everything had changed.
‘So—’ Her voice cracked hoarsely and she had to slick her tongue over her dry lips in order to moisten them, swallowing hard before she could go on. ‘So you remember nothing about the accident—about that night.’
‘Not a thing.’
Frowning darkly, Joaquin raked both his hands through his hair in a gesture that revealed the unsettled state of his thoughts much better than any words.
‘Nada. I don’t even know what I—we—were doing at Ramón’s. Why were we there?’
‘Why…?’
Why were we there? Cassie’s thoughts spun in panic as she struggled to think of some way to answer him. But what could she say that wouldn’t reveal the truth? How could she explain that she had been living with Ramón without arousing once again the savage, furious jealousy that had sent Joaquin raging out of the apartment and into the rain that night?
‘I—you…’
‘The doctors say we mustn’t tell you anything.’
It was Ramón’s voice that cut in sharply. He had been standing outside in the corridor, talking to the specialist who had been treating Joaquin, and luckily he came into the room just at this moment.
‘Nothing at all,’ he went on, after one swift, warning glance into Cassie’s troubled face. ‘They say that we mustn’t push anything or try to make you remember. That we have to leave it all to come back in its own time. Or not at all.’
‘And what if it is not at all?’ Joaquin growled, obviously not happy about this.
‘Then we’ll deal with that when it comes to it,’ his brother assured him breezily. ‘But they seem pretty certain that it won’t. A thump on the head like the one you suffered was bound to scramble your brains just a bit. You need to take things steady, wait for everything to settle back down again. And not get in a mood about things or you could face a setback.’
‘I’m not a baby.’ Joaquin scowled. Cassie could guess at the sort of thoughts that were going through his head. An unfailingly strong and healthy man, he had clearly been shaken by finding himself in hospital, and he obviously hated the restrictions that his accident had placed on him, even if for just a few days.
‘Give it time,’ she said, trying to soothe him. ‘It’s only been a couple of days so far. Who knows what difference a week might make?’
Who knows? Cassie echoed to herself, not knowing whether it was something she should hope for or dread.
How was she supposed to act with Joaquin now? He might not remember all that had happened in that missing month—but she couldn’t forget a thing. He thought that they were still happy together, that nothing had come between them. He certainly didn’t suspect her of having an affair with his half-brother—at least not now!
But what would happen when he did remember? When he realised that that smile, that ‘Stay’, had been directed at that other Cassie, the one who no longer existed in his buried memories and heart.
She might have a reprieve now. A chance to go back to how it had once been. A chance to live once more in harmony and happiness with Joaquin, but there was no way it could last. Some time, inevitably, Joaquin’s thoughts would clear, and he would remember everything and then they would be right back where they had been on that dreadful night in the moments before he had had his accident.
‘All right,’ Joaquin conceded unwillingly. ‘If that’s what the doctors advise, then I suppose I’ll have to go along with it. Anything, so long as they let me out of this place. And they’ve said I can go home.’
‘But only if you have someone who will look after you,’ Cassie put in unthinkingly, wishing she’d bitten her tongue when she saw Joaquin’s look of surprise.
‘Well, of course I’ll have someone to look after me. I’ll have you.’
‘I—’
Cassie caught Ramón’s warning glance, and hastily adjusted what she had been about to say.
‘Of course,’ she managed uneasily, thinking of the isolation of the big house in the country, of herself and Joaquin alone there together through the long days… the nights.
‘You could both come home to us if you’d prefer,’ Mercedes put in. ‘I’m sure Papá would be delighted to have you there, and your room is empty.’
Cassie glanced automatically at Joaquin’s face, seeing the determined ‘No way!’ expression that was stamped onto his hard features. But perhaps it might not be such a bad idea. There would be plenty of other people around to distract Joaquin, Mercedes and his father to talk to…
But then she hastily rethought.
On the few occasions they had visited Joaquin’s father and sister in the past, Juan Alcolar had proved remarkably and unexpectedly tolerant about the fact that she and his son were a couple. They had always been given a room together, always the same one. And so now she knew only too well that that was the room Mercedes was referring to as ‘your room’.
In his father’s house they would automatically be expected to share a bedroom—and a bed. And that was something she didn’t feel at all happy about right now.
Happy? The thought had all the nerves in her stomach tying themselves in knots.
At the finca, there was at least plenty of space—lots of bedrooms. She could make up some excuse—she’d have to—she couldn’t tell Joaquin why she wouldn’t share his bed.
‘We’ll go home,’ she said, praying that the terrible, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach hadn’t been echoed in the sound of her voice.
Obviously not, because Joaquin’s wide, brilliant grin, missing from his face for so long, resurfaced at her words and she was bathed in its warmth. For a moment she gloried in the sensation, but then a double whammy of realisation hit her hard in the stomach, driving all the air from her body in a faint gasp of horror.
‘Is something wrong?’
Joaquin had caught the sound, sparking his curiosity.
‘N-no—it’s just that I—I remembered…’
‘Remembered what?’
Cassie’s mind went blank with panic. How could she say that she had just remembered how long it had in fact been since she had seen that smile on Joaquin’s face? Almost as far back as the night of Mercedes’ party, which was the point at which Joaquin’s memories stopped. It was after that that he had started drifting away from her, losing the warm closeness they had shared and becoming colder, more distant with each day that had passed. Coupled with that had come the realisation of how little Joaquin actually meant that smile, did he but know it. When his memory returned, then all the warmth of it would fade from his face, his handsome features setting taut into a cold animosity, his eyes taking on the gleam of polished jet, opaque and totally impenetrable.
‘I remembered…’
‘That you have some things you’ll need to collect from
