against the strength and width of the hard wall of the man’s chest. His small, vulnerable form seemed so much tinier, so delicate when contrasted with the arms that enclosed him, the long-fingered hand that curved lovingly around the delicate skull, supporting the tiny head.
Immediately all the loneliness and apprehension that had gripped her just before Rafael’s arrival flooded back with a vengeance.
This was why, in spite of her initial fear of him, she had been so glad to see Rafael when he had appeared in her room on the second day after she had regained consciousness. No one else was likely to visit. There was no one she could turn to who could help her obtain the small necessities that would make her stay in hospital that bit more comfortable.
And Rafael hadn’t needed to be asked. In fact he had arrived that first day with flowers, fruit, and a bag containing a selection of toiletries, all of the most luxurious brands, more expensive than anything she had ever been able to provide for herself. He had even thought to bring a couple of new nightdresses, guessing at her size with an accuracy that had frankly astonished and unnerved her. It spoke of an intimate knowledge of the female body that she found she didn’t want to enquire into too closely.
‘Keep them!’ he had declared dismissively when she had protested at his generosity. ‘They’re only trifles—I can easily afford them.’
But just that morning she had learned that the nightdresses and toiletries were only part of it, that his generosity went much further than she had ever imagined. And that was something she could not let go unchallenged.
‘Is it true that you have been paying all my bills?’
Rafael’s proud head came up sharply, black brows drawing together over the tawny eyes that were suddenly wary, as if he had something he very definitely wanted to conceal.
‘Who told you that?’ he demanded in a voice that promised retribution on the person responsible just as soon as he found out.
‘Oh, come on, Mr Cordoba!’ Serena protested. ‘I may have had an accident—a knock on the head—but I’ve not completely lost my mind!’
‘I thought we agreed on Rafael,’ he inserted coolly, in an obvious attempt to distract her from her line of questioning.
‘We agreed on nothing! You instructed me to use your name, told me not to worry my pretty little head about anything…’
And, weak and vulnerable, she had done just that. She had accepted his presence in the hospital because the medical staff did, hadn’t persisted with the questions that had been so subtly but effectively blocked because with her head still aching and her thoughts still whirling in confusion it was easier not to. She had simply assumed that Rafael Cordoba had some part in the time she couldn’t remember, the moments just before or just after the accident, and so hadn’t pressed the matter.
But not now. Now she couldn’t believe that she had been so foolish, so blindly, stupidly naïve. Now she wanted some answers.
‘And it wasn’t just a bang on the head,’ Rafael continued imperturbably, moving to lay the baby back in his carrycot. ‘You were very much out of it there for a while, and you were lucky to get away with only the injuries you had.’
‘You don’t have to tell me that!’ Serena retorted swiftly.
She still felt cold inside just to recall the moment when, helped by a nurse, she had first managed to struggle out of her hospital regulation gown and into one of the new, pretty cotton ones Rafael had provided for her. She had been shocked and horrified to see the bruising that covered so much of her body, the scratches and cuts that marred the whiteness of her skin.
And that bruising had been on her face as well, when she had finally nerved herself to look in a mirror. Patched and ugly, in shades that blended from dark purple to a nasty, fading yellow, it had mottled her forehead and all down the right side of her cheek. It was the darkest, most obviously damaged area, just above her eye, that had made her shudder to think just how lightly she had escaped and what might have happened.
‘But I’m feeling better now, and I’m able to think straight again. For a start, I’m in a private ward. And I’d have to be all sorts of a fool to think that the food I’m getting, the nursing care, the comfort that’s been provided is the same as I’d be getting if I had just been taken in as ordinary Serena Martin, brought in unconscious off the street, with no one to help her. So I asked a few questions…’
That didn’t please him at all. It was stamped all over his autocratic face, etched into every arrogant line of bone and muscle. And the way his sensual mouth tightened, obviously clamping down on some angry response, dried her throat uncomfortably so that she had to force herself to continue.
‘I was told that I was receiving private medical care, and that you were footing the bill. Is this true?’
For the space of several taut and uncomfortable seconds, it looked as if he wasn’t going to answer her. But then a disdainfully curt nod of his dark head admitted the truth.
‘But why? Why should you, a complete stranger, do all this for me? That is, if you are the stranger you said you were.’
‘And why the devil would I lie to you?’
Scorn blazed in his eyes, searing over her skin until she felt as if it had scoured off a much-needed protective layer. Instinctively she folded her arms around herself, suddenly feeling over-exposed.
Temporarily she had managed to blot out the fact that she was actually in a bedroom, however institutionalised, in her nightclothes, while this darkly devastating man was fully dressed beside her. But that look had ripped away the shield she had built around her.
‘I—I don’t know. I can’t even begin to imagine. You say I’d never met you before, and yet you do so much for me.’
‘I told you I could afford it.’
‘I know what you told me!’
Serena flung out her arms in a wild gesture of rejection of his response, heedless of the way it made the slightly too large neckline of her nightdress gape, revealing the rich curves of her breasts.
‘It’s what you’re not saying that’s bothering me! I don’t need to know that you’re some wildly rich international banker or that the cost of my stay here is just chickenfeed to someone with your millions. I want to know exactly why you’re involved in all this—and don’t you dare say, All what?’ she flung at him as he drew breath sharply, prior, she was sure, to doing just that.
In his turn, Rafael lifted his own hands in a gesture that surprised her by its apparent mood of concession. But the wry twist to his mouth, the distinct glint in his eyes, spoke of something else entirely.
‘You are obviously feeling much better,’ he murmured dryly. ‘But the doctor believes…’
‘Yes, I know that the doctor believes it’s better to wait. That she wants me to remember on my own. But I’m not remembering, and it’s doing my head in… It’s making me feel worse, even more confused,’ she amended hastily as he frowned his confusion, even his near-perfect grasp of English incapable of following the slang phrase. ‘I feel like I’m going out of my mind. I’m frightened—’
Her voice broke unevenly on the last word, hot tears burning in her eyes, making them glisten brilliantly as she
