how she wanted to kiss that mouth again. Against her will, her own smile surfaced.
“Oh, just forget it,” she said in semidespair. “What just happened never happened. Okay? Come on, I’ll show you some caves.”
She started off across the sand, only looking back to see if he was following. He was, though more slowly than she would like. He was obviously thinking over what had happened, even after she’d told him not to. That made her smile, but she turned so he wouldn’t see.
“Here they are,” she said, stopping before an area that looked like an ordinary landslide of rocks.
“Where?” he asked, coming up behind her.
“Look closely,” she said, pointing out the opening.
“Not bad,” he told her admiringly. “I never would have noticed them on my own.”
They had to lower themselves over the slide and then wedge themselves between a couple of large rocks, but finally they were inside, and it was breathtaking. The air was cool, the light was filtered and the ceilings were ten feet high.
“It’s like being in a natural cathedral,” Marco said, speaking softly as though in respect.
“Isn’t it?” She nodded. “I love this place. Come here.” She showed him where they could lie on their stomachs in the cool sand and look out through an opening at the waves on the reef.
“This is like a World War II pillbox,” he told her. “I’ve been in some up in the Marianas Islands.”
“But this isn’t man-made,” she noted.
He turned to look at her, lying so close beside him and yet untouchable—at least if they played by her rules. This wasn’t going to work. Everything she did today was turning him on. If she only knew the thoughts that were going through his head—no body memories needed.
“This is interesting,” he said a bit impatiently, “but you’re getting us off the track. We’re looking for my plans.”
“I know.”
He shrugged and glanced around the edges of the cave. “Have I been here before?”
“I don’t think so. I didn’t bring you here.”
“Then why are we here?”
She settled back into a comfortable position, propped by an elbow. “I thought it was a good place to use to go over your memories and try to figure out how and when they stopped.”
“Sounds reasonable. But we’ve got to stay focused or we’ll never find anything.”
“Agreed.”
He met her gaze and winced, as though her eyes were too bright for him. Frowning slightly, he turned his head. “Okay. I’m ready. Ask me anything.”
“I’m not going to ask. You’re going to tell.”
He looked back warily. “Tell what?”
She’d hoped he would be spontaneous about it, but if he needed prompting, she was ready to do that, as well.
“Okay, here’s my idea. Why don’t we backtrack? Try to take your memory up as far as it goes. Maybe that will trigger something.”
He shrugged. Lying here in the cool sand on the floor of a sea cave seemed a strange setting for this, but you never did know what might set off recollections. Actually, her suggestion sounded better than anything he’d received from the psychiatrist.
“Okay. I remember…” He closed his eyes and threw his head back, leaning into the sand. “I remember about a month ago, I was considering three or four different places for my vacation. I wanted a place that was off the beaten path. I needed to rest. I’d just had a big career setback and I needed space and time to use to recover and regroup.”
“A career setback? What do you mean?”
He opened his eyes and looked at her. “I told you about the designer who has been dogging my steps. He actually did steal some plans from me at one point.” He grimaced. “At least, I think he did. The plans he submitted were so close…” He shook his head and grimaced, remembering when Glendenning Hudson had shown him what his rival was offering for sale. “Anyway, just knowing that such unique thinking so close to mine was out there shook me at first. I couldn’t prove they were actually stolen from me, but I wanted to take some time to evaluate the matter and figure out how I was going to get inspiration back. I needed to get away, get my head straight and come up with some new ideas for racing design. I wanted to get back my momentum.”
She nodded. All perfectly understandable. “So you were trying to decide where to go. What were the possible places?”
“Tahiti. The Caribbean. I was also thinking about going back
