Mediterranean Men & Marriage: The Italian's Forgotten Baby / The Sicilian's Bride / Hired: The Italian's Bride

Chapter Four

MARCO SAT IN THE HOTEL BAR at a beautiful old mahogany table overlooking a wide veranda. He was nursing a whiskey and brooding over the stunning sunset that was spreading its orange and gold effects over the peaceful ocean. The place itself had strongly nostalgic vibes. It gave off the sense of a time fifty years past when men really could get lost and start their lives over in the South Seas.

He wasn’t having a lot of luck in igniting his own memories. He’d looked through the old-fashioned hotel register for past entries and, sure enough, there was the name Marco Smith, clear as day. What had he been thinking? The counter attendant didn’t know anything about it. When he’d asked him, all he’d gotten in return was a smile and a shrug.

He’d had a bit more luck with the waiter here in the bar. A young, rakish sort, he looked like a college kid making a little money with a summer job in the tropics.

“Do you remember me?” he’d asked him curiously.

“Sure. I remember you. You were here a few weeks ago. You asked me some stuff about sailing conditions around here.”

“Sounds about right,” Marco murmured softly. Then his gaze sharpened. “Did I hang around here a lot? In the bar, I mean.”

“You don’t remember?” He grinned. “Dude, why would you? You were mostly heading out for picnics with Shayna. That’s the way I remember it. And the rest of us were feeling a little envious, I must admit. She usually doesn’t fraternize, if you know what I mean.”

He knew exactly what the young man meant, but that wasn’t the point. It was more confirmation that he really had been here, and that he had been with Shayna a lot of the time. No matter how she tried to shade it now, he knew she could help him if she wanted to. But the waiter was treating it like a joke and he knew he wasn’t going to get anything else relevant out of him.

No one took anything very seriously here on the island, and everyone took everything very slowly. He supposed it had something to do with the humidity and the heat, but it was going to drive him mad in short order if he didn’t learn to ignore it.

He liked things to happen fast. He needed to find his plans and he needed to find them now. Looking down, he saw that his fingers had tightened on his glass until the knuckles were white. Carefully, deliberately, he made them relax.

And then he thought about Shayna. It had been a long time since he’d felt this sort of tug toward a woman. Over the past few years, he’d thrown all his passion into designing, into making racing yachts as beautiful and as fast as possible. And it had paid off for him. He was at the top of his game. Or at least he had been before the accident. And in his world, competition was everything. If you weren’t at the top, you were falling behind someone else. He was determined not to let that happen to him.

Women usually didn’t come into the picture. They only complicated things. As soon as they got your attention, they wanted to dominate it, and suddenly there was no room for anything but them. He’d been there. He wasn’t going there again. Life was too short.

But Shayna…

Not only was she a beautiful young woman, there was something strangely compelling about her. It was difficult to know how to treat her. He wasn’t sure what sort of relationship they’d had. He didn’t know what they’d done together, what sort of interplay they had worked out between them—what they’d decided, what they’d left for later, what they’d agreed to leave out completely. It was very odd having this chunk of his life missing. It was hard to go on without knowing where those two weeks had left him. The worst was knowing what to say to Shayna. He felt as if he were walking on quicksand there.

One thing was sure, as far as his relationship with her was concerned. He was going to have to find out what the fight on the last day of his stay had been about—just exactly what she thought he should apologize for. And she was probably the only one who could tell him.

A sense of movement made him glance up into the long mirror over the bottle-filled counter, and there she was, coming down the steps behind him into the bar area. He sat watching her with pleasure as she hesitated, looked around the room, caught sight of him and started his way. She had her hair swept up in an old-fashioned do from the World War II era. She looked stunning in a halter dress accented by a lacy throw balanced artfully at her shoulders and a wide skirt that danced around her knees as she walked. And those legs! There was no getting around it—the woman was a knockout. He could feel a slow grin starting as he met her gaze in the mirror and he had no intention of dousing it. She was playing right into his current sentimental fantasy.

She stopped right behind him, placed one hand on her hip and struck a pose as he kept watching in the mirror.

“Of all the wine spritzer bars in all the South Pacific,” she said while he turned slowly to face her, “why did you have to turn up in mine?”

He looked up and smiled, then swallowed quickly and tried to go into Humphrey Bogart mode to fit in with her scenario, putting on a world-weary attitude.

“I make it a habit to turn up in all the worst places.”

She shrugged one shoulder, looking down at him in what she obviously hoped was a sassy 1940s’ manner and flipped her hair back flirtatiously. “What’s a girl have to do to get a drink around here?”

He shrugged. “You could try a whistle.” A devilish light was gleaming from his dark eyes. “You know how to whistle, don’t you?”

Her own eyes flashed and he wasn’t sure at first if it was from annoyance or amusement.

“Spare me the mercy lessons,” she said, sinking into the chair across from him. Now he could see that her eyes were sparkling with laughter, but she was doing an admirable job of keeping a straight face. “And get me a Shirley Temple, will ya?”

“For a classy dame like you? Anything.” He signaled the waiter.

“Anything?” she responded with a quick smile. “Wow. If I’d known it would be this easy, I’d have tried this years ago.”

“It’s never too late,” he said smoothly.

Their gazes met and they both grinned, and suddenly there was a bond between them that hadn’t been there before. She glanced at his mouth, remembered how sweet and silky his kiss had been, and felt herself flushing. Just thinking of it made her ache with a dusky longing that she knew she had to suppress as quickly as possible.

“So you’ve decided to come clean, have you?” he said, not noticing her discomfort. “I have to admire your courage.”

“Admire away, big boy,” she said tartly. “I deserve it.”

“You most certainly do,” he agreed.

She laughed softly, abandoning the playacting at last. “Don’t you sometimes wish you’d lived in the first half of the last century?” she said. “They seemed to have so much more heart in those days.”

“It only looks that way from a distance,” he responded cynically. “They had the same problems then that we do now.”

The waiter appeared to take their order.

“Hey, Shayna,” he whispered, giving her the eye as he presented himself. “Lookin’ good, girl.”

“Thanks, Bobby,” she said casually.

Marco narrowly avoided rolling his eyes before ordering her a soft drink and himself another whiskey. His natural male flare for competition kicked in without delay.

“An admirer of yours?” he asked once Bobby had withdrawn.

Shayna looked up, surprised. “Not really. He’s just a kid.”

“Have you ever dated him?” he asked, watching her reaction.

She gave him a look he might have considered scathing under other circumstances. “I don’t date anyone,” she said coolly.

But Marco knew she’d time to spend with him when he was here before; at least, that was the picture he got from what others told him. A strong sense of possession rose in him. He fought it back. Where in hell had he got the idea that she was supposed to be his?

An image formed in his head. A memory? Soft skin that smelled of orange blossoms, a pristine sculptured hairline, a whisper that lingered, his lips on the long curve of a neck, a warm hand sliding inside his shirt. Just as quickly as it came to him, it faded again, but it left behind a tingle of excitement. He drew in a sharp breath and steadied himself. He had to avoid this sort of thing. He was here to find his plans, not to reignite what he assumed must have been a romance.

“I take it you’ve decided to help me after all?” he noted, looking at her.

“I’ve decided to try,” she said. “I figure two heads are better than one.”

He nodded. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

She smiled, glancing at him and then away again. If he knew her motivation for changing her mind, would he still appreciate it? Maybe not. But that didn’t really matter. She was only here to make sure he left the island as soon as possible—and before he remembered who she was or why he’d been here in the first place.

“Okay Mr. Marco Smith,” she said with a quick smirk. “What do we do first?”

“The first thing I want you to do,” Marco said, gazing at her levelly, “is to tell me who you really are.”

Shayna looked up, her eyes wide and startled. “Wh-what do you mean?” she asked quickly.

Her overreaction surprised him and made him wonder, for just a moment, what she was expecting. But he went on and very soon forgot about it.

“I’ve been sitting here enjoying the sunset and musing over this strange situation.”

Bobby brought the drinks and she reached for hers as though it were a lifeline.

“What strange situation?” she murmured, wishing he would change the subject.

“Your strange situation.”

“Oh.” She took a sip of her drink put it down again, back in control. “Why don’t you explain what you mean?” she asked him, using a steady look to cover up her unease.

He sat back and studied her from under lowered lashes. “I want to know why a woman like you would be here on her own in these islands, so far from the hope of finding…oh, say a high-end department store or a five-star restaurant. It occurred to me that it just doesn’t make any sense.” He raised one dark eyebrow cynically. “What’s the story, Shayna?”

Funny, but he’d never asked her that question before. But then, he’d known who she was then—and probably guessed why she was here. He hadn’t felt the need to probe for information. Far be it from her to help him out with his personal questions. She met his gaze steadily and answered with calm deliberation.

“Here in the islands it’s okay to ask a question like that. Some people are happy to tell you all about their background. But if someone doesn’t respond, well, right away, you leave them alone. You don’t push.”

His face changed as he realized she was challenging him. “You’re telling me to back off.”

She blinked at him calmly. “Exactly.”

He set his jaw. “I don’t want to.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, gazes locked. She knew she couldn’t do this for long. Her own feelings were going to show.

Breaking away from his hard dark eyes, she made an elaborate show of sighing. “I can understand that you might feel that way, Marco. However, I came here to talk about you and your missing plans. My unusual choices in life aren’t under consideration at the moment. Let’s just leave me out of it.”

He stared at her for a few more beats before he shrugged. “As you wish,” he said, but his gaze sharpened as he looked at her and she could tell that her avoidance only increased his interest.

“Okay,” she countered. “Here’s what I want to know from you.” She leaned forward. “What’s so special about these design plans? Why can’t you just re-create what you did before?”

He half laughed, scoffing at the question. “If I can’t remember what I did, how can I re-create anything?”

She threw out her hands. “But if you can’t remember that, how do you know you produced something of genius in the first place?”

He stared at her for a moment, said something rude in Italian, then gave an extravagant shrug. “I just know.”

She shook her head, as though despairing of him, and his face lost some of its hardness as he smiled at her. “And anyway, if I could remember what was on those plans, I wouldn’t need them so badly, now would I?”

“You are maddening,” she pronounced, taking a long sip of her drink and giving him a mock glare over the rim of the glass. “But then, they do say genius is a form of insanity, don’t they?”

He shook his head as though she were a trial, but a cute one. “All right, Shayna, I’ll try to explain to you. I’ve been designing sailing ships all my life. It is my life. But I’ve only been getting major international recognition over the last few years.”

She nodded. “I’m sure you deserve it,” she murmured.

“I do,” he said boldly. “I’ve made some important innovations. The people I work for are very rich and they don’t throw their money away on useless developments. They want to win races. They hire me to help them do that.”

“I understand.”

“But I’m not the only one. There are a hundred designers who would like to take my place. Many of them work night and day, trying to beat me to the punch on new ideas, trying to win. You understand?”

“Of course.”

“And some even cheat.”

She waved a hand in the air. “That goes without saying.”

He nodded. “Lately there is a man who is following closely in my footsteps. Salvo Ricktorre is very good, and he’s always just one step behind me.” He made a very Italian gesture with his hands. “I can feel his breath on my neck. He seems to come up with ideas very similar to mine very soon after I have them. I’ve developed the habit of keeping my sketches and blueprints in very secure places, just to be sure he isn’t seeing them.”

She nodded approvingly. “That sounds like a wise thing to do.”

“Yes. So when my plans go missing, I can’t help but wonder if he has something to do with it.”

That garnered a small frown, but she still said, “Understandable.”

He sat back and looked pleased that she concurred. “Of course.”

She nodded slowly. He was leaving something out. Should she bring it up? Should she mention her father? It might be a good way to smoke him out—if he was giving her a snow job. And if he was on the level—well, that would be obvious, wouldn’t it?

She bit her lip nervously. It was a risk. If he was on the level, and he really had forgotten everything from those two weeks, bringing up her father’s name and then looking him straight in the eye might just jog his memory in ways she wasn’t going to be happy with. Still she almost felt it had to be done. Taking in a deep breath, she prepared to do it.

“Who are you working for right now?” she asked, her heart in her throat as she said the words.

“Right now?” He hesitated, then shrugged and went on. “My most important client is a man named Glendenning Hudson. You may have heard of him.”

She nodded. Her mouth was so dry, she wasn’t sure if she could form words. She forced herself to meet his gaze and then she waited, wondering. Would he remember now?

“He’s crazy, of course,” Marco went on blandly. “Most of these superwealthy people are. But they want the best and if you don’t give it to them, they go to someone who will.”

She nodded again. She certainly agreed that he was “crazy.” That was the whole point.

“Glendenning Hudson,” she said slowly, turning her head but watching him out of the corner of her eye. “Didn’t…didn’t he have a daughter?”

She turned back to face him, her heart beating so hard she was sure he must hear it. It took all her strength to keep from letting him hear how rapid her breathing was now.

He frowned, as though trying to remember. “I think so. Some little party girl who’s the apple of his eye, as I remember. One of those rich girls who grow up too fast and crash and burn too early.”

“Just one of many, huh?” she said a bit breathlessly. “Not particularly memorable.”

“No.” He made a face and shook his head. “I think I saw her once. Someone pointed her out at a restaurant. But I can’t recall anything much about her, actually.”

“Not your type?”

“My type?” He laughed as though it were not even worth considering. “Not at all. I’m not a teenager anymore. I have other things on my mind.”

Despite everything, that stung.

“So only immature boys would be interested in a girl like…” She paused for a moment, then forced herself to say the name she used to use. “Summer Hudson.”

She searched his eyes quickly, but there was nothing to indicate that he had any idea what she was talking about.

“No,” he said casually, leaning back and stretching. “Girls like that spend too much time in rehab to be interesting,” he added.

His words cut into her soul, leaving scars, and she knew that was crazy. What was the matter with her? Of course he despised Summer Hudson. She despised that girl she used to be. She didn’t want to be her anymore. That was exactly why she was here. But it still hurt to know that he didn’t think any more of her than that—that he hadn’t had some magic epiphany when he’d seen her, hadn’t been able to see past the nonsense down to the worthy core.

But then, no one else had, either. It was a good thing she’d escaped all that and come here. At least she had a chance of being a decent person. As long as she stayed.

“Anyway, to get back to my missing plans, you do understand why it is important that I find them?”

She raised her gaze to meet his and she nodded. “Yes. What I don’t understand is exactly what is missing and where they might be.” She challenged him brightly. “And why you are so sure they even exist.”

“Oh, they exist, all right. I couldn’t possibly have gone two weeks without working on something.”

She shrugged. “Then where are they?”

“Good question. That’s what I’m asking you.”

“I haven’t got a clue. I wouldn’t even know for sure what I’m looking for.” She hesitated, knowing there was no hope in dissuading him from this search, but thinking it was worth a meager try at the very least.

“I think you ought to go back home and look in your recovered luggage again. After all, if they are gone, how do you really prove they were ever there if you can’t remember what you did?”

He shook his head, frowning at her. “This is beginning to sound like a fractured version of ‘Who’s on first?’ Just listen for a moment. Don’t talk.”

Ah, yes, she had to admit, this sounded like the Marco Smith she’d known and loved. All that Italian brashness and arrogance came out in flashes now and then, and this was one of them. Lucky she had a sense of humor, she decided, and then she pretended to zip her lips together and looked at him mockingly while she folded her hands in her lap.

He gave her a fretful look, then went on. “When I’m working, I’m always jotting down specifications, looking for new combinations, figuring the math, checking the statistics on temperatures, wind, tides and so on. And I’m always sketching. Then, when my ideas begin to gel, I draft out more formal blueprints. And as I work, I constantly make copies of everything I do. In the end, I’ll always have two sets of plans.”

He looked at her and she nodded helpfully, her lips still zipped. He rolled his eyes and went on.

“I usually carry the originals with me in a portfolio and mail the copies to myself in a cardboard mailing tube. Just in case. This time, I ended up without either copy.” He looked at her expectantly and she smiled, her lips still pressed together.

“Shayna, speak,” he ordered impatiently. “I didn’t mean it. I only wanted you to give me a chance to explain.”

“Ahhh,” she said, as though she’d just been released from holding her breath. “Thank you.” She couldn’t resist a grin.

“Okay, here’s all I know. I only went up to your room in the hotel once, and that was on the morning of the day you were to leave. And when I walked into your room, I saw the floor covered with blueprints and other design papers.”

He nodded, narrowing his eyes. “Yes, that is how I usually organize them, and put them in order, especially if there are a lot of them. I was obviously preparing for the trip.” He frowned. “And you never saw me working on any of them before that?”

She paused to think. Was it going to be giving anything away to tell him the truth? Wouldn’t he begin to wonder why he had kept this from her? But there was no way to hide what actually happened. “No. I’d never seen any of them before.”

“I never talked to you about them?”

“No.” She thought back for a moment. “You were obviously interested in yachts and sailing, but you never told me why.”

He shook his head. “Strange. I can’t imagine why not.”

Because you didn’t want me to realize who you were, she could have told him, but she held her tongue.

“What was the room like? How did it seem to you?”

She closed her eyes, trying to remember what the room had looked like. She had walked in, full of anticipation. She was going to tell Marco that she would find a way to go with him. He’d been sitting at the small hotel room desk, working on something, and he’d looked up at her and grimaced. He knew what was coming next—just as soon as she looked down and saw the logo of her father’s company on many of the papers. She knew in an instant that this was a major betrayal—that Marco was not who he had pretended to be, that he was not really the person she’d fallen in love with. The pain of that realization still tortured her. You didn’t forget a moment like that easily.

Opening her eyes again, she looked at the man who had engineered that dishonesty. “It was just a normal room,” she told him crisply. “There were papers all over the floor. That’s all I know.”

She began to gather her things together. He watched, puzzled. There it was again, that moment in the hotel room. Something had happened, something that had ruined their relationship. Why didn’t she just come out with it and stop wasting time?

He grabbed her wrist, fingers circling it, to get her full attention.

“Shayna, tell me what happened that day.”

She glanced at him and then away. “Nothing happened,” she said shortly, pulling away from his touch. “It’s getting late. I’m going to have to go.”

He rose. “I’ll see you back to the house.”

“No need. I’ve got my Vespa.” She threw him the briefest of smiles. “I do this all the time. The island is safe. You don’t have to worry about me.”

Her lacy wrap fell down onto the chair as she rose and he picked it up, reaching out to put it back around her shoulders. As he did so, his hands lingered on her upper arms. Her bare skin felt smooth and firm and fabulous, and for a long moment, he couldn’t pull his hands away.

And then she turned and looked at him and he winced, realizing he was reacting to her like a lover, not a new acquaintance. And that made him wonder—just how close had they been? He knew what the photograph he carried with him presented. He knew what his instincts told him. But she hadn’t said a word. And she was avoiding the issue, even now.

“Tell you what,” she said, pointedly moving away from him. “I’ve got to work the breakfast shift tomorrow. If you can be ready at about ten-thirty, we’ll go hunting for your plans.”

That sounded promising. “Where do you propose to go?”

She eyed him coolly. “Everywhere you went when you were here before. We can retrace your steps and check it all out. You’ll touch base at every point of the past you’ve forgotten.” She shrugged. “At least, every point I know about. I’ll give you a chronological tour in one day.”

“That would be terrific.”