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Something inside Pietro stretched tight and hard, tension twanging like a plucked string. His chest squeezed as he read the pain etched in Molly’s tired eyes.
One of the things that had attracted him to her was her warm, sunny disposition. Her ready smile and the way her eyes danced. Seeing her so frightened made him want to break something. Preferably the motorbike rider who’d knocked her over. Who, it seemed likely, had targeted her for her bag with its wallet and passport.
His staff was liaising with the police. If the person responsible was located, he’d pay dearly for his actions.
Pietro’s jaw tightened at the idea of Molly lying unconscious on the road. Of her waking to the horror of not even knowing her own name.
The doctor had said her memory loss might partly be due to shock. From the fall? Or from what had happened before she’d come to Rome?
Icy fingers of guilt gripped his throat.
Pietro swallowed hard. The accident or assault wasn’t his fault. As for what had happened before...
‘I’m glad you found me.’ Solemn eyes held his. ‘It’s...worrying, not knowing who you are.’
She looked so lost, yet so determined to be brave, downplaying the fear she must feel. A wave of protectiveness washed through him.
Pietro froze. He’d thought himself immune to feminine vulnerability. He’d been inoculated against it by brutal experience. But the circumstances here were different.
He reached out to grasp Molly’s hand and reassure her then stopped himself. Better to keep his distance. She looked so frail, her eyes huge in her pale face, watching him warily.
She noticed the movement but said nothing, though her brow knitted, as if she had catalogued the abortive gesture for future consideration.
It was a reminder that he needed to be careful how he proceeded. He couldn’t afford to make another mistake.
‘I can’t begin to imagine how it feels not to recall anything,’ he admitted. He half-expected her to confess it wasn’t true, that she remembered something, even just the reason she’d left on the spur of the moment for Rome. ‘But you don’t need to worry. I’ll take good care of you.’
‘You will?’
He couldn’t work out if she looked pleased about that or petrified. Did he scare her? He knew his size could be daunting...
‘Of course. You can count on me. Everything will be all right, Molly. Just give it time. You don’t need to worry about a thing. I’m trying to contact your sister in Australia, to bring her over to see you.’
The tightness around the corners of her generous mouth eased and a little colour returned to her wan face, making her look more like the woman he knew.
‘I have a sister?’ She sounded so excited, so wistful.
‘Her name is Jillian.’
‘And my parents?’
Pietro shook his head, wishing he could give her better news. ‘I’m sorry, Molly. There’s just the two of you.’
Her face fell and Pietro felt his chest squeeze. He remembered loss only too well. Molly’s pain reinforced his determination to do everything he could for her.
‘But I’m very lucky to have both a husband and a sister.’ Her gaze dropped from his, as if she were fascinated by the movement of her hand plucking at the bedclothes. ‘I wondered if anyone would ever come along and identify me.’
There was a wealth of repressed fear behind her words and Pietro felt a surge of relief that he’d mobilised a search for her. If he hadn’t, if he’d ignored that belated voice of logic telling him he’d made an appalling mistake, how long would she have been stuck here alone in frightening limbo?
The knowledge strengthened his determination. He’d acted impulsively tonight but he didn’t regret it, or any complications that might arise from it. Molly needed him.
‘You’ll feel better when you’re out of here.’
‘Out of here? You mean out of the hospital?’
He nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘Really?’ Her tentative smile reached her eyes, making them shine more blue than grey. ‘They’ll let me go?’
Again Pietro felt that strange sensation in his chest as he looked into her hopeful eyes. He told himself it was only satisfaction that this would be so straightforward.
‘You’re not a prisoner, Molly.’
* * *
‘I know that. I know they’ve been doing their best for me.’ She looked up into that brown-gold gaze and told herself there was nothing to be frightened of now. Her husband was here. The person she presumably trusted above all others.
Yet still that nervous tingle of energy ran from her nape to her fingertips and down her spine as her gaze collided with his. Each time it felt like a shock, an assault on her senses.
There was definitely a sizzle of awareness as she took in his proud features and the strength of his rangy, powerful form. Yet shouldn’t there be something more? A sense of relief and comfort; of...homecoming...when she looked at him?
It wasn’t relief she felt, at least not solely. There was something else mixed in there too. Something her subconscious tried to tell her, except she wasn’t very good right now at reading subliminal messages.
Who was she kidding? She wasn’t much good at anything. Complex thought made her head spin and any attempt at delving into the past made the grey walls around her close in.
Defeated, she shut her eyes as her struggle to remember failed and pain rose once again.
‘Molly? What is it?’ His tone was sharp. Even with her eyes closed she clearly caught his sense of urgency.
Which was natural for a man seeing his wife in these circumstances. It was absurd for her to think there was something not right here.
The only thing not right is you. Your brain isn’t working properly. You don’t even recognise your own name! Did you really think one sight of the man you love would bring your memory flooding back?
Logic told her she’d expected too much. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong.
The chair scraped across the floor and she opened her eyes to see Pietro Agosti striding towards the door.
‘Don’t go!’ Was that desperate voice hers? She shot forward to sit straight up in the narrow bed, ignoring the way the movement slammed the ache in her skull from dull to throbbing.
So much for masking her fear. Faced with the prospect of being alone again, the strength she’d relied on to see her through this nightmare evaporated. ‘Please stay.’
‘I was just getting the doctor. You’re in pain.’ Yet he stopped on the threshold, his dark eyebrows tilting down in a frown.
‘Please don’t leave.’
Was she always this needy? She hoped not.
How did she explain to this sexy, forbidding stranger that she’d give anything for a little ordinary human comfort instead of more medication?
Pietro Agosti’s gaze dropped from her face. She followed the direction of his stare and saw her hand was raised, stretched towards him. Her fingers trembled. She hadn’t been aware she’d reached for him.
She let her hand fall and swallowed hard. Her desperation for his presence, his touch, disturbed her. Maybe because it proved she’d finally reached the end of her tether. She couldn’t face being alone with her fears any longer.
‘Aren’t you going to take me home?’ She gave up worrying about how weak that made her sound. She needed to know.
‘Of course.’ His voice came from right above her. She hadn’t heard him cross the room. Still, she didn’t lift her face to look at him. She felt as if that searing golden gaze could see right inside her, that she was vulnerable to this man in ways she didn’t understand. While he, with his air of control and unreadable expression, was a closed book to her. Surely lovers, husbands and wives, were more...equal?
But then, what did she know? Everything was new to her. She didn’t know whether to trust her instincts and the ideas that popped into her head or whether they were the product of trauma and medication.
‘I’ll take you home as soon as the doctor says you’re free to go.’
Home.
Relief was a splintering wall, letting hope flood her. Soon. Soon she’d be away from here and her memory would come back in familiar surroundings. Surely it would?
The chair scraped again softly. Then a long arm in a dark sleeve stretched across the bed. Old gold gleamed against a pristine cuff then hard fingers closed around hers. His touch was gentle and reassuring, enfolding her hand in warmth and comfort.
He didn’t say any more and she didn’t look at his face, too scared of the terrible strangeness she felt when she looked at the man who was her husband.
Instead she focused on his hand holding hers, the rhythmic stroke of his thumb across her flesh. The tiny caress counteracted the sickening lurch of anxiety in her belly.
Heat spread from his touch. Tiny ripples of delicious sensation that radiated through her whole body till soon she floated, limp and relaxed, in a sea of wellbeing.
Her fingers tightened around his and he gently returned the pressure. A sigh rose in her throat even as her heavy lids flickered.
She’d been wrong.
There was a connection between them after all. She could feel it now. Not just the warmth and delicious sense of peace, but something else. Something vital right at the heart of her. As if a missing part of a puzzle had slotted into place and everything was all right again.
Because Pietro Agosti was with her.
Her mouth curved up in a tiny smile and her weighted lids closed.
Everything was going to be all right.
* * *
Pietro studied the sleeping woman who still clutched his hand. He catalogued everything about her, from her slender fingers and delicate wrist to her bare arm, which the Italian sun had turned a soft gold. Her rounded breasts rose and fell beneath the blanket with each even breath.
Her collarbone looked fragile, as if she’d lost weight in the last week. At the thought, regret sliced through his midsection. His hand tightened on hers till he realised what he was doing and released her. She needed sleep.
His gaze rose to her face. She was still too pale, making that smattering of freckles stand out. Her eyebrows were finely shaped and darker than her hair. Likewise, her long lashes were brown, not blonde. Her nose was even, though undistinguished, and her chin neat. The only remarkable feature was her mouth. Wide and exquisitely sculpted into a cupid’s bow, it was the sort of mouth a man could fantasise about.
Just thinking of her lips on him sent Pietro’s blood surging low, awakening a heavy tension in his groin.
He lifted his arm off the bed and shoved his hands in his pockets.
It was a relief he’d been able to comfort her. She’d clearly been frightened and trying hard not to show it, but his touch had helped.
He told himself he was doing the right thing. Of course he was. He’d had to act quickly and there’d been no other option. If he’d thought ahead, he’d have anticipated the complication that had forced his hand. But he hadn’t been thinking clearly for days.
Pietro Agosti prided himself on his ethics, his honour. Some accused him of ruthlessness, primarily those he’d bested in a business deal or, very occasionally, an ex-lover who hadn’t believed him when he’d declared he was only interested in a short-term affair.
He was honest, sometimes brutally so.
Which meant that what he did now, what he was about to do, cut across his personal code of behaviour.
Cut across! His mouth lifted in a cynical smile. Why not call a spade a spade? He was blatantly lying.
But it had to be this way, at least for now.
Pietro stifled the carping voice of his conscience. He refused to feel guilty about doing the right thing for all concerned.
It wasn’t as if he was going to harm her. On the contrary, his aim was to care for her, look after her, during a time when, surely anyone would agree, she most needed his help.
He did what he did because there was no alternative.
CHAPTER THREE
THE LIMOUSINE WAS sleek and almost silent as it glided away from the hospital and onto the city streets.
Molly avoided looking at Pietro sitting beside her. Doubt about their relationship filled her. She told herself it would cease with time and familiarity. Yet it was unnerving. She didn’t feel up to breaking the silence, especially after the wearing bustle of departing from the hospital. It was scary how weak she felt. How isolated from everyone.
She peered ahead of her, hoping for a sight of something, anything that might jog a memory.
There was nothing. Her heart sank as the car made its way through a city that was unfamiliar to her.
It’s too soon. They all said not to expect anything yet.
But she couldn’t push aside the unpalatable cocktail of excitement, fear and impatience. She’d hoped that once she got out of the hospital room, that had become both prison and refuge, memories would crowd back.
The sun shone and it was a warm day, judging by the clothes of the people on the street. In the air-conditioned car it felt cool. Or maybe that was because of the stilted atmosphere here behind the privacy screen that separated the driver from his passengers.
There’d been no ecstatic reunion with her husband. Nothing but a guarded kindness. Such as when he’d come to her bed last night and held her hand till she’d fallen asleep.
There hadn’t even been a kiss!
What sort of marriage did they have?
She wasn’t scared of Pietro. She’d never have gone with him if that were the case. But still he made her feel edgy.
Molly told herself he was simply a man who didn’t show his feelings in public, and there’d been staff fussing about them all morning. Even the head of the hospital had made an appearance, shaking Signor Agosti’s hand and all but bowing them out of the building.
Besides, Molly was injured. It was natural Pietro would treat her carefully rather than sweep her into his arms and kiss her senseless.
Her cheeks fired at the idea. How would it feel, being scooped up against that hard, lean body?
She’d dreamed of him in the night, of his hand holding hers as she lay in her narrow hospital bed. In her dream that hard, gentle hand had touched her elsewhere, exploring thoroughly, driving her wild with an urgent, carnal hunger. Molly had woken, damp between the legs and hot all over, in an empty room.
Was that memory or imagination? Pietro knew her body well enough to describe her appendix scar. Maybe what she’d considered an erotic dream was a memory. Perhaps it was part of her brain’s reawakening.
‘How are you doing?’ Pietro’s deep voice set off a shuddery response inside Molly, as if she was still in the grip of that erotic dream. ‘Is the temperature okay for you?’
Her blush intensified because he’d noticed it.
That was another thing: Pietro watched her continually. Molly told herself it was good that he was concerned for her comfort and so solicitous.
‘It’s just right. Thanks.’ Deliberately she made herself turn to the man beside her on the back seat.
In broad daylight he was just as dauntingly, devastatingly good-looking. Like one of the beautiful people you saw splashed on the pages of magazines and TV shows about the rich and famous.
Not that she’d describe him as beautiful. That arrogant nose and no-nonsense jaw were powerful rather than pretty, and his expression of reserve and cool consideration proclaimed he was nobody’s fool.
Yet Pietro had sat holding her hand last night till she’d fallen asleep. He’d been uncomplaining this morning as they’d waited for the results of yet more tests. Then he’d sat through a long consultation with every doctor on the premises, it seemed, plus senior administrators. Molly was convinced so many staff had appeared because Pietro Agosti had been there.
He was a VIP yet she knew nothing about him. He’d kept the conversation focused on her, her chances of recovery, symptoms and care. There’d been no chance for private conversation. There had been too many people around.
‘How did you find me?’ She fixed on those golden-brown eyes looking back at her.
‘My people were searching for you.’
‘Your people?’
‘My staff.’
‘You have staff?’ As soon as the words spilled out, she felt foolish. Of course he had staff. This was a private limousine and Pietro knew the driver’s first name. Plus there must be someone keeping his clothes in such pristine order. Molly couldn’t picture him pressing his shirt and shining his own shoes to that mirror gloss before stepping out of the door.
He shrugged. ‘I run a company. I assigned some trusted staff to help.’ Not a small company, then.
‘You didn’t just look for me yourself?’ She’d pictured her partner scouring the city for her.
Pietro’s expression turned grim. ‘You disappeared. It wasn’t a one-man job. I employed an investigation firm too.’ His voice grew even more clipped and Molly realised with a burst of relief that must be how Pietro dealt with emotion, by keeping it tightly leashed.
Maybe she’d been influenced by that popular image of Italians as extroverted about their feelings. Clearly Pietro wasn’t. He did that whole controlled, macho thing to perfection. But it warmed her heart to know he’d been worried about her.
‘How did I disappear?’
‘Sorry?’ His eyes narrowed, as if taken by surprise.
‘How come you didn’t know where I was?’ Pietro stared back silently. ‘I take it I didn’t just pop out for a carton of milk?’
‘You went to Rome and—’
‘Went to Rome? You mean we don’t live here?’ She was sure he’d given an address in the city to the hospital authorities. But then she still felt a bit foggy. Surely she hadn’t been mistaken?
‘We’d been staying at the family villa in the country. You wanted to come to Rome and I couldn’t go with you because of other commitments.’
Molly sat back against the luxuriously upholstered seat and wondered what it was about his words that sent a shimmer of unease through her. Surely there was nothing unusual about them living in the country? Except that, with his suave tailoring and severe good looks, Pietro seemed utterly urban. She couldn’t visualise him in faded jeans and a T-shirt.
Though she’d love to try. She had a suspicion he’d fill them out to perfection.
She put her unease down to their odd situation, married yet strangers. And possibly to Pietro’s unblinking regard when he spoke, as if checking she accepted everything he said. Why wouldn’t she? Did he think she’d forget what he told her? She might have lost her long-term memory but she recalled everything that had happened since she’d woken in hospital, though sometimes she found it hard to focus.
‘The trouble was, once you got to Rome you vanished.’ There it was again, that tightness in his deep voice. Molly heard it and knew Pietro repressed strong emotion. It was a male thing, she figured, not to let others see vulnerability. Plus, he probably didn’t want to stress her with how badly her disappearance had affected him.
‘I didn’t mean to.’
He looked into her face and his features softened. ‘It doesn’t matter now. That’s all over.’ After a moment he reached out and squeezed her hand briefly. Instantly Molly felt better. Her fingers wrapped around his and clung, till the limousine took a tight curve and Pietro swayed back into his own corner.
‘But we have a place in Rome too? We’re going there now, aren’t we?’
He nodded. ‘We are. It’s not far. But don’t get your hopes up. The place has just been completely redecorated, so I suspect it’s not going to awaken any memories for you.’
‘You really are a mind reader.’ Last night, as he’d watched her, Molly had been convinced of it.
‘Hardly, but it seemed logical you’d expect it to.’
Molly shrugged, trying to stifle disappointment. ‘At least with my own things around me I’ll feel more at home. You never know, even something as simple as my old clothes might spark some recollection.’
She thought disconsolately of the red comb and vanilla lip-balm now nestled in the smart designer handbag Pietro had produced for her this morning. So far none of her possessions had opened the door to her lost memory.
Nor had the clothes he’d brought in this morning. Expensive pewter-coloured shoes and a plain silk dress that had looked almost drab on the hanger, but which had clung elegantly and transformed her into a stylish stranger. Yet she hadn’t felt at home in the outfit, despite the luxury of the gossamer-fine silk and exquisitely dainty underwear.
Her mouth curved bitterly. She didn’t care about being stylish, but she hated the fact Molly Agosti was still a stranger to herself.
‘Ah, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a little longer for those.’
‘Sorry?’
His eyes met hers. ‘For your own clothes. You brought some with you to Rome but because our place here was still under wraps, with paint fumes and the designer adding the final touches, you didn’t stay there.’ He paused and for a second she thought she read uncertainty in Pietro’s face.
The impression swiftly passed. He spread his hands in a speaking gesture and lifted his shoulders. ‘Unfortunately you forgot to give me your accommodation details before you went out and had your accident. Your luggage is still in your room in Rome. But we haven’t managed to track down where that is yet.’
‘You don’t know where I was staying?’ It seemed strange.
He nodded, his expression regretful. ‘It would have been a simple matter to have my secretary arrange your accommodation, but the trip was on the spur of the moment, and you’ve always been...independent. You don’t like a fuss.’
Molly sank back in her seat, her mind reeling. ‘So these clothes aren’t mine?’ She plucked at the fine dress which was lovely and clearly pricey but which felt somehow not her. Which was an absurd idea, when she didn’t know what sort of person she was.
‘Bought for you by a personal shopper. A very discreet woman.’
Pietro’s sharp gaze must have registered her dismay, for he leaned towards her, once more covering her hand in his.
‘It’s okay, Molly. It will all be okay.’ His voice hit that low gravel and suede note she’d heard in her dreams last night.
A shiver passed through her, a ripple, not of dismay but of awakening. For in response to Pietro’s touch her body began to come alive. Heat stirred in her belly and her breasts tightened against the lace of the brand-new bra.
She was disappointed, horribly disappointed, that at journey’s end she wouldn’t have anything of her very own to help her regain her memories. But with Pietro leaning close, the warmth of his body invading hers, it wasn’t panic she felt. It was desire. Awareness. Attraction.
The constraint she’d felt around her impossibly gorgeous husband cracked. Their carefulness with each other was due to her unusual situation. For beneath it was a deep channel of passion. That passion ran strong and true now as they edged their way towards an understanding of new boundaries.
It said something about her husband’s character that he didn’t press her, expecting her to act as if everything was normal between them. He must be hurt by the fact she had no recollection of him. Yet he was patient and restrained, respecting how difficult this was for her.
Molly smiled up into the dark face so close to hers, her heart filled with thankfulness and joy.
‘I’m so lucky I’ve got you. Thank you, Pietro.’
* * *
Pietro’s lungs stalled, his breath faltering as Molly looked up at him, her generous mouth pulling wide in a smile that was all gratitude and happiness.
Her smiles had always been heady things. When she was carefree, they were like golden sunshine on an endless summer day. When she was amused, her smile beckoned conspiratorially, inviting you to share the joke. And when she was aroused her smile turned sultry and irresistible, a siren’s weapon with the power to stifle even the sternest voice of caution.