It was becoming increasingly difficult not to believe him.
“I have these, too,” he said, leaning down to take a stack of photos from the inside of his jacket. He gave them to her, then sat back down.
The pictures were indeed of her and this Asher person. She skimmed them, and in each and every one they were either smiling or laughing or … oh, my … some were rather racy in nature.
Her cheeks blushed brightly and a grin quirked up the corner of his mouth. “I included a few from our personal collection, so there wouldn’t be any doubt.”
In one of the shots Asher wore nothing but a pair of boxer briefs and the sight of all that lean muscle and smooth skin caused an unexpected jab of longing that she felt deep inside her belly. A memory, maybe, or just a natural female reaction to the sight of an attractive man.
“I have video, as well,” he said. She was going to ask what kind of video, but his expression said it all. The look in his eyes was so steamy it nearly melted her. “Due to their scandalous nature, I felt it best to leave them at home,” he added.
Melody couldn’t imagine she was the type of woman who would let herself be photographed, or even worse videotaped, in a compromising position with a man she didn’t trust completely.
Maybe Asher Williams really was her fiancé.
Ash’s first suspicion, when the doctor told him Melody had amnesia, was that she was faking it. But then he asked himself, why would she? What logical reason did she have to pretend that she didn’t know him? Besides, he doubted that anyone in her physical condition could convincingly fabricate the look of bewildered shock she wore when the doctor told her Ash was her fiancé.
Of course, she had managed to keep the baby she was carrying a secret, and the affair she’d been having. After the initial shock of her betrayal had worn off, he’d felt nothing but seething, bone-deep anger. After all he had done for her—paying her living expenses and college tuition, giving her credit cards to purchase everything her greedy heart had desired, taking care of her for three years—how could she so callously betray him?
Coincidentally, just like his ex-wife. He hadn’t had a clue then either. One would think he’d have learned his lesson the first time. And though his first instinct had been to walk out the door and never look back, he’d had an even better idea.
This time he would get revenge.
He would keep up the ruse of their engagement and take Melody home. He would make her fall in love with him, depend on him, then he would betray her, just as cold-heartedly and callously as she had him. And he wouldn’t lose a single night’s sleep over it.
“What was I doing in Texas alone?” Melody asked him, still not totally convinced.
Ash had anticipated this question and had an answer already prepared. “A research trip.”
“Research for what?”
“A paper you were working on for school.”
She looked puzzled. “I go to school?”
“You’re in law school.”
“I am?” she asked, looking stunned.
“You have a year to go before you take the bar exam.”
Her brow furrowed and she reached up to rub her temple. “Not if I can’t remember anything I’ve learned.”
“I don’t care what the doctors say,” he told her, taking her hand, and this time she didn’t flinch. “You’ll get your memory back.”
Her grateful smile almost filled him with guilt. Almost.
“So you just let me go on this trip, no questions asked?”
He gave her hand a squeeze. “I trust you, Mel.”
The comment hit its mark, and the really pathetic thing was that it used to be true. He never would have guessed that Melody would do something like this to him.
“How long was I gone?”
“A few weeks,” he lied. “I began to worry when you stopped answering your phone. I tried to find you myself, but that went nowhere fast. I was beside myself with worry, Mel. I thought something terrible had happened. I thought … I thought that you were dead. That I would never see you again.” The fabricated emotion in his voice sounded genuine, even to his own ears, and Melody was eating it up. “The police were no help, so I hired a private detective.”
“And here you are.”
He nodded. “Here I am. And I would really like to hold my fiancée. If she would let me.”
Melody bit her lip, and with gratitude in her eyes, held her arms out. She bought his bull—hook, line and sinker. This was almost too easy.
Ash rose from his chair and sat on the edge of her bed, and when he took her in his arms and she melted against him, soft and warm and a little fragile, he had a flash of something that felt like relief, or maybe satisfaction, then he reminded himself exactly what it was that brought them to this place. How deeply she had betrayed him. His first instinct was to push her away, but he had to play the role of the loving fiancé.
She let her head rest on his shoulder and her arms slipped around his back. The contour of her body felt so familiar to him, and he couldn’t help wondering what it must have been like for her, holding a stranger. Some deep place inside him wanted to feel sympathy, but she had brought this on herself. If she hadn’t cheated on him, hadn’t stolen away like a criminal, she never would have been in the accident and everything would be normal.
As her arms tightened around him, he did notice that she felt frailer than before, as though not only had she lost pounds, but muscle mass. Their building had an exercise room and as long as Ash had known her, Melody had been almost fanatical about staying in shape. He wondered if this would be a blow to her ego.
But how could it be if she didn’t even remember she had an ego? Or maybe that was something that was inborn.
Under the circumstances Ash didn’t expect the embrace to last long, and he kept waiting for her to pull away. Instead she moved closer, held him tighter, and after a moment he realized that she was trembling.
“Are you okay?” he asked, lifting a hand to stroke her hair.
“I’m scared,” she said, her voice small and soft. Melody wasn’t a crier—in three years together he could recall only two times he’d even seen the sheen of moisture in her eyes—but he could swear that now he heard tears in her voice.
“What are you scared of?” he asked, stroking her hair and her back, pretending to comfort her, when in reality he felt that she was getting exactly what she deserved.
“Everything,” she said. “I’m afraid of all I don’t know, and everything I need to learn. What if I’m never.” She shook her head against his chest.
He held her away from him, so he could see her face. Melody was a fighter. Much like himself, when she wanted something, she went after it with all pistons firing. It was what had drawn him to her in the first place. But right now, he couldn’t
