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

Chapter Three

“I KNOW THIS IS HARD to believe,” Marco said, running a hand distractedly through his thick dark hair. “I can hardly accept it myself.”

Shayna drew her breath in softly, then let it out again. “Accept what, exactly?” she asked, surprised that her voice wasn’t trembling. “Please explain.”

He stared at her for a long moment, then laughed shortly. “You see, that’s the problem. How can I explain what I can’t remember?”

“Marco…”

“Okay, I’ll try.” He grimaced. “When I left here, on my way back to Rome, I must have taken a regular flight, since that’s all that comes through here. But somewhere along the way, I transferred to a small plane, a commuter flight, and we went down in the Mediterranean off Sicily.”

She gasped. “Oh, Marco!”

“The pilot and another passenger were killed, but somehow I was rescued. I woke up in a hospital in Napoli. I couldn’t even remember who I was, much less where I’d been.”

She had to hold herself back. Every instinct cried out to go to him, to touch him, to convey her feelings as best she could. Despite everything, she cared about him more than she’d ever cared for any other man. Whatever it was she felt for him was pretty darn close to love. You couldn’t just throw that away at will. It tended to linger.

“Were you hurt? Are you all right?”

He looked at her and managed a slight smile. “I’m fine, Shayna. Physically. And over a few days, most of my memory came back.”

She nodded slowly, feeling very much at sea. These were circumstances she’d never dealt with before. It was hard to imagine how this could be true.

“But not all.”

“No, not all. I seem to have totally lost those two weeks I spent here on Ranai. I can’t remember a thing about them.”

She shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around this weirdness. And at the same time she had to decide whether or not she believed him. Could this really be true? Was there any reason he might want her to think this in order to gain some sort of advantage—though she couldn’t say what that might be. Just the thought of that made her feel a bit guilty. After all, didn’t she trust him?

Hell, no! The man had lied to her from the beginning. Marco Smith indeed.

She didn’t say it aloud, but her eyes flashed and she wondered if he realized this whole story was a bit hard to swallow. Memory loss. Amnesia. She’d never known anyone to have it before. Why him? Why now? What did he want?

“How odd,” she said softly.

“Yes. Odd and awkward.”

Her brow furrowed as she purposely tried to harden her heart toward him. She had to stay objective if she had any hope of finding out the truth. There were certain questions that came up about this. Her eyes narrowed as she studied his face. Time to see if he had answers.

“If you couldn’t remember anything about those weeks, how did you know where you’d been?” she asked.

He didn’t seem surprised that she had questions. “I had a copy of my plane tickets, and records of my reservations at home in my office.”

“In Naples?”

He nodded. “Yes. That is where I live most of the year.”

She nodded. That seemed reasonable enough.

“Do you know why you came?”

He hesitated. “I was probably looking for a vacation of sorts. A getaway. A place to work in peace on…some ideas and problems I had.”

Hah. That wasn’t the half of it. But maybe he didn’t remember that part. It hadn’t been until that last day that she’d even known he was a world-famous racing yacht designer—and worked with her father. Glendenning Hudson loved competitive sailing and had the money to hire the best. Marco DiSanto was his designer, his ace in the hole when he competed in some of the biggest offshore races. And Marco had very carefully kept all that from her for those two weeks and probably wouldn’t have told her at all if she hadn’t walked in on him in his hotel room and seen the evidence with her own eyes.

“Why did you come here in the first place?” she challenged. “To Ranai, I mean.”

He frowned, shaking his head. “Damned if I know,” he muttered. “That’s part of the mystery.”

“Uh-huh.” Okay, she could either buy that he didn’t remember or she could suspect him of all kinds of nefarious things. It was up to her. Which way was she going to bend?

And finally, the pièce de résistance.

“So tell me this,” she began slowly and carefully. “If you don’t remember anything about your time here, how is it that you knew to come and find me?”

A slow smile began to spread over his handsome face. He knew what she was doing and it obviously amused him. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a crumpled photograph and flattened it on the surface of the counter before her.

“When they recovered my luggage from the wreck, I searched it as soon as I could get to it. I was looking for souvenirs, mementoes, pictures, anything to jog my memory.” His dark eyes sparkled as he smiled at her. “And this was all I found.”

She stared down at the image of pure joy the photo had captured. Her heart beat faster. She remembered that day. Kimo had taken the picture. It was the day before Marco left, the day she had decided she just might be in love. The day before she’d realized that Marco was not who he pretended to be.

“So you came to find out who this overly friendly female might be,” she managed to say lightly.

“The clerk at the airport pointed me in the right direction and gave me your name.” He shrugged with Mediterranean charm. “And you know the rest.”

She could hardly stand to look at her face in the picture—or his, either. She had been so happy. She’d been so sure…

Rising from the bar stool, she walked across the room and went out onto the lanai, folding her arms across her chest and staring out at the ocean in the distance. She wanted to go for a swim. A long, cleansing swim. The water looked cool and clear and refreshing.

He’d come up beside her and was looking out at the horizon, as well.

He hesitated, then said, “I’m sorry.”

She looked at him quickly. “Sorry? But surely you didn’t do this on purpose. It’s not your fault.”

He shrugged. “The result is the same.” He grimaced, obviously loath to go on. But he seemed to think it was necessary.

“You see, to you, I’m a man you think you know well. Very well.” He winced slightly and glanced at her, then away again. “To me, you’re a stranger.”

She stared at him. Yes, she did see. And what she saw was about as disturbing as it could get. If what he was telling her was true, he didn’t feel any ties to her at all. No passion. No friendship. No memories of the good times they created together. No memory of that one enchanted night they spent together. For him, all that never happened.

If a tree fell in an empty forest and there was no one to hear it, did it make a sound? Was it real? If she was the only one with the memories, would they fade away, like old photographs left out in the sun? Had they ever really happened? Or would they become misty dreams that only she knew anything about?

Despite her shock and her surprise, she very quickly understood a number of things about this situation. First, any feelings he might have had for her didn’t exist. All her dreams were in ashes. There was hardly any point in going on with this.

Second, she now realized he had never gone back and told her father where she was because he didn’t remember that he was supposed to do that. Right now, he didn’t even seem to remember who she was. And that was why her father hadn’t shown up yet. He still didn’t know she was here.

That was the good, she supposed. But it hardly compensated for all the rest.

“So in the end, you came back here,” she said softly. “Why?”

He thought for a moment before he responded. “To recreate a personal narrative,” he responded carefully. “I need to find the pieces of the puzzle and put them into the picture so that I can feel whole and go on with my life.”

“Oh.” So it was all about him, was it? But she really couldn’t criticize him for that. After all, how could he care about people he didn’t remember he knew?

“And there’s one more thing,” he said, looking around the room as though he’d lost something. “I was working on some plans. New designs. They weren’t in my luggage when it was recovered. I was hoping to find someone who might know what I did with them.”

“Plans?” She looked at him expectantly. She hadn’t seen any evidence of him working on any plans until the last day when she’d gone to his hotel room. That was when she’d first seen the large, detailed papers, spread out all over the floor. And that was when she’d seen the logo for her father’s company on one of them and realized Marco was not who he was pretending to be. “What sort of plans?”

She held her breath, waiting to see if he would tell the truth this time, but he didn’t hesitate.

“Shipbuilding blueprints. And some experimental designs. Some ideas I was working on.”

“Designs?” she asked, as if she had no idea what he was talking about.

“I design open class monohulls. Racing yachts.”

“Ah.” Yes, she knew that now. “Are they important? Something you can’t replicate easily?”

He gave a short laugh. “Something I probably can’t replicate at all. It’s very important I find out what happened to them.”

Shayna had a sad epiphany. She’d found the answer to one of her main questions. His plans—that was why he’d come back. It had nothing to do with her. She should be happy about that. He was a liar and a sneak, and she didn’t want any part of him.

No, Marco hadn’t come back to find her. Maybe he had come back to fill in the blanks in his memory—if there really were any. But that was also beside the point. What he’d really come back for were his plans.

“Is it very important to find them?” she asked.

He gave her the most candid look he’d allowed so far. “It’s the only important thing,” he said firmly. “It’s my legacy, my life.”

At least he was honest about it, but unease churned inside her as she considered the facts. The plans were all that mattered to him. As far as he was concerned, she didn’t exist except as a means of finding his precious plans. She sighed. It was almost a relief to know the truth. This way, there was no question. She had to push him out of her life and she had to do it right away. He’d already done enough damage.

“I’m sorry, Marco,” she said shortly, turning away. “I don’t know anything about your plans.”

He frowned, watching her progress back into the house, then followed her inside and studied her face. “But if we spent a lot of time together…”

She looked up. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I can’t really help you.” She met his gaze with a cool determination. He wasn’t going to manipulate her. “We spent some time together. We had some laughs. But that was about it. You didn’t exactly let me into your life in any meaningful way.”

As she said the words, she realized, with a sinking heart, how close to true they had to be.

He picked the photo up off the counter. “This picture gives a different impression. I’d say more than a few laughs were sparking between these two people.” His gaze held hers. “You and me.”

She didn’t let him see her involuntary wince. “Photography tells lies.”

“Not this one.”

“How could you know that? You don’t remember anything. Isn’t that right?” She looked at it. “This picture is fiction, pure and simple.”

He frowned, not accepting her judgment at all. “But we did spend time together.”

She drew in a sharp breath. “Yes.”

“And you have some idea of what I did while I was here, where I went, whom I saw.”

She hesitated. If she wasn’t careful, he was going to draw her in again. “Well, I noticed a bit, here and there,” she said, sounding rather defensive but not sure how to avoid that. “I wasn’t exactly following your every move, you know.”

“But you could help me map out a sense of what I did and where I did it.”

No, she could not. She had to nip this idea in the bud. “Are you serious? I’m a waitress. I was working at Kimo’s during that time. You came in for breakfast every day. We said hello.”

He stared deep into her eyes for a moment, then turned away, groaning. “Shayna, don’t try to snow me with this ‘I was too busy to pay any attention to you’ nonsense.”

“What do you mean?” She coughed nervously, then tried again. “We had a laugh or two together. We went on a couple of jaunts around the island. And that’s about it.” She shook her head emphatically, her hair slapping her on the cheek. “I can’t help you.”

He stared at her. “Then who can?”

She avoided his gaze. “I really don’t know.” She made a show of glancing at her watch. “Sorry, but I’m going to have to cut this short. I’ve got some things I need to do. I’ll get you a ride back to the hotel.”

“Shayna…”

She looked up at him and attempted candor—or at least the appearance of it. “I can’t help you,” she said again.

He held the picture up, not saying a word.

She flushed. “We weren’t that close,” she insisted. “Nothing happened.”

His eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened. “That’s not really true. Something happened.”

“What are you talking about?”

He stared into her eyes for a moment longer, then shrugged and turned away. “I guess I’ll ask around at the hotel,” he said. “Maybe someone there knows something.”

“Good idea.” She could hardly wait to get him out of her house. A flash of color from outside caught her eye and she saw a couple of neighbors passing by. “Oh, there’s Jilly,” she said, moving quickly back onto the lanai. “Hi there,” she called out.

A young girl of about fourteen turned and waved. “Hi, Aunty Shayna,” she said, her short dark curls bobbing about a pretty, tomboyish face. She had the mixed-race look of someone with the strains of almost every continent and culture creating the young, coltish beauty of her appearance. Walking with her was her constant shadow, Kali, a boy of about twelve who lived nearby.

“Jilly, do you remember Marco?” She gestured toward the man as he came out to stand beside her.

“Howdy, Mr. Smith.” Jilly gave him a grin and a sort of salute. “You’re back. Great. Wait until I tell Eddie.”

“Who’s Eddie?” Marco asked out of the side of his mouth.

“Her little brother,” she responded softly. “He took a special liking to you when you were here before.”

Marco gave her a skeptical look. “Really? I usually don’t get along with little kids all that well.”

She gave him a tight smile. “I know,” she said, then more loudly, to the young girl, “Do you and Kali have time to give Mr. Smith a ride back to the hotel? You can take my dinghy.”

“Yahoo!” Jilly celebrated with a whoop. “I will be so careful, Aunty Shayna, honest I will.”

Shayna had to laugh at her enthusiasm. Jilly was as expert a boat handler as anyone else on the island. Her father had taught her well before he’d disappeared on a fishing trip. Now he was gone and there was no boat for Jilly, so she cherished every chance she got to take out Shayna’s dinghy.

“Okay. Just as long as you two stay inside the reef and bring it right back and don’t go joyriding with your friends.”

Jilly’s face became very serious. “I no longer have any friends. I’ve given all that up. Those kids in town are just too childish for me.”

Shayna stifled the laugh that threatened to reveal how seriously she took that statement. “Good. That’s fine, then.”

“Okay. I’m good with boats, Mr. Smith,” Jilly professed earnestly. “I’ll keep you dry. Honest.”

Shayna laughed softly, then turned to Marco while the two youngsters ran down to the pier to prepare for shipping out.

“Mr. Smith?” he asked her questioningly.

“You might as well face it. Even if you don’t remember doing it, you told everyone your name was Smith. That’s how they know you.”

“Smith,” he muttered disparagingly. “Not very creative.”

He went back in to grab his suit coat, then paused on his way down to the shore to catch his ride to the hotel.

“We’re not done, Shayna,” he said, his gaze traveling over her face in a way that seemed to be seeing things she didn’t really want to reveal. “I don’t give up so easily.”

She started to turn away and he reached out, fingers curling around her upper arm, and pulled her back to face him. “You haven’t even begun to tell me all you know about this,” he said softly.

She gazed back with a touch of defiance in her eyes.

Looking down into her face, he hesitated. Why not? Why not kiss her? He wanted to. Evidence suggested that they had the background for it, even if he couldn’t remember. But no, he couldn’t make a move like that until he found out just what had torn them apart at the end of his stay. And until he saw a little less of that fierce resistance in her eyes. So instead, he gave her a crooked smile.

“I’ll be back,” he said.

Then he was on his way down to the pier where Jilly and Kali were waiting with the dinghy. Shayna watched him go, rubbing her arm where he’d touched her, feeling a little shaken. She saw the hardness in him, the power that would let him sweep away all her inhibitions and take over if she wasn’t careful. That was what made him so dangerous. That was why she needed him off the island as quickly as possible.

But now that he was giving her a bit of space, she allowed herself to enjoy the look of him, just a little bit. He moved with an easy athletic grace and she felt a catch in her breathing. If only things hadn’t gotten so complicated. If only…

Shayna was busy until evening, cleaning up and then working on a new set of kitchen window curtains out of some dyed burlap material she’d picked up at the island’s one general store. She welcomed Jilly back when she returned the dinghy, then tried to get her mind back on the curtains, but her thoughts wouldn’t stay away from what had happened that afternoon.

And what had happened was all about Marco. He was here and he wasn’t going away any time soon. It was all very well to decide to ignore him, but if he really had come back to find his missing plans, he wasn’t leaving until he knew where they were. If he really didn’t remember anything about his visit, he wasn’t going to have a clue as to where to look. He couldn’t remember what he’d done or where he’d been. If he really was telling the truth. Which she doubted at times.

How could he have forgotten? The memories were so vivid in her mind. But the brain was a weird and scary place—and it contained all sorts of things its owner knew nothing about.

“Ugh.” She made a face. This was getting a bit thick, wasn’t it? Better to stick to the world she saw before her eyes. At least there, she knew what she was doing.

She fixed herself a simple meal of cheese toast and a green salad, and then found herself staring down into it, unable to eat a bite. She kept wondering what he was doing. Was he still at the hotel? Had he found someone else to talk to? He was determined to find his missing design plans. She thought for a moment, trying to remember what she could about them and how they’d looked that morning, all spread over the hotel room floor.

She’d seen her father’s company logo on a few of them—and the name Marco DiSanto right next to it From then on, she’d been on a white-hot tear, unable to process any other information. Once she’d realized who he really was she’d been sure she knew why he was here. Her father had sent him, of course—sent him to find his daughter and drag her back to New York. And hadn’t that been what he’d been trying to do by urging her to come back with him? She’d almost fallen for it.

That last night had been magic, all star-filled and moonlit. They had toasted the time they’d had together with sparkling wine, regretting that he was to leave in the morning, and when he began to whisper in her ear about going with him, she’d really been tempted. Her heart had cracked painfully as she’d tried to explain to him why that was impossible. He didn’t want to listen, and they had parted just this side of angry with each other for the first time. That was why she had gone to his hotel room so early the next morning, eager to make peace. And instead, the pretend world she’d been living in had broken wide open and she’d come face-to-face with reality.

Did she love him? Maybe. But it hardly mattered. There was no hope, and she knew it only too well. Besides, he wasn’t the man she’d fallen for. That was all a great big hoax.

And now she was committed to getting him out of here as quickly as possible, and if that meant helping him find those plans, she’d better get with it. She would have to be proactive.

As long as he really didn’t remember anything about his stay here, if she helped him find his plans, he’d go back where he came from and she’d be home free. The only complicating factor was the little hitchhiker she’d acquired along the way. She sighed and flattened her hands over her stomach. There was nothing showing yet, but she knew the truth, even though she hadn’t seen a doctor. The fact that she was probably pregnant wasn’t quite real to her yet. She hadn’t thought through all the implications. She was planning to do exactly that—just as soon as she got Marco out of her hair and on an airplane for Italy. Or a slow boat to China. Whichever came first.

So she’d better get prepared. And what did that mean? A shower, of course. Washing her hair. Putting on something pretty and trekking on over to his hotel to tell him she’d changed her mind. Heaving a big, long sigh, she squared her shoulders and got on with it.

A bit over an hour later, she was on her way. First, she stopped in at Kimo’s Café to apologize for having run off earlier. He waved her regrets away. The large Hawaiian was so laid back, nothing ever seemed to bother him much.

“No worries,” he told her. “Lunch was about done by then anyway. We didn’t have any trouble taking up the slack.”

She gratefully kissed his cheek and promised to be in early for the breakfast crowd in the morning, then slipped off to cross the road and made her way to the Ranai Hotel. Climbing the wide steps to the entry, she hesitated at the double doors. Was she really ready to do this?