But then he laughed. A short, sharp sound, devoid of any humour. ‘Oh, that’s very good! Is the loss of memory permanent? Or was it something you dreamed up when you realised I was the defending advocate? Because, believe me, it was as much a surprise for me in that court just now as it was for you.’
‘Surprise?’ She couldn’t understand what he was talking about.
‘Or perhaps that was the intention?’ he suggested, cutting across her mind-spinning confusion. ‘One final little advantage stroke before you finally agreed to face up to facts.’
‘Facts? What facts?’ she demanded, still shaking her head.
‘You know very well what I mean. Why did you take off the way you did that day? Without a word, without even the courtesy of an explanation! Where did you go? Why were you so determined never to be found?’
‘I’m sorry…’ she said again, out of confusion rather than apology. She put her hand to her forehead, felt the dull ache that throbbed between her temples.
‘I just never dreamt it was so abhorrent to you that you’d actually run away.’
‘Run away?’ From what? Her mind battled in vain for an answer, and through what seemed like a thickening haze came up with nothing except the stirrings of an inexplicable unease. ‘Are you sure you haven’t made a mistake?’ she said shakily.
‘A mistake?’ He laughed again, even more harshly than before. ‘Oh, I made a mistake all right! For goodness’ sake, Sanchia! Credit me with some intelligence. How long are you going to keep this up?’
‘Keep what up?’ she challenged, wondering if it was his daunting anger or something else—something nagging at her memory—that was making her feel vulnerable and afraid. ‘The fact that I don’t know what you’re talking about—don’t even know who you are?’
‘For pity’s sake!’ He slapped his forehead with his hand, his head turning sharply so that his profile was exposed to her in all its hard austerity. What did the girl think she was playing at?
Sanchia’s head hurt from the effort of trying to remember, her thoughts leaping ahead, making connections, blind assumptions. He was a barrister. She had never mixed with barristers, had she? Why would she have had any dealings with one? Unless…
‘Was I a witness, or something? Is that why I ran away?’
‘A witness?’ Something flared in the penetrating grey eyes as he turned back to glare at her with stark incredulity. His teeth were clenched, as though he was doing his level best to hold on to what remained of a frighteningly rigid control. ‘No, my dear girl, you weren’t a witness. And I don’t think I need tell you what I do with those who imagine they can fob me off with lies and generally make an idiot out of me—even with such a first-class performance as you’re giving now.’
He would tear them apart.
Though she didn’t know him, she knew that much, and she shivered, remembering what she had overheard someone saying about him earlier.
Coming from a family involved in investment and property, he had inherited a fortune on his father’s death—which he was well on the way to doubling. Even without the vast professional fees he could command, he didn’t need to work. But perhaps he just liked wielding power over people, Sanchia thought distractedly, because apparently he was known in court circles as being triple ‘R’-rated. Rich, ruthless and respected. So ruthless that anyone who came up against him who wasn’t telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, didn’t stand a chance.
Now the dangerous softness with which he had spoken sent a violent shudder through her, making her temples pulse with a throbbing pressure. Something stirred in the recesses of her consciousness, a heavy drawn curtain whose dark folds refused to part, no matter how frantically she searched for daylight, for freedom, for clarity.
‘I’m not giving any performance!’ An eternal frustration brought her own anger welling up inside of her. ‘I’ve already told you! I don’t know what you’re talking about—or who you are! You say you know me, but I can’t remember you! I had an accident and lost my memory. I can’t remember you—or anything about you! I can’t remember a thing!’
She dropped her head into her hands, groaning as a wave of nausea washed over her. Through the fog of her consciousness she battled to find the truth, the effort making her head feel as though it were splitting in two.
‘Sanchia?’ He had dropped down on his haunches in front of her. Through the screen of her fingers she could see the pinstriped trousers pulling over his bunched thighs, saw how his robe pooled on the floor behind him like a dark cloak.
‘My God…’ His tone was strung with disbelief and his face was etched with incredulity as he caught her hands, drawing them down in the determined strength of his. ‘If I thought for one moment that you were serious…’
‘Of course I’m serious!’ she breathed, meeting his eyes on the level. They were cold and glittering and clear. But the intimacy of those hard hands clasping hers caused a sudden quickening of her blood, so that finding herself the focus of such a man made her pull back as though from a tremendous shock. ‘Why would I want to lie?’
From the furrow that appeared between his eyes they had registered that disconcerted little action. As they would register everything…
‘Do you want to tell me about it?’
Sanchia hesitated. He was a stranger to her, and yet his compelling authority forced her to respond. ‘I had an accident. When I was in Northern Ireland.’
‘Ireland?’ He sounded surprised, but he let her go on.
‘I stepped out in front of a car and was knocked unconscious. When I came to I couldn’t remember a thing. Not what had happened, where I lived, or who I was. Gradually things began to come back. Things further back in the past. I remember my parents. When they died. Where I was. I remember everything until my late teens. But after that some things remain hazy.’ No, not just hazy, she thought. Totally obliterated. ‘Sometimes things just don’t tie up. Like walking in here today…’
‘What about walking in here today?’ Restrained urgency over-laid the deep tones.
‘Sometimes I feel as though I’ve done things before, though I know I couldn’t have.’
‘How do you know you couldn’t have done them?’
‘I just know,’ she answered lamely. ‘There’s a portion of my life I can’t recall, but I can’t have done anything that important or significant.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I’m sure I’d remember it if I had. It’s just a matter of a year or so. Two, maybe. Like where I was before the accident, what I was doing. I’ve never been able to find the link.’
‘How long were you in Ireland?’
A slender shoulder lifted beneath the fluid jacket of her trouser suit. ‘I’m not really sure. I think I’d just moved there before the accident, because I was still in a bed and breakfast. Apparently I’d told the landlady I was an orphan and totally foot-loose and fancy-free, and that I was using a post office box address until I got myself some permanent digs.’
‘How
