Lynne Graham
THE BANKER’S CONVENIENT WIFE

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

‘NATURALLY you will not renew his contract. The Sabatino Bank has no place for inadequate fund managers.’ Lean, dark, handsome face stern, Roel Sabatino was frowning. An international banker and a very busy man, he considered this conversation a waste of his valuable time.

His HR director, Stefan, cleared his throat. ‘I thought…perhaps a little chat might put Rawlinson back on track—’

‘I don’t believe in little chats and I don’t give second chances,’ Roel incised with glacial effect. ‘Neither—you should note—do our clients. The bank’s reputation rests on profit performance.’

Stefan Weber reflected that Roel’s own world-class renown as an expert in the global economy and the field of wealth preservation carried even greater impact. A Swiss billionaire, Roel Sabatino was the descendant of nine unbroken generations of private bankers and acknowledged by all as the most brilliant. Strikingly intelligent and hugely successful as he was, however, Roel was not known for his compassion towards employees with personal problems. In fact he was as much feared as he was admired for his ruthless lack of sentimentality.

Even so, Stefan made one last effort to intervene on the unfortunate member of staff’s behalf. ‘Last month, Rawlinson’s wife walked out on him…’

‘I am his employer, not his counsellor,’ Roel countered in brusque dismissal. ‘His private life is not my concern.’

That point clarified for the benefit of his HR director, Roel left his palatial office by his private lift to travel down to the underground car park. As he swung into his Ferrari his shapely masculine mouth was still set in a grim line of disdain. What kind of a man allowed the loss of a woman to interfere with his work performance to the extent of destroying a once promising career? A weak character guilty of a shameful lack of self-discipline, Roel decided with a contemptuous shake of his proud dark head.

A male who whined about his personal problems and expected special treatment on that basis was complete anathema to Roel. After all, by its very nature life was challenging and, thanks to a childhood of austere joylessness, Roel knew that better than most. His mother had walked out on her son and her marriage when he was a toddler and any suspicion of tender loving care had vanished overnight from his upbringing. Placed in a boarding-school at the age of five, he had been allowed home visits only when his academic results had matched his father’s high expectations. Raised to be tough and unemotional, Roel had learnt when he was very young neither to ask for nor hope for favours in any form.

His car phone rang while he was stuck in Geneva’s lunchtime traffic jam and regretting his decision not to utilise his chauffeur-driven limo. The call was from his lawyer, Paul Correro. When it came to more confidential matters, he preferred to utilise Paul’s discreet services rather than those of the family legal firm.

‘I think it’s my duty as your legal representative to point out that the time has arrived for a certain connection to be quietly terminated.’ Paul’s tone was almost playful.

Roel had gone to university with Paul and he usually enjoyed the other man’s lively sense of humour for nobody else would have dared that level of familiarity with him. However, he was not in the mood to engage in a guessing game.

‘Cut to the chase, Paul,’ he urged.

‘I’ve been thinking of mentioning this for a while…’ Unusually, Paul hesitated. ‘But I was waiting for you to raise the topic first. It’s almost four years now. Isn’t it time to have your marriage of convenience dissolved?’

Taken aback by that reminder, and just when the traffic flow was finally beginning to move again, Roel lifted his foot off the clutch of his car. The Ferrari lurched to a sudden choking halt as the engine cut out and provoked a hail of impatient car horns that outraged Roel’s masculine pride. But he did not utter a single one of the vituperative curses on the tip of his tongue.

From the car speakers Paul’s well-modulated speaking voice continued in happy ignorance of the effect he had induced. ‘I was hoping we could set up an appointment some time this week because I’ll be on vacation from the following Monday.’

‘This week is impossible for me,’ Roel heard himself counter instantaneously.

‘I hope I haven’t overreached my remit in raising the issue,’ Paul remarked with a hint of discomfiture.

‘Dio mio! I had forgotten about the matter. You took me by surprise!’ Roel proclaimed with a dismissive laugh.

‘I didn’t think it was possible to do that,’ Paul commented.

‘I’ll have to call you back…the traffic’s unbelievable,’ Roel asserted and he concluded the dialogue without engaging in the usual chit-chat.

His handsome mouth was set in a taut line. Paul had been right to bring up the subject of the marriage, which Roel had felt he had little choice but to enter into almost four years earlier. How could he possibly have overlooked the necessity of breaking that slender link again with a divorce? He reminded himself that he led an incredibly busy life and thought back instead to the ridiculous situation that had persuaded him to circumvent the terms of his late grandfather’s will with a fake wife.

His grandfather, Clemente, had been a rigid workaholic well into his sixties, in every way a chip off the rock like Sabatino banker block. But after his retirement Clemente had fallen in love with a woman less than half his age and had suffered a rebellious sea change in outlook. Throwing off all restraint, he had embraced New Age philosophies and had even briefly married the youthful gold-digger. His undignified behaviour had led to years of estrangement between Clemente and his son, Roel’s conservative father. Roel himself, however, had retained his fondness for the older man and maintained contact with him.

Four years ago, Clemente had died and Roel had been incredulous when the terms of his grandfather’s will had been spelt out to him. In that most eccentric document, Clemente had stated that in the event of his grandson failing to marry within a specified time frame, Castello Sabatino, the family’s ancestral home, should devolve to the state rather than to his own flesh and blood. Certainly, Roel had lived to regret telling his grandfather that, as the chances of a happy marriage were in his own considered opinion slim to none, he would not be addressing the need to wed and father an heir until he was, at the very least, in late middle age.

Although Roel had been raised to scorn sentimentality, he had nonetheless still cherished dim childish memories of warm and happy visits to the Castello Sabatino. Although he was wealthy enough to buy a hundred ancient castles, he had learnt the hard way that the castello had an especially strong hold on his affections. Sabatinos had inhabited the castle, which stood high above a remote valley, for centuries and Roel had been appalled by the genuine threat of the property going out of the family, perhaps for ever.

A couple of months later, while he’d been in London on business, he had been using his mobile phone to discuss with Paul the almost insurmountable problems created by his grandfather’s will. Even though he had been in a public place at the time, indeed he had been getting a haircut, he had assumed that the very fact that the conversation was taking place in Italian had meant that it was almost as private as it might have been in his office. He had learnt that he was mistaken when his little hair-stylist had leapt headlong into his private conversation to first commiserate with him over his grandfather’s ‘weirder than weird’ will and, second, to offer up herself as a ‘pretend’ wife so that he could keep Castello Sabatino in the family.

Ultimately, Hilary Ross had sold her hand in marriage to him in a straight business deal. What age would she be now? Roel mused. Twenty-three years old last St Valentine’s Day, his memory supplied without hesitation. He was willing to bet that she still didn’t look much older than a teenager. She was very small but wonderfully curvaceous and back then at least her dress sense had rested on the extreme gothic edge of fashion. Black from head to foot, clumpy boots and vampire make-up, he recalled with a frowning smile rather than a shudder. It was strange how very sexy a vampire could look, he reflected abstractedly. Before the traffic lights could change, he dug out his wallet and with long, deft fingers extracted the snapshot Hilary had pressed on him. A snapshot adorned with a teasing signature, ‘Your wife, Hilary,’ and backed by her phone number.

‘Something to remember me by,’ she had said, babbling like a brook in flood because he had known and she had somehow sensed that, aside of any necessary legal need to keep tabs on her whereabouts, he would not seek any further personal contact with her.

‘Kiss me,’ those huge eyes of hers had pleaded in a silent invitation.

Resolute to the last, he had withstood temptation. They had had a business arrangement that had to remain unsullied by sex: Paul had made it clear to him that if he’d consummated what had essentially been only a marriage on paper he would have made himself liable for a substantial maintenance claim.

He must have imagined being tempted by her, Roel told himself in exasperation. What possible appeal could she have had for him? She had left school at sixteen. She was an uneducated girl from a poor working-class background. Dio mio…a hairdresser! A giggly little hairdresser, only five feet plus in height and wholly without cultural interests or sophistication! They had had only their humanity in common. Finally he allowed himself to glance down at the photograph. She wasn’t beautiful, he reminded himself, exasperated by his own disturbing absorption in such thoughts. He drew his own attention to the fact that her brows were too straight and heavy, her nose a little too large. But regardless of her flaws his brilliant dark gaze still locked to the impish look of fun in her eyes and the wide, bright smile curving her lush mulberry-painted mouth.

‘When I worked as a junior on Saturdays, I used to blow every penny I earned on shoes,’ she had once confided unasked and in much the same way he had picked up other titbits and glimpses of a lifestyle as far removed from his own as that of an alien.

‘When my grandma met my grandpa, she said she knew he was the love of her life before they even spoke…anyway, they couldn’t speak. She didn’t know a word of English and he didn’t know a word of Italian. Don’t you think that’s romantic?’

He had considered it beneath his dignity to respond. In fact he had stonewalled all her attempts to flirt with him. So he was a snob, socially and intellectually, but she had not been from his world. Furthermore he was all too well acquainted with the Sabatino male habit of marrying gold-diggers and far too clever to risk following in his father’s and his grandfather’s footsteps to make the same crucial mistake. He had suppressed what he had recognised as an inappropriate and dangerous attraction to an unsuitable woman.

Yet he still couldn’t forget the last time that he had seen his fake wife: her jaunty wave in spite of the suspicious glisten in her eyes, the gritty, defiant smile that had told him that she was going to find a guy who did believe in romance…had she found that mythical male? Discovered his feet of clay? Was that why she had yet to request a divorce on her own behalf?

In the act of wondering that while rounding a notorious bend, Roel only had a split second to react when a child ran off the pavement into the road in pursuit of a dog. Braking hard, he wrenched at the steering wheel in a ferocious attempt to avoid hitting the little girl. The Ferrari smashed nose first into the wall on the other side of the street with a bone-numbing jolt, but he would still have walked unhurt from the wreckage had he had the chance to get out of his car before another vehicle crashed into it. As that second collision followed a blinding pain burst at the base of Roel’s skull and plunged him into darkness.

The photograph still curled within fingers that refused to relinquish their grip, he was rushed into hospital. His late father’s sister, Bautista, was called to the emergency room. With haughty scorn, Bautista watched two young nurses react to Roel’s extravagant dark good looks with hungry eyes of awe.

A spoilt and imperious brunette dressed in a style that the less charitable might have judged inappropriate for a woman of sixty, Bautista was furious at the interruption to her day. Roel would be fine! Roel was indestructible; all the Sabatino men were. Aside of the blow to his head, his other injuries were minor. The following day, Bautista was due to fly to Milan to attend a gallery opening with her fiancé, Dieter, and she was determined not to change her plans.

Only ten days earlier, Roel had infuriated her with the information that the handsome young sculptor whom she was planning to marry had a history of chasing wealthy older women. How horribly insulting Roel had been! Why shouldn’t Dieter want her for herself? Bautista was confident that she was still a remarkably good-looking woman, possessed of a most engaging personality. Four staggeringly expensive divorces had failed to diminish her shining faith in love and matrimony.

When a consultant finally came to Bautista to tell her that, although Roel had recovered consciousness, he appeared to be suffering from some degree of temporary amnesia, her annoyance and subsequent frustration were intense.

‘Is Mr Sabatino’s wife on her way?’ Bautista was then asked.

‘He’s not married.’

With a look of surprise the older man extended a somewhat crumpled photograph to her. ‘Then who is this?’

In astonishment, Bautista studied the photo and its revealing inscription. Roel had married an Englishwoman? My goodness, how secretive he had been! But then was he not famed for his cold reserve and reticence? His extreme dislike of publicity? His marriage would indeed excite the kind of headlines that he would consider to be distasteful and intrusive, Bautista conceded. Exactly when had he been planning to inform his relatives that he had taken a wife? But at that point happily appreciating that Roel’s possession of a wife freed her from all further responsibility for him while he lay in his hospital bed, Bautista rushed off to phone her nephew’s mystery bride.

The instant Hilary walked into her tiny flat and saw her sister Emma’s troubled face, a cold shiver trickled down her spine.

‘What’s wrong?’ Hilary asked, hastily setting down the evening paper she had gone out to buy.

‘While you were out, a woman phoned…I want you to sit down before I pass on her news.’ Emma was a tall slender blonde with a steady look in her grey eyes that hinted at an unusual degree of maturity for a girl of seventeen.

Hilary frowned. ‘Don’t be daft. You’re here and all in one piece and the only family I’ve got. Who phoned…and with what news?’

‘I’m not the only family you’ve got,’ her sister said in a strained undertone. ‘Roel…Roel Sabatino has been involved in a car accident.’

The blood slowly draining from her cheeks, Hilary stared back at the younger woman with stricken eyes. Her legs wobbled beneath her and she swayed. ‘He’s—?’

‘Alive…yes!’ A supportive arm curving to Hilary’s slight shoulders, Emma urged her smaller sister down onto the small sofa in the kitchen that also had to serve as a sitting and dining area. ‘Roel’s aunt phoned. She spoke very little English and she only called for about two minutes max—’

‘How badly has he been hurt?’ Hilary was trembling and feeling sick. Her mind was a blank and then suddenly a frightening sea of disturbing images. Even as she strained to hear Emma’s response she was praying that that response would offer some hope.

‘He has some kind of head injury. I got the impression that it might be serious. He’s being transferred to another hospital and I did make sure that I got the details.’ Emma squeezed her sister’s hand in a bracing gesture. ‘Take a slow deep breath, Hilly. Concentrate on the fact that Roel’s alive. You’re in shock but you can be with him by tomorrow morning.’

Bowing her swimming head, Hilary was half in a world of her own. Roel, the precious secret love of her life—even if she had not been anything more than a useful means to an end for him. It was strange and terrifying how love could strike like that, Hilary reflected, gripped by a momentary agony of regret. Roel, the husband of her heart, whom she had never even kissed. Roel, so tall and dark and vitally strong, who right this minute might be fighting for his life in a hospital bed. Her skin clammy with fear for him, she prayed that he would recover but it was a big challenge for Hilary to be optimistic on such a score. Almost seven years earlier, the car crash that had killed both her mother and their father had shattered her and Emma’s lives. On that occasion, the long nerve-racking wait at the hospital concerned had not resulted in any last-minute miracle survivals.

‘Be with him?’ Hilary echoed belatedly. ‘Be…with Roel?’

Could she be with him…dared she try? Wild hope leapt up inside Hilary. She might be his wife in name only but that did not mean that she could not be concerned about his well-being. Hadn’t his aunt called to tell her about his accident? Obviously their marriage was not the secret she had assumed it would be within his family circle. It seemed evident too that his relative believed that theirs was something more than a marriage on paper.

‘I knew that every minute counted and I knew exactly what you’d want to do,’ Emma hastened to assure her. ‘This is an emergency. So, I went straight on to the Internet and booked a flight to Geneva for you. It leaves first thing tomorrow—’

With an effort, Hilary parted dry lips and strove to temper her desperate desire to rush to Roel’s side with a little common sense. ‘Of course I want to go to him but—’

‘No buts…’ Her dismay palpable and her voice betraying a sharp edge of strain, Emma leapt upright. ‘Don’t be too proud to rush over there to be with Roel. You’re his wife and I bet that what you once had together could still be mended. I’m old enough now to appreciate just how much trouble my bad attitude must’ve caused between the two of you!’

Hilary was very much taken aback by that explosive speech. Until that moment, she had had no idea that Emma might have blamed herself for the apparent breakdown of her sister’s marriage. ‘My relationship with Roel just didn’t work out. You mustn’t think that you had the slightest thing to do with that,’ she stressed in awkward protest.

‘Stop trying to protect me.’ Emma groaned. ‘I was a selfish little madam. We’d lost Mum and Dad and I was so possessive of you that you were afraid to even let me meet Roel!’

Registering with a sinking heart that every lie, even one that had once seemed like a little white harmless lie, would eventually exact its punishment, Hilary could no longer look the younger woman in the eye. ‘It wasn’t like that between Roel and me,’ she began uncomfortably.

‘Yes, it was. You put me first and let me spoil your wedding day and ruin your marriage before it even got off the ground. I was horribly rude to Roel and I threatened to run away if you tried to make me live abroad. I came between the two of you…of course I did!’ Emma sucked in a steadying breath. ‘You were so much in love with him. I still can’t believe how cruel I was to you…’

Hilary had to struggle to concentrate on the unexpected angle the dialogue had taken, for the greater percentage of her thoughts was anxiously lodged on the state of Roel’s health. Resolving to sort out her sister’s unfortunate misapprehensions at a more suitable time, she prompted, ‘What exactly did Roel’s aunt say?’

‘That he was asking for you,’ Emma lied, crossing two sets of fingers behind her back as though to apologise for a fib that she hoped would make her sister feel more confident about flying out to be with her estranged husband.

Roel was asking for her? Surprise that was overwhelmed by a surge of pure joy washed over Hilary and, suddenly, she felt equal to any challenge. She would walk on fire for him, swim lakes, climb the very mountains to reach his side. Roel needed her! That knowledge cut through every barrier like a knife through butter. If a male of Roel’s intimidating self-sufficiency could express a wish for her presence, however, he had to be very weak or seriously ill, Hilary decided worriedly. She hurried into her bedroom to pack.

‘But the salon,’ she groaned, rifling the wardrobe for essential clothes and barely able to think straight. ‘Who’ll look after it?’

‘Sally,’ her sister suggested, referring to Hilary’s second-in-command at the hair salon, Sally Witherspoon. ‘You said she was brilliant when you had the flu.’

In the dimly lit hall, Hilary snatched up the phone, eyes an abstracted but luminous grey. The silky hair that framed her oval face shone bright as a beacon. It was that gleaming shade of silvery fairness most often achieved by artificial means. Times without number, Hilary had been forced to explain to disbelieving customers that her hair was natural. Perhaps as an apology for not having had to resort to the permanents and the bleach so beloved of her clientele, she occasionally added a faint hint of another colour to the tips of her hair and this particular month she had employed a pale and delicate hue of pink.

She arranged for Sally to collect the salon keys and phoned another stylist who occasionally came in when things were busy to offer the woman full-time work during her own absence. Those practicalities dealt with, she refused to even think about how all such extra costs would eat into her already tight profit margins. She focused on her sister, Emma, and winced. ‘How can I leave you here alone in the flat?’

‘My 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 the news that Roel was not seriously hurt, she had been thrown right out of her depth when informed of his loss of memory. She tried to picture waking up to her own world as it had been five years earlier rather than as it was now. Even in trying to take fleeting account of all the many changes that had taken place since then in her life, she reached a more disturbing appreciation of just how disorientating Roel’s condition would be for him.

She was disgusted by his aunt’s uncaring attitude but not that surprised for she and her sister had once endured similar indifference from a close relative. She thought of the debt that she still felt she owed Roel and of how much she wanted to see him. In a purely disinterested and friendly way, she could be of help and support to him. It was an innately tantalising and seductive idea. But wouldn’t it be dishonest to pose as his real wife? She was his wedded wife in name but in no other way.

A quiver of shamed distaste at the concept of letting such a lie stand slivered through Hilary’s slight frame. However, she had promised Roel that she would never, ever reveal the true terms of their marriage to anybody and, to ease her conscience, she decided to tell a half-truth instead. ‘I should admit that Roel and I have been…er…estranged,’ she said awkwardly.

‘I thank you for your confidence and I assure you that what you have told me will go no further. But I must also ask you not to reveal any potentially distressing facts to my patient if you can avoid doing so,’ the older man emphasised with considerable gravity. ‘Although your husband will not acknowledge it, he is already under great stress and adding to that burden could endanger his full recovery.’

As that hard reality was spelt out to her Hilary lost colour and nodded in earnest understanding. From her lips, Roel would learn nothing that might upset him.

‘As Mr Sabatino’s wife, you are his next of kin and you may do what others may not for his benefit. He has countless employees; those he pays to do his bidding but mercifully you are in a much stronger position,’ Dr Lerther opined cheerfully. ‘Your husband needs to feel that he has someone close whom he can trust. Make no mistake. His present state makes him vulnerable.’

‘I can’t imagine Roel being vulnerable.’ Hilary’s throat was thick with tears and she could no longer meet the consultant’s kindly gaze. She was all too painfully aware that she too fell into the demeaning category of being someone whom Roel had once paid to carry out his wishes. But she was also devastated by the obvious fact that he should have nobody other than her available to take on such a role.

‘Nonetheless, if I may speak freely…it will be your responsibility to stand between him and all those business personnel who will seek access to him. His own needs must be put first,’ Dr Lerther advised her. ‘The Sabatino Bank must survive without him at present. He requires rest and relaxation. I am also sufficiently acquainted with the world financial markets to be conscious that no hint of Mr Sabatino’s current condition should go beyond this room.’

Hilary’s brow had furrowed for she had not even a passing acquaintance with the state of the world financial markets. She had no grasp whatsoever of that aspect of Roel’s existence and very little interest in the matter either. Instead, with innate practicality she had homed in on what would plainly be her own role. It would be her duty to look after Roel until such time as he regained his memory.

‘May I see him now?’

The consultant recalled his patient’s initially appalled reaction to the discovery that he was a married man and hastily suppressed the image of a loving little Christian being thrown to the lions. Hilary Sabatino could well be more resilient than she appeared. She might even be capable of standing firm against the glacial freeze of her billionaire husband’s despotic and wholly intimidating character…but even if Dr Lerther had been a gambling man, he would not have risked a bet on that outcome.

Hilary breathed in deep and followed in the nurse’s wake. In just minutes she would see the only male who had ever managed to make her cry…

CHAPTER TWO

A WIFE, Roel thought morosely.

Was it any wonder his memory had chosen to betray him by overlooking the most unprofitable acquisition in a man’s life since the advent of disease? Although he was only in his thirtieth year, it seemed that he had already sacrificed his freedom. Just as his father had done and his father before him: marry young, repent in millions. Yet he had sworn to himself that he would not make the same error.

He had steered clear of messy personal entanglements and kept mistresses who excelled between the sheets instead. He had a high sex drive, so he took care of it. Lust could not control him. Nor had he ever believed in love. So, love could thankfully have had nothing to do with his evident change of heart on the matrimonial front.

Certain things, however, he did not require memory to know. Indeed certain things he knew by instinct. The wife, whom his undisciplined mind had chosen to forget, would be a tall, elegant brunette because that was the type of woman who attracted him. She would be from a wealthy background and possessed of impeccable society lineage. She might be a career woman—a banker or even an economist, a possibility that was of some small comfort to him. Perhaps while discussing risk management and investment strategy he had recognised a working soul mate. An unemotional and otherwise quiet woman, who would respect the demands of his schedule when he was too busy to see her.

A knock sounded on the door. He swung round from the window, a male who stood six feet four inches, broad of shoulder and lean of hip, his tall, well-built frame sheathed in an Armani business suit of faultless cut.

‘Will you close your eyes before I come in?’ a low-pitched British voice asked. ‘Cos if you don’t I’m likely to feel really silly introducing myself to you as a wife.’

Shock one…he had married a foreigner with a definable regional accent rather than the clear flattened vowel sounds of the English upper class. Shock two…she used teenage slang and made childish requests.

‘Roel?’ Hilary prompted in the taut silence.

Raw impatience clenched Roel’s even white teeth together. He recognised that there were two ways of playing the scene. Either he could blast her out before she even came through the door or he could play along until such time as he had worked out exactly who and what he was dealing with. ‘OK…’

‘I suppose you’re really nervous about this too but, now that I’m here, you don’t need to worry about anything any more.’

His back turned to the door, his dark deep-set eyes alight with intense disbelief, Roel actually found himself snatching in a sustaining breath. Shock three…he had married a woman who, in the space of a mere sixty seconds, could contrive to antagonise and offend him by treating him with disrespect.

‘I was just so touched that you were asking for me at the hospital…’ Hilary gabbled, hastening in and closing the door behind her and only then daring to open her own eyes.

‘I asked for you?’ Roel questioned with incredulity. ‘How could I have asked for you when I don’t remember you?’

‘My goodness, what are you doing out of bed?’ Hilary demanded in astonishment, losing all track of what they had been talking about.

‘Tell me, do you work using a list of stupid comments or do they come to mind without effort?’ Roel shot back with sardonic bite as he swung round to face her.

Standing upright and only three feet from her, Roel’s sheer size was menacing. She had to tilt her head back to get a proper look at him and then, even though she had flinched at that cutting comeback, she could not take her attention from him. Her mouth ran dry and her heartbeat speeded up for before her stood the living, breathing male embodiment of her every desire and dream.

The stark male beauty of his lean dark features hit her with explosive force. He was incredibly good-looking and shockingly sexy. But he also had a magnetic presence of command and icy authority that she could feel right down to the marrow of her bones. He did not smile and she wasn’t surprised. His charismatic smile was rare and the chill in the room was pronounced. And she understood, she understood even his aggressive attack on her, and her heart twisted inside her with loving forgiveness. Torture could not have dragged the truth from him but she knew that he was as close to scared as he was ever likely to be. She was well aware that the sudden onslaught of a forgotten wife was probably his worst nightmare come true.

‘I don’t like sarcasm,’ she told him, tilting up her chin.

‘I don’t like stupid questions.’ Roel discovered that he had to lower the angle of his gaze even to bring his wife into his field of vision. She was tiny but not remotely doll-like, very much an individual and only in her early twenties at most, he noted, succumbing to grudging fascination. Her grey eyes were the colour of stormy seas. Her hair was a shimmering silvery blonde worn in a short spiky cut and tipped with pink. Pink? It had to be a trick of the light, he decided. She had a smattering of freckles across her nose and luscious cherry-red lips that would have tempted a saint.

The distinct tightening in his groin caught Roel by surprise for he was long past the teenage years when his body had last cast off his disciplined control. But as his attention roamed down over his wife’s glorious hourglass shape his arousal only became more pronounced. Full, rounded breasts were moulded by a blue cotton tee shirt while low-slung hipster jeans accentuated her tiny waist and the pronounced curve of her highly feminine hips. While his rational mind struggled to name shock four in his encounter with his wife as her total lack of exclusive designer elegance, his appreciative hormones were winning hands down. He might not remember her but the dynamite sexual charge she ignited in him spoke a great deal louder than memory or words. Roel always had to explain the inexplicable and he was now satisfied as to why he must have married her.

‘I think you should still be resting.’ Involuntarily, Hilary connected with smouldering dark golden eyes and what little grasp she had on the muted dialogue vanished.

‘Are you in the habit of telling me what to do?’ Roel enquired, striving for a warning note that ended up unaccountably husky.

‘What do you think?’ As she met his stunning gaze her mouth ran dry and her tummy flipped. The atmosphere sizzled and her whole body leapt with energised awareness. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t drag in enough oxygen to fill her lungs. Her bra felt too tight, her breasts full and sensitive. Her nipples pinched tight and stung, reacting to the same sensual heat that was flaring into wicked being deep within her pelvis. She knew exactly what was happening to her and, worse, that she was powerless to stop it. This was, after all, the guy who had almost sunk her to the degrading level of offering up her virginity for a no-strings-attached one-night stand. She had craved Roel that much and that bad and, had he displayed any interest in that direction, pride would not have held her back.

Exercising the fierce strength of will that was the backbone of his character, Roel removed his intent gaze from his wife. So at least he understood why he had married a youthful sex kitten with no dress sense: lust, mindless, rampant lust, he labelled, his handsome masculine mouth hardening. He was appalled that he could have been that predictable but not one to beat himself up over a sin of the flesh.

‘The woman who tried to tell me what to do would be a fool,’ Roel murmured with smooth, cutting cool. ‘I’m sure you don’t fall in that category.’

‘I don’t squash easy either,’ Hilary told him doggedly, her colour high but her spine rigid as she utilised every scrap of dignity she possessed to rise above the humiliating weakness of her own body. ‘After what you’ve been through, you should still be in bed.’

His beautifully shaped ebony brows drew together in a fleeting frown line. ‘I have no further need for medical attention. I’m sorry if you have been concerned but I’m heading back into the office.’

Her eyes widened to their fullest extent. ‘You can’t be serious.’

‘As I am rarely anything else, I cannot imagine why you should suggest otherwise. Or believe that I’m likely to be in need of your opinion on the issue,’ Roel sliced back in glacial dismissal.

‘Well, for what it’s worth, I’m going to give you my opinion unasked,’ Hilary slammed back at him angrily. ‘Maybe you think it’s dead macho to act like there’s nothing wrong with you but I just think that that’s plain stupid!’

Dark golden eyes flared, incandescent with anger. ‘I—’

‘You’re suffering from a very worrying loss of memory and you are not thinking through what you are doing—’

Roel flung his proud dark head high. ‘I never act without thought—’

‘By going back to work, you would be denying that there’s even a problem. I can’t let you do that—’

‘Tell me one thing,’ Roel countered with sardonic clarity. ‘Before the car smash, were we in the process of divorce?’

‘Not that I know of!’ Hilary tossed back, small hands spreading on her hips to maintain a firmer grip, her grey eyes bright with resolve. ‘You may be a very clever guy but you can also be very stubborn and extremely impractical. Right now, it’s my job to make sure that you don’t do anything that you’ll later regret, so get back in that bed and take it easy!’

Brilliant eyes enhanced by black spiky lashes, Raul surveyed her as though she were a madwoman in need of restraint. ‘Nobody tells me what to do. I’m astonished that you should think that you have the right to impose your views on me.’

‘Yeah, marriage is a toughie for a control freak,’ Hilary slammed back unimpressed. ‘I’m not about to apologise for trying to protect you from yourself. If you go back into the bank, your employees will realise that there’s something wrong with you—’

‘There is nothing wrong with me, only a temporary phase of slight disorientation—’

‘During which you forgot about a great fat chunk of your past life!’ Hilary slotted in heatedly. ‘I think that’s very relevant and a lot more dangerous than you’re prepared to admit. There’ll be employees and clients you won’t even recognise, situations you don’t understand and which you may screw up. You’re also five flipping years out of date with your precious work. Who are you planning to take into your confidence in an effort to avoid making embarrassing mistakes? Because one thing I do know about you, Roel…just about the only person alive whom you trust is yourself!’

Out of breath and trembling with the force of her feelings, for she was aghast at the very idea of him attempting an immediate return to work, Hilary glared at Roel in challenge. Just as quickly her expression changed to one of anxiety as she saw him frown as though with pain. Only then did she register the ashen cast of his complexion and the slight tremor in his hand as he raised it to his head.

‘Sit down…’ Closing both hands over his, Hilary urged him back towards the armchair behind him.

Roel was swaying but he still fought her attempt to help him. ‘But I don’t need—’

‘Shut up and sit down!’ Hilary launched at him fiercely and she used his uneven balance to topple him down into the chair like a felled tree.

’Per meraviglia…’ Roel groaned in frustration. ‘It’s only a headache.’

But Hilary had already hit the call button to bring a nurse and the presence of that third party, soon followed by the entry of Dr Lerther, prevented Roel from expressing his fury at her interfering and taking charge in such a way.

In any case, Roel had recognised that his wife had panic written all over her. He decided that there was something to be said for a woman with a face that seemed to wear her every passing thought. Her eyes were dark with stress and worry and she stood humbly at the back of the room, demonstrating what he considered to be exaggerated respect for the medical personnel while nibbling anxiously at a nail.

He couldn’t take his attention off his nail-biting wife. She looked so scared on his behalf and she was trembling. Concern for his health must have made her shout at him. She seemed to be fond of him. She might well be fonder still of his immense wealth and all that it could buy her, Roel conceded cynically but, indisputably, she seemed to cherish some degree of genuine fondness for him. He knew all women were terrific actresses but any single one of the previous lovers he could recall would have withstood torture sooner than succumb to cannibalising a nail.

In addition his wife was neither as uncomplicated nor as predictable as he had initially assumed. A startling amount of fire and defiance lurked behind that cute and curvaceous feminine exterior. He was accustomed to women who said yes to his every request and worked hard at meeting his expectations before he could even be put to the trouble of voicing a request. He had never met a woman who had the nerve to shout at him or one who would go toe to toe with him in a fight. In actuality, he did not argue with people ever. He had never had to argue. Arguments just didn’t happen to him.

Hilary was feeling hugely, horribly guilty and shaken up. Roel was still suffering from the physical after-effects of a serious accident and she had lost her temper with him. How could she have done that? As a rule she had an even temper and a sunny easygoing nature. What had come over her? Instead of being calm and coaxing and patient, she had been strident and emotional and accusing. He had looked taken aback. She didn’t think he was used to being shouted at and she could not believe that she had done so.

Sucking in a deep steadying breath, she studied him. Her heart jumped as though it were on a trampoline. His luxuriant black hair was tousled, bold profile taut, his dense black lashes cut crescent-shaped shadows over his proud olive cheekbones. Extravagantly handsome, he had a raw masculine appeal that turned female heads wherever he went. He still took her breath away. Just as he had the very first time she’d seen him and the recollection of that particular day nearly four years ago swept her back in time…

Talking on a mobile phone, Roel had walked through the door of the busy salon where she’d worked as a junior stylist. There he had stilled, ebony brows elevating with a faint air of well-bred surprise as he’d taken in his surroundings. She had immediately understood that, like others before him, he had mistaken the salon for the much more exclusive place a few doors further along the street. In that split second when he had been on the brink of wheeling round to leave again something had propelled her forward. Something? The fact that he was so outrageously good-looking she would have gone without food for a week just to own a photo of him? How could she explain her own unbelievably powerful need to prevent him walking back out of her life again as casually as he had wandered into it?

‘Just you stay on the phone and I’ll take care of your hair,’ Hilary suggested, planting herself between him and the door, relying on his essential male instinct to avoid acknowledging that he had made a mistake to guide him.

He flicked her a perplexed glance, the sort that told her he did not really see her and was much more interested in his phone conversation. She expected that to change when she wielded the styling scissors around him. In her admittedly slender experience handsome men were well aware of being handsome and as keen as any woman to ensure that their hair was cut only to their own exact specification.

‘Do what needs to be done,’ Roel told her impatiently.

Asked for guidance a second time, he gave her an unbelieving appraisal. ‘But it’s only a haircut, nothing important.’

So she just copied the existing conservative style. Even the feel of his luxuriant black hair thrilled her fingertips. As he paid she urged him to make sure that he came back. He had just walked out when she noticed the large denomination banknote that she assumed he had accidentally dropped on the desk. Ever eager, she rushed out into the street after him.

‘It’s a tip,’ Roel said in a pained tone when she attempted to return the money. He stared down at her from his great height while a limousine the length of a train drew up behind him and a uniformed chauffeur leapt out to throw open the passenger door for his entry.

‘But it’s too much…’ she mumbled, staggered by the sight of that limo and the concept of a tip that size.

With a shrug of imperious dismissal, Roel swung away into his opulent car.

Hilary drifted back to the present to discover that while she had been lost in her thoughts Roel had contrived to regain his natural colour and was upright again.

‘Should you be standing?’ Hilary queried, watching him set down the phone he had been using.

‘We’re going home,’ Roel imparted, ignoring the question.

In search of support, Hilary looked in dismay at the consultant. ‘Dr Lerther?’

The older man aimed a stiff smile at her. ‘There is no physical reason why your husband should remain at the clinic.’

‘Naturalmente…the other problem will vanish,’ Roel pronounced with supreme confidence.

We’re going home. Home? For goodness’ sake, where was home? Caught totally unprepared for the development, Hilary followed Roel out to the lift, which swept them down to the ground floor. There she learned that the case she had left at reception had already been stowed in the transport awaiting them.

‘So where were you when I crashed my car yesterday?’ Roel enquired a tinge drily.

‘In London…er…I have a business there,’ Hilary answered in an undertone while she frantically wondered what she was supposed to do or say next for she had no script on which to act. Nothing was as she had assumed it would be. He was walking wounded, conscious, but by no stretch of the imagination was he himself.

A limousine with tinted windows sat outside the clinic. A chauffeur doffed his cap. She climbed in and sank into a seat upholstered in rich hide leather. She struggled not to gawp at the astonishing luxury of the car interior.

‘How long have we been married?’ Roel drawled softly.

Without looking at him, Hilary breathed in deep. ‘I think it’ll be more relaxing if I don’t force-feed you facts—’

Roel reached out a lean brown hand and closed long, sure fingers over hers. ‘I want to know everything—’

Startled by the ease with which he had touched her, Hilary could not prevent her fingers from trembling within the hold of his. ‘Dr Lerther said that telling you things that you didn’t really need to know would just complicate matters—’

‘Let me decide what I need to know,’ Roel incised without hesitation.

‘I think Dr Lerther has your best interests at heart and I don’t want to risk your recovery by going against his advice,’ Hilary confided unevenly, for that physically close to him for the first time ever she was a bundle of nerves.

‘That’s nonsense.’

‘In a few days you’ll have remembered it all for yourself,’ Hilary pointed out in urgent consolation, appreciating how much more that scenario was likely to appeal to him. ‘It would be better that way…much better.’

In her eagerness to convince him that patience was his best option, Hilary finally dared to glance up. She met his dark golden gaze in a head-on collision. Her mouth dried and her heart pounded like crazy.

‘And in the short term?’ Roel prompted in his dark, deep drawl.

His delicious growling accent seemed to shimmy down her sensitive spine and set up a chain reaction through her tense body. She was welded to the spot by the electrifying gold of his appraisal; her mind was a blank. ‘The short term…?’ she parroted like someone who had never heard the expression before.

‘You and I,’ Roel specified with a low-pitched laugh that sent the colour flying up into her cheeks while she stared up at him with eyes the same shade as winter skies. ‘What do I do with a wife I’ve forgotten?’

‘You don’t need to do anything. You just trust her to l-look out for you,’ Hilary stammered, fighting with every fibre of her being to suppress her embarrassing lack of self-control around him. Why was she hanging on his every word like a lovelorn schoolgirl and gaping at him like a star struck fan? She was infuriated by her own weakness. Her role was to be a supportive friend, nothing more, nothing less. But the sheer thrill level of just being alone with Roel seemed to have stolen her wits.

‘Look out for me?’ Roel studied her from below black spiky lashes. She was planning to look out for him? In all his life he did not think that he had ever heard anything more naive or ridiculous. Yet he said nothing because she shone with sincerity and good intentions.

‘That’s what I’m here for…’ Hilary extended, but she could hardly find her voice to make that added assurance for her vocal cords were threatening to let her down. His proximity and the casual confidence with which he touched her were sending her brain into freefall.

Even as she spoke Roel raised a hand to let his forefinger trace the luscious fullness of her soft pink lower lip and that did nothing to cool her temperature. Indeed, where he touched her skin seemed to tighten with an awareness so acute it almost hurt to experience it. Leaning closer without even being aware of it, Hilary gave an almost imperceptible gasp as her nipples hardened into stiff straining points below her tee shirt.

‘You’re trembling…’ Roel murmured huskily. ‘But then why not? This is a stimulating situation.’

‘I beg your pardon…?’ Hilary whispered, convinced she had misheard him.

‘A wife I’ve forgotten,’ Roel quipped, watching her with eyes as bright and tough as metallic bronze. ‘A woman with whom I must have shared many intimacies but who appears to me at this moment in the guise of a complete stranger. It’s a sexually intriguing concept, cara mia. How could it be anything else?’

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