half-term break is over tomorrow and I’ll be catching the train back to school anyway,’ her sister pointed out. ‘I hope I can manage that for myself. I’m seventeen, Hilly.’
Embarrassed by that reminder, Hilary gave the sister she adored an emotional hug.
With hindsight, she could only marvel at the difference that time and Roel’s financial rescue package had made to both their lives. She owed Roel so much. In truth, she owed him a debt she could never repay!
Four years ago, the sisters had been living in a dingy flat on a crime-ridden council estate and life had been bleak. Emma had always been clever and Hilary had been determined to ensure that the tragic early death of their parents did not prevent the younger girl from achieving her full academic potential. Hilary had been devastated by a guilty sense of failure when her kid sister had fallen in with the wrong company and started playing truant from school. At the time, Hilary had been working long hours as a junior stylist. She had been in no position to afford either a move to a better area or to spend more time supervising a rebellious teenager.
Roel’s generosity had turned their lives around. She hadn’t wanted to accept his money but she had realised that that money would give her the best possible chance of setting her little sister back on the straight and narrow path again. She had spent only what it took to set up her own hairdressing business in the far from fashionable London suburb of Hounslow. Taking into account Emma’s needs at the time, Hilary believed that she had made the right decision. Only, sometimes, she would still find herself wondering if Roel would have lowered his guard, respected her more and even retained contact with her had she stuck to her original intention of simply marrying him and refusing any reward whatsoever.
After all, she had meant to marry him in the same guise as that of a friend doing him a favour. Besotted beyond belief as she had been with Roel, a guy who had hardly seemed to know that she was alive, she would have done almost anything to please or impress him. But sadly, once she had succumbed to the lure of allowing his wealth to solve her problems, once she had taken his money, she had changed everything between them, she conceded unhappily.
‘I prefer to pay for services rendered,’ Roel had drawled and he had made her feel horribly like a hooker. ‘That way there’s no misunderstanding.’
Mid-morning the following day, Dr Lerther strove to conceal his surprise when his secretary ushered in Roel Sabatino’s wife, Hilary. The tiny blonde woman whose anxiety was writ large in her bright grey eyes was in no way what he had expected.
‘I did try to phone before I left the UK but the operator couldn’t find the number for this place,’ Hilary confided in an explanatory rush.
She was very nervous. The last word in opulence, the hospital was like no other she had ever entered and she had had to advance considerable evidence of her identity before she’d even been allowed in. Her increasingly desperate requests just for word of Roel’s condition had been repeatedly met with polite but steely blankness. Baulked of her expectation that Roel’s aunt, Bautista, would be waiting to greet her and smooth her passage, she had been forced to introduce herself as Roel Sabatino’s wife. Having done so, she felt horribly dishonest but she was convinced that were she to tell the truth about their marriage, she would not even be allowed to visit Roel.
‘This is a private clinic and as our patients demand discretion and security, the number is not freely available.’ The grey-haired older man extended his hand. ‘I’m relieved that you were able to get here so quickly—’
Reading dire meaning into that assurance, Hilary turned pale as milk and gasped, ‘Roel?’
‘I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to worry you. Physically, aside of a severe headache, your husband is suffering from nothing more than a few bruises.’ With a soothing smile the consultant swept her across his luxurious office into a seat. ‘However, his memory has not been so fortunate.’
The worst of her apprehension set to rest and weak with relief, Hilary sank down into the armchair and then looked puzzled. ‘His…er…memory?’
‘Mr Sabatino suffered a blow to the head and he was unconscious for some hours. A degree of disorientation is not unusual after such an episode…unfortunately, in this case, there seems to be some temporary impairment of the memory system.’
Alerted by the older man’s air of gravity, Hilary had become very still. ‘Meaning?’ she pressed, dry-mouthed.
‘A standard examination after he first recovered consciousness at the hospital revealed a discrepancy in his perception of dates—’
‘Dates?’ Hilary queried again.
‘Roel’s memory has misplaced what I estimate to be the past five years of his life. He himself was unaware that there was a problem until it was pointed out to him. He is fully in control of every aspect of his past as it was then, but all events since that time are a closed book to him.’
Hilary stared back at the older man in shaken disbelief. ‘Five whole…years? Are you certain of this?’
‘Of course. Mr Sabatino has no memory of the car crash either.’
‘But why has this happened to him?’ Hilary asked worriedly.
‘It is not that unusual for there to be a degree of memory loss as a result of a head injury but as a rule only very small spaces of time are involved. It is called retrograde amnesia. Occasionally emotional trauma or even stress may lead to such an episode but I think we may discount that possibility in this particular case,’ Dr Lerther opined with confidence. ‘It is almost certainly a temporary condition and within hours or even days what has been forgotten will be recalled either in parts or, indeed, all at once.’
‘How is Roel taking this?’ Hilary asked weakly.
‘Once your husband realised how much time his mind has effectively omitted from his recollection he was very shocked.’
‘I bet…’ Hilary was struggling to imagine how Roel, who took for granted that he should be one hundred per cent in control of himself and everything around him, would cope with a huge big spanner being thrown in the works.
‘Prior to that revelation, Mr Sabatino was on the brink of ignoring all medical advice and returning to his office,’ Dr Lerther admitted ruefully. ‘For a man of such strong character and intellect, indeed a man accustomed to wielding considerable power, an inexplicable event may be a very frustrating challenge to accept.’
An expression of profound dismay had set Hilary’s mobile features as she worked out the ramifications of the five years that the older man had chosen to describe as being simply, ‘misplaced’. ‘For goodness’ sake…Roel won’t even remember me!’
‘I was leading up to that point,’ the consultant asserted in a bracing tone. ‘But I’m most relieved that you’re here to give Mr Sabatino the support he needs to deal with this situation—’
Her brow had pleated. ‘Isn’t Roel’s aunt Bautista here too?’
‘I understand that the lady left the country this morning to attend a pressing social engagement,’ Dr Lerther advanced.
Astonished by that information, Hilary swallowed hard on an exclamation. So much for Auntie Bautista! Evidently there was little family affection to hope for from that quarter. Her own head was swimming with a mess of conflicting promptings. At first reassured by
