that bronzed this man’s skin was not the result of some two-week Mediterranean holiday. Instead it was obviously his natural colouring, the year-round tone that came from an ancestry that was definitely not English.
Unconsciously, Serena shifted slightly in the bed, feeling suddenly too warm, too restless to stay still. There was a new, pagan wildness in her blood, one that drove her heart faster, pushing hot colour into her cheeks, making her sharply aware of the fact that under the bedclothes she was only wearing a short, regulation hospital nightdress.
And the truly disturbing thing was that she could see her own feelings reflected in this man’s eyes, in the black, enlarged pupils, the intensity of his gaze, even though his expression never altered but stayed as coolly assessing as before. The contrast between that apparently calm control and the blaze of something very different and very primitive in his gaze dried her mouth and throat so that she had to swallow hard to relieve them.
‘What makes you think I can tell you anything?’ he flung at her now, his accent deepening on the words in a way that confirmed her suspicions about his ancestry.
‘Mr Cordoba…’ the doctor put in quietly, warningly, but both Serena and her inquisitor ignored the interjection, their attention focused solely on each other.
‘Well, I presume I’m supposed to know you.’
‘Not at all!’
An arrogant little flick of his long-fingered hand dismissed her comment as nonsense.
‘On the contrary, you have never seen me before in your life.’
Well, that was a relief. She was sure that if she had come up against this man at any time in her past she would remember him—with bells on! She didn’t know how she had come to be here, in this hospital, had no idea what had happened to her, but she definitely felt easier knowing that this—what had the doctor called him?—this Mr Cordoba had played no part in her life before.
‘Then who are you?’
‘My name is Rafael Cordoba.’
Clearly he expected that that would mean something to her. Serena could only wish that it did. Right now she would be grateful for anything that would explain this Rafael Cordoba’s presence in her room. Anything to get him off her back, stop this unnerving string of questions.
No, if she was honest, what she really wanted was to be free of this restless, unsettled feeling that he created in her. Never before had she felt so intensely physically aware of anyone, and the decidedly carnal nature of the thoughts he sparked off in her brain was making it so very difficult to concentrate on anything else.
‘And you…?’ Serena turned to the woman at her bedside, a friendly, sympathetic face in the middle of this confusion and uncertainty.
‘I’m Dr Greene.’ To her relief the other woman stepped into the breach, answering the mute appeal of her patient’s deep brown eyes. ‘Do you feel up to answering some questions?’
‘I’ll try.’
It was a struggle to ignore Cordoba. Even though she forced herself to concentrate on the doctor, she could still see him out of the corner of her eye. His presence in the doorway was like a bruise at the back of her mind, dark and ominous.
‘Your name is Serena Martin?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And you are how old?’
‘Twenty-three.’
Slowly Serena started to relax. This was easier. Dr Greene’s quiet questions posed no problems, carried no threats. And the confusion in her thoughts that had so disturbed her at first was gradually starting to clear. She couldn’t have suffered any real ill-effects if her answers came as quickly and easily as this.
‘Can you tell me your address?’
‘Thirty-five Alban Road, Ryeton… What is it?’ Serena questioned sharply as the pen which had been writing busily suddenly stopped and the doctor turned surprised eyes on her face.
‘Ryeton in Yorkshire?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then what are you doing in London?’
It was that voice again. The one with the accent that lifted all the little hairs at the back of her neck, sent shivers skittering down her spine. She should have known that Cordoba couldn’t bring himself to stay quiet for long.
‘L-London? I—is that where we are?’
‘Where this hospital is,’ he put in curtly, ignoring the reproving glance Dr Greene turned in his direction. ‘Where you are, where the accident took place, where—’
‘That’s enough, Mr Cordoba!’
But Rafael Cordoba was clearly not at all concerned by the doctor’s intervention, his dark head coming up arrogantly, golden eyes flashing rejection of her reproof as he took a couple of swift, forceful strides into the room.
‘So what were you doing here, if you live in—?’
‘I don’t know!’ Serena had reached the end of her tether. Her head was aching and she felt exhausted, wrung out, as if she had just run a marathon. Frantically she shook her head, tears of weakness filling her eyes, blurring the sight of his darkly intent face. ‘Perhaps I’m on holiday. Perhaps…’
‘I said enough!’ Dr Greene was clearly not in any way over-awed or cowed. But then she continued on a softer, more conciliatory note, one that revealed she was far from under-impressed by this man’s forceful presence, ‘I have my patient to think of. Miss Martin is easily tired. She has been through something of an ordeal, the sort of thing that would set anyone back, let alone someone who was already rather rundown. She needs rest, and I must insist that she gets it.’
And that was obviously not what he wanted to hear, Serena thought hazily as she saw the flare of anger in those amazing eyes, the temper that fought against the strict control he imposed on it so that the beautiful mouth clamped into an uncompromisingly hard line.
In that moment it was as if she had known him for ever, so recognisable were the danger signs in his face. Whoever he was, he certainly wasn’t accustomed to being opposed by someone he obviously considered his inferior. His breath hissed in through his teeth as he prepared to speak.
But then, just as she had nerved herself for the explosion that she felt sure was about to break over the doctor’s unsuspecting head, he clearly reconsidered his position. That forceful jaw snapped shut on the angry words he had been about to utter, closing with such force that Serena actually heard the click of his teeth as they came together.
‘As you wish!’ he declared icily.
Satisfied that he was going to keep silent, at least for the moment, Dr Greene turned back to Serena.
‘Is there anyone we can contact for you? Your parents? Some other next of kin?’
‘No.’ Despondently she shook her head. ‘My parents are no longer alive. My mother died of cancer last year and my father had a fatal heart attack eighteen months before that. There’s no one.’
Once
