brief though it had been, had brought home to him just how much he had missed her.
Just to touch her, to feel the warmth and softness of her body in his arms, to inhale her scent, the mixture of some herbal shampoo on her hair, the light, tangy perfume that she wore, was enough to switch his senses into overdrive. But it was the deeper, more intensely personal, faintly musky aroma of her skin that kicked him deep in the gut, hardening him in an instant, setting off the sort of hot, clamouring demand that had him gritting his teeth against a betraying groan.
He wanted her so badly. He felt as if he had been starved of her for weeks, not just the couple of days he had been in the hospital.
If his brother hadn’t been here then he would never have let her go. Even as she slipped away, he would have grabbed her, hauled her hard up against him, pulled her face up to meet his own and taken her mouth with all the force of the hunger he was feeling. Kissing her until they were both out of their minds with need.
But Ramón was here, damn him. And so he had to smile and say as calmly as he could that he had missed her too. And yes, coffee would be nice. He was parched, could kill for a drink.
What he could really kill for was not coffee.
If he couldn’t have Cassandra, in his bed, naked underneath him, right now—then a glass of the finest crianza might come a reasonable second. But he could just see Cassandra’s frown if he suggested that. Not yet, she would say. You’re supposed to be taking things steady.
He would erupt if one more person told him to take things steady.
Oh, he knew why, of course. He understood. He even saw the sense in it—if he had to. But the trouble was that he didn’t feel steady, or sensible, or even calm, though he supposed he must look it on the surface to both his brother and his woman. Long experience of discussing business terms, negotiating deals, had taught him how to wear a controlled, affable mask when he needed to conceal his real feelings. But what he felt was a different matter.
What he felt right now was like a ticking bomb. He had lost a month out of his life in the blink of an eye and everyone seemed to expect him to just accept it, go with the flow, until things came back to him.
If they ever came back to him.
But everyone else knew what had happened in that month, while he’d had it wiped from his mind. He’d lived through four weeks that he didn’t remember and those four weeks…
Those four weeks—what? Hell, he didn’t know! He couldn’t even begin to guess. But if the way that Cassandra was behaving was anything to go by, then something had happened in that time. Because she sure as damnation wasn’t the same with him as the Cassandra he remembered.
That Cassandra hadn’t been edgy with him, elusive, impossible to pin down. She wouldn’t have come into his arms and then dodged out of them, flighty as a butterfly. And she hadn’t had those shadows in her eyes, the ones that lurked at the back of this woman’s eyes. The ones that darkened and clouded the bright blue of her gaze and made him feel that there was something he just didn’t understand.
And even that could be wrong.
Damn it, he didn’t know anything. He could be jumping to conclusions, imagining things. And the worst thing was that he couldn’t even ask! If he did, then no one would tell him because he was supposed to wait for it all to come back to him.
Wait for what to come back to him?
‘Joaquin?’
Cassandra was waiting by the sitting room door, watching him in obvious concern. Just how long had he been standing there, locked in his thoughts, unaware of anything else?
With an effort he dragged his attention back to the present.
‘Sorry. It’s just rather weird knowing that I’ve lived here for the past month and I can’t remember anything of it.’
‘It must be,’ she said, giving nothing away. ‘Why don’t you come and have this coffee? Ramón can’t stay long…’
The sooner his brother left the better, as far as he was concerned. With Ramón there, acting like a guard dog, watching every word of the conversation, there was going to be no chance of Cassandra letting anything slip. He couldn’t wait to be left alone with her and try to probe for answers. The time between now and then was going to seem far, far too long.
The time Joaquin’s brother had spent with them had passed far too quickly, Cassie told herself as she stood watching, waiting until Ramón’s car had totally disappeared from view before slowly shutting the door and going back, reluctantly, into the house.
She had tried everything she could to make him stay longer. Offering him another drink, food—anything to delay the time when, inevitably, he would leave and she would have to face the fact that she was now on her own with Joaquin and she had no idea at all how to behave.
She didn’t even know how to face him, was terrified of looking him in the eyes, wondering just what she would see. And even worse was the thought that he would look into her face and see…
And see what?
That there was so much that she was keeping from him?
Could he sense the secrets that came between them, like smoke hanging in the air? Would he not rest until he had winkled them out of her, picking away at her defences until she gave everything away?
Or would he just watch her and wait, knowing when she was not telling the truth, when she was dodging the issue, knowing that one day, inevitably, she wouldn’t be able to keep it all back any longer, and she would have to let it out.
And would that be worse than the distinct possibility that he could just wake up one morning—any morning—even tomorrow—and find that his memory had come back? That the missing month was all there, clear in his mind, in perfect recall. And what would she see in his face then? What sort of accusations would he throw at her—and would he even wait for the answers?
How could she live with the tension, the uncertainty, the fear? How could she get through each day not knowing what was going to happen next?
And what about the nights?
That was something she just wasn’t ready to face until she felt a lot braver, and had managed to drag together some sort of composure. So she deliberately avoided going back into the room where she knew Joaquin was waiting for her, heading instead for the kitchen, finding herself an endless string of unimportant and largely unnecessary tasks to keep her occupied. She washed up the coffee mugs by hand instead of simply putting them in the dishwasher, washed and sliced a salad to go with their evening meal, wiped every possible surface within reach, set about mopping the floor…
‘Are you trying to avoid me?’
Joaquin’s voice, mild enough but with an edge that might have been curiosity, or perhaps something else, came to her from the open door, making her jump in nervous shock.
He was standing in the doorway, dark and, to her already nervous mind, disturbingly dangerous. The dark bruise that had spread across his forehead was already turning into different colours, deep burgundy at the centre, yellow at the edges like some malign sunset, adding to the impression of menace.
‘Avoid?
