The Italian's Forgotten Baby
Raye Morgan
Architect Marco Di Santo lost two weeks of his life and he wants them back. After an accident on holiday left him with amnesia, he’s returned to the beautiful island of Ranai to find his memories. Socialite-in-hiding Shayna Pierce spent those two weeks falling in love with Marco. Now, taking him to the places they visited before, reliving their romance, breaks her heart – because Marco can’t remember. And nothing can prepare him for her baby bombshell…
“I don’t have any idea who you are. I feel like I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
For a second or two Shayna felt sick. The room seemed to sway. She closed her eyes and steadied herself, then looked him in the eye again, searching hard. The man she’d spent all that time with just a few weeks ago had to be in there somewhere, but she couldn’t find any sign of him at the moment.
“Is this some kind of game, Marco?”
“No. It’s not.” He shook his head, holding her gaze. “I’m serious as a midnight clock.”
She pulled her arms in close around her. It was a steamy, warm tropical day, but she was shivering. Something in his words, something in his attitude, had chilled her to the core.
“I do not know who you are. I can’t remember a thing.”
Dear Reader
Living on a South Pacific island is different. Those of you who do it know this very well. You live with lush trade winds, elegantly swaying palm trees in the silver moonlight, the thunder of surf on the reef, dancing sunlight glinting on the ocean in the distance. It’s all the background music of your life. I know—I grew up on an island.
Of course there’s also the feeling of isolation, the heat and humidity, the mildew, the bugs and the coconut crabs and the huge snails—but never mind all that. We’ll leave that part out and concentrate on the romantic side of island living.
There’s also a nice earthy innocence to island life. That’s what Shayna Pierce finds when she comes to Ranai to escape the media firestorm lifestyle she’s been living in New York. She finds what she’s searching for among the down-to-earth islanders, but she also finds love when Marco DiSanto appears in her lagoon. Will his presence ruin the idyllic life she’s made for herself? Or will she find her own voice and make a stand for her choices?
So, are you ready to take a little vacation? Hop aboard. We’re heading for an island where anything can happen!
Regards!
Raye Morgan
Raye Morgan has been a nursery school teacher, a travel agent, a clerk and a business editor, but her best job ever has been writing romances—and fostering romance in her own family at the same time. Current score: two boys married; two more to go. Raye has published over seventy romances, and claims to have many more waiting in the wings. She lives in Southern California, with her husband and whichever son happens to be staying at home at the moment.
The Italian’s Forgotten Baby
By
Raye Morgan
MILLS & BOON®
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/)
This book is dedicated to Jenn and her Vespa.
CHAPTER ONE
MARCO DISANTO lowered his long, elegantly lean body into the rickety bamboo chair and rested one elbow casually on the little round sidewalk café table. The heavy heat was offset a bit by the afternoon trade winds. Still, it was a good bet he was the only man on the island crazy enough to be wearing an Italian business suit in this climate.
Was he here on business, or was this a search for lost love? Maybe it was time he made up his mind and acted accordingly. With his free hand, he pulled a crumpled photo out of his pocket and flattened it on the surface of the table. Bracing himself, he glanced at it again.
No matter how often he looked at the picture, the shock of seeing those mesmerizing blue eyes gazing back at him sent a quiver of excitement through him. Eyes like that didn’t belong in real life. He was pretty sure they only existed on the covers of science fiction books or on fantasy movie posters.
But the ticket agent at the Ranai airport had recognized her right away when he’d shown him the photo.
“Oh sure. That’s Shayna. You can probably find her at Kimo’s Café. She works there off and on.”
So here he was, wondering why nothing looked familiar. Out of the corner of his vision, his attention was caught by crisp white shorts encasing a firmly rounded female bottom and set off by long and lovely tanned legs. He didn’t want to make eye contact—not yet—but he turned enough to see a bit more, including a loose, gauzy top that fell provocatively off one lovely shoulder, giving a teasing glimpse of full breasts. Waves of blond curls cascaded almost to her shoulders and framed a pretty face that was alive with laughter. He drew his breath in sharply, muttered something slightly obscene in Italian and looked down at the picture.
Yes, he had the right woman. But he’d never seen her before in his life. Not in the flesh, at any rate.
Who the hell could she be? The man at the airport had called her Shayna, so he supposed that must be her name. Other than that, he knew nothing about her.
He slid the picture into the pocket of his suit coat and sat back at the remote table on the patio of the fashionably shabby waterside café. He would wait. She would have to get to him eventually.
Funny that he couldn’t remember her. Funny that he couldn’t remember anything from the recent two weeks he’d spent here, on vacation in the Traechelle Islands. He’d tried. It just wouldn’t come. Something about the accident—or maybe something about what had happened while he was here—had caused his brain to block it out. The psychiatrist who’d been assigned to him during his recovery had a name for this kind of thing: selective amnesia.
“It will probably begin coming back to you bit by bit,” he’d said, frowning at Marco as though he were a specimen in an experiment. “Interesting case. I hope you’ll keep me apprised as to your progress.”
That was doubtful. If modern science had no answer for him, he would have to deal with this on his own. In the meantime, it was damn annoying. Those two weeks loomed like a black hole in his life. He found it very difficult to try to move on when he had this empty place that needed filling. He knew he’d come to this island resort, but he didn’t know what he’d done while he was here—or whom he’d done it with.
An added problem—he was missing some very important designs he’d been working on. Had he left them here? He needed to know, and he needed to find them, quickly. And so he’d come back to see if he could reconstruct just exactly what had happened to his missing two weeks.
She came out of the café carrying a tray bristling with tropical drinks, all pastel colors and tiny exotic umbrellas. He watched as she set it down on a table crowded with tourists and began to pass the drinks out. Someone said something to her and she laughed, throwing her head back so that her thick blond curls caught the breeze and flew around her face. He could hear her laughter, hear her voice, though she was too far away for him to understand just what she was saying. He stared at her, hard, even pulling off his dark aviator’s glasses for a moment to get a better look. Surely this should strike a chord with him if anything would.
But no. There was nothing.
He pulled the photo out again and looked at it. Yes, it was definitely the same woman. There she was, laughing the same way, and there he was, his arm around her shoulders in a manner that spoke of intimacy. One look said it loud and clear—at the time the picture had been taken, the two of them had been lovers. Just knowing that sent a hot current of interest through his pertinent regions. How could he have wiped his memory clean of something like that?
She picked up the empty tray, throwing a comment back to the table which made those around it erupt with laughter, and he braced himself for the moment her gaze would meet his. What would she do? Would she recognize him? Would she smile and come quickly toward him, reaching out for a hug, a kiss? Would she open up the floodgates to his lost two weeks?
But she turned to another table and began to take their order. He wasn’t going to find out yet. He relaxed. He had another few moments to watch her.
And she was definitely good to look at. She moved with style and grace, and a certain languor that evoked sensuality. She seemed to belong to these islands, like a natural part of the landscape of paradise. Just watching her move made his male instincts sizzle.
But there was no recognition triggered. None at all.
He’d thought just coming back might remove the roadblocks and trigger his memories. So far, that hadn’t happened. Once he’d found the picture, he’d been certain, that if he could find the woman again, that would do it. There was no getting around the fact that this woman was not the sort a man would easily forget.
He watched her weave her way among the tables in the outdoor café. She was coming closer. In another moment, she would see him. The moment of truth.
There was a smile on her lips as she turned. It froze as she caught sight of him. Those blue eyes were even more hypnotic in person, but right now they were filled with shock and then went cold as ice. Turning on her heel, she fled.
It took him another beat to realize she really was running from him. He hadn’t expected that. Rising, he started after her, but a table full of young people had just begun to leave and they filled the aisle, talking and laughing back and forth and blocking his path. By the time he’d made it around the corner she’d taken, he’d lost her. He looked up and down the rutted street, but she was nowhere to be seen.
“Damn,” he swore softly, frowning. Now what?
Shayna Pierce stopped herself short, gulping in air, and looked at her little Vespa. Her impulse had been to hop on and head for the hills. The only trouble was, there were no real hills—not that kind, anyway. What the heck was she doing? It was a small island. She couldn’t hide from him if she tried.
She could always wait for dark and take her motor boat out into the ocean, heading for the even smaller island of Coco where she’d been hanging out for the last month or so, just in case. But in the meantime, what was she going to do? Stay concealed in this dusty lean-to? Hardly.
She sighed, wheeling out her little Vespa. She was pretty sure he would be in the road, looking for her. She was surprised he hadn’t followed her right into the shed. He knew where she parked it when she worked at Kimo’s Café. Stopping, she took a deep breath before stepping out into the sunlight again.
Why was he back? Her emotions buzzed like a swarm of angry bees, making her dizzy. She had to admit just seeing him made her heart stutter and her stomach feel as if she’d just started off on a roller-coaster ride. What could you do when your feelings turned traitor like that?
Fight them. That was all that was left to do. But running wasn’t going to change all that. She had to face him and have it out. There was no other way, now that he was here. With a soft groan of regret, she pushed the double doors open and wheeled her Vespa out into the road.
There he was, facing out of town, hand shading his eyes, looking in the wrong direction. She kick-started the engine on her scooter and he whipped around, staring at her. With as haughty a look as she could manage, she settled into the seat and drove forward, pulling up next to him.
“Hop on,” she said. “We need to talk.”
Pulling off his sunglasses, he looked directly into her eyes. He seemed to be searching for something he didn’t find. There was no warmth in his gaze, no evidence of shared memories, of past intimacy. Her heart sank. He really did despise her now, didn’t he? Probably had from the beginning. Well, in many ways, the feeling was mutual.
Oh, brother—whom was she trying to kid? Just looking at him made her heart thump like a bass drum and the rest of her innards go all warm and gooey inside. He was such a beautiful man with his Roman profile, his huge dark eyes shaded by eyelashes thicker than any male should be allowed to have. And then there was that long, gorgeous body and those wonderful hands…
No! She looked away. She had to stop before she fell off the Vespa in an old-fashioned fainting spell.
“Come on,” she said impatiently. “We’ll go to my place. We can talk there.” She threw him a quick glare, just to keep her spirits up. “Unless you’re too busy,” she added, ready to be defensive if he gave her reason to be.
He didn’t say a word. Instead, he swung his leg over the seat behind her, grabbed the edge for balance, and held on as she started off.
Her heart thumped hard and her mind was in chaos. She’d really thought she would never see him again, and now, here he was. There were a hundred reasons why she wished he hadn’t come back. And there was one very clear reason why she was holding off a big, embarrassing swoon. She was crazy about him.
Or at least, she had been before she realized they had a connection she hadn’t known about. An ugly, painful connection that made a relationship between the two of them impossible.
Still, here he was, and what had been between them, and what had destroyed that, had to be dealt with. They were both reasonable people. They had to come to terms with things.
She raced down the dirt road at full speed, the wind in her hair. She had a lot of questions. Was he going to answer any of them? First, she wanted to know if he’d ever really cared for her at all, but that was one she was never actually going to ask. All signs pointed toward a negative.
Then she wanted to know how much her father had paid him to come find her. And last—and the most puzzling one—why hadn’t her father contacted her yet? She’d been so sure, once she realized Marco was working for her father, that someone would show up to drag her back to New York. That was why she’d gone to hide out on Coco Island for the last month.
But no one had appeared. There had been no word of anyone coming. So what had happened? Had Marco decided not to tell her father where she was after all? Had he had second thoughts? If so, his demeanor didn’t show it.
Still, she was hoping, deep in her heart, that his return meant…No, she wouldn’t put it into words. She couldn’t let herself get her hopes up. She wasn’t that naive.
Pulling the scooter to a stop in the little clearing near her tiny house, she turned off the engine. Marco got off and she followed, looking at him, trying to be as cool as he was acting.
But then a funny thing happened. He stopped and scanned the area, as though he’d never been there before. That was odd. Ordinarily, he would be striding toward her house by now.
“Go on,” she said, gesturing with a jerk of her head, but he turned to eye her warily.
“You go first,” he said.
She frowned. There was something way off center about all this. Was he sick? Was something seriously wrong? Suddenly filled with a wave of worry and compassion, she stepped toward him.
“What is it, Marco?” she asked. “Is something the matter? Do you feel all right?”
The panes of his dark glasses flashed at her mockingly, as though he were sneering at what he perceived as her attempt to get closer. “I’m fine,” he said shortly. “Let’s go. You lead the way.”
She hesitated. He sounded the same. He looked the same, except for that coldness she’d seen in his eyes. But something wasn’t right. He didn’t seem like the same person at all.
She remembered the first time she’d seen him, not two months ago. She’d just come back hot and tired from a hike along the far side of the island and she’d been going into her cabin when she heard the shout from out in the water. Shading her eyes, she’d seen someone struggling just inside the reef. Teenage lifeguard training kicked into gear and she dashed toward her little outboard motor-equipped dinghy.
Shayna to the rescue! She’d felt like a real contributing member of society—she was going to save a life.
Cranking on her motor, she’d raced out to where she’d seen the man struggling. He was still thrashing around in the water. But it didn’t take long to realize this wasn’t quite a life-threatening situation. The water inside the reef was crystal clear and turquoise blue from a distance. But as she stopped the boat and stood up to survey the scene, she saw one tired man and an array of floating blue bubbles that spread out like a little navy fleet. The poor guy had got himself caught up in a mass attack of Portuguese men-of-war and he’d tried to fight back.
“Ouch,” she’d said, wincing as she looked down and shaking her head as she noted the large red welts on his neck and shoulders—and even his face. “Didn’t you see them coming?”
The look he cast was full of fury. He said something mean and menacing in Italian and she’d grinned. “It’s not going to kill you unless you’re allergic,” she told him sensibly.
“Certo,” he said back through gritted teeth. “I’ll just wish I was dead, that’s all.”
She shrugged. “I know it’s painful.” She tried to hold back her grin, knowing any signs of amusement would infuriate him. And she couldn’t really blame him. “Just remember, it’s only temporary.”
She shook her head, looking at him now. If only she’d known who he really was at the time. But would it have made a difference? She really didn’t know.
She remembered how her gaze had hovered over what she could see of his beautifully molded body. As she recalled it now, he’d been wearing swim trunks, but the rest was out there for anyone to stare at, and it was worth the look. She’d felt her eyes sparkle with appreciation. Who didn’t like a nicely formed male figure? Still, there were other concerns to consider.
“Come on into the boat,” she’d told him. “I’ll help you.”
He was still splashing around in the water as though he felt it his manly duty to battle these little attackers and she lost patience.
“Look, do you want a ride in to shore or not? I’ve got things to do.”
He didn’t wait for another invitation. In seconds he was hauling himself up over the side of the boat.
“Water,” he’d grunted, writhing and grimacing.
She knew he wasn’t talking about being thirsty. Looking like a man on the edge, he’d pointed at her canteen but she reached for a cup.
“Not fresh water,” she’d told him crisply. “Salt water will help wash off the tentacles better and it acts to sort of neutralize the sting.”
He gave her the sort of skeptical look strongwilled men often used when they didn’t think you knew what you were talking about, but he grudgingly submitted to the salt water she poured over his welts, wincing and biting his lip.
“I’m going to rub your skin,” she’d said, trying to maintain a clinical facade. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to ignore the fact that this man had a body created to make grown women weep with gratitude and she was going to have to let herself react to it eventually. He was trying to take care of the sea creature remnant stinging his skin, and she’d stopped him.
“You’ll just get it all over your hands,” she said, as he groaned at the pain.
She searched the bottom of the boat and found a rag that was relatively clean. Turning back toward him quickly, she began working on the gelatinous blobs that littered his back, pouring out salt water, then rubbing away the residue.
“How’s that?” she asked after a quick scrub.
Turning, he gave her a look and then took the rag from her, working on his chest himself.
“Thanks,” he said shortly. “I may not sound like it, but I really do appreciate this.”
“You’re welcome,” she answered sweetly, then hid a smile as she watched him taking care of the last of the mess. Filling the cup with sea water again, she threw a splash over his shoulders, then another on his neck, and he gasped as the cool water hit his skin, then went back to work with the rag.
She watched him, bemused. He was certainly gorgeous. There didn’t seem to be an ounce of anything extra on him. He looked fit and muscular, about thirty years old.
Just right for me, she’d thought at the time with a silent chuckle. Getting to know a man like this was exactly what she’d been trying to avoid, but she had to admit, she tossed that idea away with a sense of regret.
“I never want to go through that again,” he’d said once he’d removed most of the tentacles. “I felt like something was yanking a thousand hairs out of my flesh, one by one. I’ve never felt anything that seemed so simple to be so damn painful.” He frowned. “It was horrible,” he said, as though he was afraid he hadn’t convinced her.
“So I’ve heard,” she said.
He turned to look at her, and as she thought of it now, she realized he’d really been seeing her for the first time. His head went back and his gaze skimmed over her, lingering on her bare, tanned legs. “You’ve never been stung?”
“Not me. I pay attention to what is going on around me.” She knew she sounded smug, but she couldn’t resist teasing him a little.
“I was just…” He stopped himself, obviously realizing he was beginning to sound defensive. He narrowed his eyes. “This is new territory for me. It won’t happen again.”
She’d smiled. She’d believed him then and she believed him now. He had the look of a man who didn’t usually do much daydreaming on the job.
“They looked so pretty, like little blue balloons sailing toward me in the water. I didn’t realize they were even alive until they began to sting.”
She nodded wisely. “Many of the most beautiful plants and animals in paradise hide a deadly poison,” she noted, talking more philosophy than biology.
To her surprise, he’d laughed. “Is that meant as a warning?” he asked her, and she laughed, too, realizing how it could be interpreted that way. She liked the cast of his dark eyes as they warmed with amusement. And she thought—maybe he wasn’t such an aloof character, after all—once he wasn’t in pain.
“Sit tight,” she said, moving to position herself to use the outboard motor. “I’ll take you back to shore.”
She’d sensed him studying her again as they raced over the blue water. To her surprise, she found she rather liked it. She’d come to these islands almost a year before and in all that time, she had very carefully avoided inviting any male interest.
She wasn’t here for romance. She was here for sanity. It was her intention to live modestly and attract very little notice from the locals. The tourists were a necessary nuisance, since she worked at Kimo’s, but she’d managed to make herself friendly in a reserved sort of way that seemed to work. She’d only had a few incidents where she’d had trouble getting rid of an overzealous male.
All in all, living here had worked out great. No one seemed to question her presence. No one had actually accused her of being in hiding. Maybe that was because so many of the drifters who had made their way here were just like her, avoiding life somewhere else. No one asked too many questions. She’d hoped he wasn’t going to change that trend. She still had hopes along those lines, but if that were the case, why had he come back?
She glanced at what she could see of the skin along his neck. There was no lingering evidence of weeks before when the men-of-war had stung him so badly. She remembered how, on that day, she’d brought him in to shore and tied her dinghy up to the little pier she used. Her small house was a bit back from the water, but it was visible between the coconut palm trunks, its bright yellow exterior and the riotous red hibiscus bushes around it standing out from everything else along the beach.
“Are you staying at the hotel?” she’d asked him then, toying with the idea of offering him a ride back to town on her Vespa and then shrugging it aside. She didn’t want to give him ideas, and anyway, she’d figured a nice long walk would be good for him.
“Is there really only one?” he’d asked, seeming to be amused by that thought.
“Hotel?” She nodded. “We’re pretty remote,” she noted. “We don’t really get a lot of tourists. Most of the passers through are here for the fishing or for the seasonal yacht regattas.”
“I see.”
“So…which are you?”
“Which am I?” he’d repeated, as though wondering himself. “Neither, actually,” he said cryptically. “I guess you could say I’m here for repairs. A little recuperation.”
He’d had the tone of someone who didn’t welcome too much delving into his affairs, so she’d let it drop.
And she knew now that had probably been her big mistake. She found out soon after that he’d only come to the island because he was looking for her. Well, he’d found her. And then he’d left without her.
And here he was, back again.
But that had all happened then, four weeks before. She looked at him sharply. This was now. Why was he back?
It had only been a few minutes since they’d arrived on the Vespa. He was still standing in the clearing, looking a bit lost, and all she was doing was remembering—thinking about the old Marco who had been here before. This new Marco seemed somewhat annoying in contrast and not half as appealing. But maybe the fact that she knew things about him now that she didn’t know then had something to do with that.
If only she’d given him the third degree at that point on that day four weeks ago when she’d found him in the water, she might have saved herself a lot of trouble.
CHAPTER TWO
MARCO COULD TELL she was wondering what to do with him and maybe mulling over things from their shared past, so he waited, letting her stew. He needed some time himself. He was having trouble dealing with all this. A beautiful woman, a forgotten past—it all seemed so outlandish. He could certainly understand Shayna’s appeal. He had no doubt his vacation on Ranai had been pretty spectacular, if she had been his companion in the way all evidence suggested. But that only made it even more crazy that he couldn’t remember her.
And there was another thing. Why had she run from him?
That was the question he needed to hear answered. He’d seen the look of fear in her eyes. Her first reaction had been surprise, but fear had followed quickly, and she’d turned and dashed off as though…what? He’d never been known as a pushover where ladies were concerned, but he’d certainly never been a Blackbeard, either. What had she expected him to do? Whatever it was, she’d thought better of it soon enough, and decided to be reasonable.
But he couldn’t rid himself of that nagging question. Why had she run? It had shocked him and shaken his confidence in a strange way he wasn’t used to. Maybe this situational amnesia had more facets than he’d thought. Maybe his subconscious really wanted to shield him. Maybe there was something about himself he wasn’t going to like finding out.
He would have been less surprised if she’d acted casually unconcerned about his existence, or if she’d walked up, gazed at him with no recognition at all and asked if he wanted a menu. But she hadn’t done that. She’d taken one look, known him immediately, and turned and ran.
What had he done to her? He had a small shiver of unease deep inside. What could he possibly have done to bring on a reaction like that?
He looked at her and tried to read her thoughts by the look in those exceptional blue eyes. She was hesitating, expecting him to start for her house. And that presented a problem. He didn’t know which house was hers. There were two little houses, one on either side of the clearing. He stood back, pretending to be polite, waiting for her to take the lead.
He’d planned to tell her right away about losing his memory. Now he wasn’t so sure. He hesitated. As he stood in the clearing, island life seemed to blossom around him. The sound of the surf on the reef provided background music to parrots calling to each other in the trees and someone in a distant house singing a catchy island song. The heat was a physical presence, and the sunlight seemed to slant into his eyes. If he wasn’t careful, the island magic was going to eat away at his sanity. And that made him think that it might be the wiser course of action to let things cruise for a while as he tried to figure out what upset Shayna. He might as well give it a bit of time to see what he could glean from her conversation before she knew the truth.
And if neither of them was going to make a move, at least he had to say something.
“How long have you lived here?” he asked without thinking.
She turned to stare at him. “What are you trying to do, stir up some small talk?” she asked tartly as he realized his mistake.
This was something a friend would know. He was going to have to take care not to sound like a stranger.
“Why not?” he responded lightly.
Why not, indeed.
She bristled, one hand on her hip. He was still looking around as if he didn’t recognize the place. She would like to think that he was opening his eyes to what he’d lost when he’d destroyed their relationship. That he was re-evaluating some of his actions. Unfortunately, she couldn’t quite buy it.
“We’re a little beyond that, don’t you think?” she muttered, shaking her head. “Come on,” she added, starting off down her path at last. “Let’s go inside. I’m dying for some iced tea.”
“Sounds good to me,” he agreed, following her. His gazed dropped to her cute bottom and he quickly looked away. Until he found out what the problem was between them, he wasn’t going there.
Her house was tiny, set on stilts and surrounded by riotously flowering plants. It was exactly what a beautiful young woman who lived in the tropics should have for a house, he decided, but that was just what made him wary. It was all too perfect, too lush, too sensual—like a trap. Was that what had happened before? He’d probably fallen for her like a ton of bricks, right from the start. He was going to be more careful this time.
He followed her up the wooden steps and across the wide lanai, pulling off his dark glasses as he did so. Inside, she had an open floor plan tastefully decorated in pastels and rattan furniture. He glanced around the room but didn’t see any sign of anything personal that would tell him anything. There was one framed photograph high on a shelf, but not much else, no mementoes of trips or triumphs. She didn’t seem to reveal much easily.
She went into the little kitchenette and opened a small refrigerator, pulling out a pitcher of iced tea and reaching into a cupboard for two tall glasses. He took his gratefully and drank most of it down. It was a hot day.
“So,” she said, leaning on the counter between them and gazing at him levelly, “you’re back. I assume there’s a reason?”
He leaned on the counter, too, just to keep things even. “I came back to find you.”
Something flashed in her eyes. It wasn’t particularly friendly, but there was a wary question behind the guardedness. She was angry and resentful about something, but she was ready to be coaxed back into friendliness. If he could just figure out what that would take, he would do it.
“Well, here I am,” she said, trying to be flip. “Though I didn’t know I was missing.”
Their gazes met and held. There was a hesitant question in her beautiful eyes, along with that touch of resentment. He frowned. This was a mystery he was going to have to get to the bottom of.
“Look, Shayna, I don’t know why you’re so angry with me,” he said, putting his glass down on the counter. “I don’t know what I did.” And he leaned back a little, expecting a vigorous response.
And that was pretty much what he got.
“You don’t know?” She stared at him as though flabbergasted. “Marco Smith—” She stopped. “Oops, I forgot. It’s really Marco DiSanto, isn’t it?” Her startlingly blue eyes were glaring at him now. “What are you doing, having memory lapses now? Don’t know what you did! Please.”
Whatever his mistake had been, she didn’t like it. That much was evident. He watched her anger, wishing he knew how to quench it.
“But I guess you are forgetting things,” she said crisply, waving a hand at him. “Look, you’ve only been gone a few weeks and already you’ve forgotten how we live in the tropics.” She shook her head. “Don’t you feel overdressed in that suit?”
“I had a meeting with a client in Singapore just before I caught the plane out here,” he explained, looking down.
She shrugged.
“At least get rid of that suit coat.”
“I’d like to,” he admitted, shrugging out of it. “With your kind permission,” he added, exaggerating his manners.
She hesitated and he could tell she had the impulse to come around the counter and take it from him in order to hang it up somewhere. But she was reminding herself that she was angry and an angry woman didn’t do things like that for the object of her anger. So she stayed put, but it was obviously an effort.
“Just hang it on the back of that stool,” she muttered, and her cheeks reddened a bit.
Marco’s instincts were right on the money. Shayna was a mass of conflicting emotions right now and that made life more uncomfortable than she was used to. She watched him take care of his jacket and loosen the knot in his tie. He tugged open the top three buttons on his silky white shirt, unbuttoned his cuffs, and shoved one sleeve up to his elbow. She was fascinated as he began a transformation. With each adjustment, he seemed to lose a bit of his reserve. He was sloughing away a more formal civilization and sinking into island life and, for some crazy reason, that made her heart beat faster.
“Stop it!” she said aloud before she realized what she was doing.
“What?” he said, looking up in surprise, the second sleeve only beginning to be pushed up.
“N…nothing,” she said quickly, flushing. “I wasn’t talking to you, I was just…” Her voice trailed off. There was no way to explain.
But she could take this as a warning. She was still vulnerable to his charms and she had to beware.
All she had to do was remember how easily she’d fallen under his spell a few weeks ago. He’d looked very different that first day. There had been no business suit then. In fact, there had been very little covering his beautiful body after she’d rescued him from the little blue men-of-war.
Once back on the shore, she’d gone against her better instincts and invited him in for iced tea that day, too.
“My name is Shayna Pierce,” she’d said once they’d settled at this same counter that day.
There was just the slightest hesitation before he’d answered. She should have paid more attention to that.
“Marco,” he said at last. “Marco Smith.”
She’d gaped at him. He was so obviously Italian, from his dashing dark looks to his very sexy accent. The name seemed like a fake from the start.
“Smith! Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
His dark eyes had gazed at her levelly, just a touch of humor in their cloudy recesses.
“You doubt me?”
She’d flushed. Doubt him? Not at all. Here in the islands, everyone was entitled to whatever name they wanted to use. Who was she to judge him? Her own name was as phony as…well, as a three-dollar bill. She’d made it up and now that she was used to it, she found that the name she was hiding under suited her much better than her old name. “No, of course not.”
But he’d been so gorgeous that day. As she remembered it, after a few minutes of sipping and conversation, she’d found her gaze straying to his muscular chest once too often.
“Where exactly did you leave your clothes?” she’d asked him a bit fretfully.
He was feeling much better by that time. The red welts had mostly melted away.
“What do I need with clothes?” he’d responded, half-teasing. “Isn’t this the tropics? I thought you all walked around like children in the Garden of Eden.”
She’d laughed, teasing right back. “Even Adam was embarrassed when he realized Eve was looking at him cross-eyed.”
“I don’t embarrass that easily,” he said, and at the same moment, his gaze caught hers and held and she felt a rush of sensual excitement in a way she’d never experienced before. There was a knowing glint in his eyes, which told her he had thoughts of exploring things between them, things that would come too close to intimacy. Things she couldn’t allow. She didn’t think she’d ever read the signals in a man’s eyes quite so clearly as she did at that moment. She’d been uncharacteristically tongue-tied for a good twenty seconds.
He’d broken the spell by smiling and speaking casually, as though none of that had happened at all.
“As for my clothes, they are back on the beach somewhere. Closer to town. The water was so clear and the fish were so beautiful, I guess I got caught up in the moment and swam pretty far from where I started.”
She’d sighed, looking at him and biting her lip. It was one thing to pal around with a halfnaked man on the beach. Somehow it seemed very different here in her home. It had made her uncomfortable.
He’d noticed. “I’d ask to borrow one of your shirts, but I have a feeling that would be a tight squeeze,” he said lightly.
“I’ll find you something,” she’d said, jumping up and then afraid she’d sounded a bit too eager. “Uh, I’ll be right back.”
She took her time, rummaging through her closet shelves and waiting for her cheeks to cool down. And then she remembered the Hawaiian shirts a previous tenant had left and pulled them out, choosing a bright yellow one with a red parrot on the front.
“Here you go,” she said as she came out into the living room again, expecting to find him still at the counter. But he wasn’t there. Instead, he was across the room where he had obviously been studying the things on her display shelves. As she came into the room he’d turned and stared at her, a completely new look on his face.
“Didn’t you say your name was Shayna Pierce?” he’d asked, at the same time studying her closely.
She remembered blinking and feeling a tiny thread of alarm slithering down her spine. What had he seen on her display shelves?
“That’s right.”
He’d frowned, staring at her face. “Are you sure?”
She gave him a sideways glance of annoyance. “Last time I looked,” she said tartly.
He shook his head and gazed at her narrowly. “There’s something familiar about you,” he’d said softly.
Her mouth had gone dry but she rolled her eyes and said, “Oh, I hope not.”
“Why would you say that?”
She’d searched his eyes. He was smiling again and she felt a sense of relief. Whatever he’d thought he saw, he’d already forgotten about it.
“No reason.” She smiled back a bit warily. “It’s just that we like our privacy out here in the islands. It’s pretty much a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ situation. You’re playing with fire if you delve too much into others’ lives.” She shrugged. “You have your life and I have mine. We tend to let sleeping dogs lie.”
He’d given a snort of amusement. “You’re just an encyclopedia of useful sayings,” he noted, teasing her again. “I’m sure I’ll be improving my English if I’m around you long enough.”
She’d laughed and teased him back, but his recent reaction stayed with her for a while. She certainly had her reasons for avoiding his curiosity. There was nothing she was prepared to share with him. As she remembered it now, she’d shaken his question away at the time and held the shirt out for him and he slipped into it, leaving the buttons undone so that the shirt hung open. There was still a lot of gorgeous flesh on display, but it was a big improvement, and she’d thought that she could relax a little.
What a fool she’d been. Relax! She’d invited a viper into her life, a spy into her home, and she was thinking she could relax.
At the time, she’d been somewhat concerned that he might recognize her face, but she’d thought that wasn’t very likely. Only a year before, her face had dominated the tabloids, but she’d taken steps to make herself look very different from that girl who’d been considered a media sensation. Her hair had been shorter, straighter, redder, and she’d faced the world with a permanent pout.
Attitude, they called it. Spoiled selfish brat behavior, she called it now. To the tabloidreading public, she’d been considered a “bad girl” who always went right to the edge of trouble, but didn’t quite slip over that cliff. Few had understood how tempting that fall would have been to her. Anything to save her from the life she’d been leading.
She’d been born Summer Hudson, daughter of Glendenning Hudson, one of the richest real estate moguls in Manhattan—a man who partied with film stars and raced yachts for recreation—always firmly in front of the cameras. As a child, her birthday parties had been covered on the evening news, her first ride on a pony documented, her first prom night celebrated. She’d grown up in the public eye.
She knew most people would choke with laughter if she told them it wasn’t easy being rich and famous. But the truth was, it wasn’t. Living life on a constant high of attention was exciting at times, but it quickly became a numbing sort of hell. That public ordeal might have been tolerable if only her private life had given her the support she needed—the support anyone needed. But her father’s insatiable appetite for publicity and acclaim left her with no safe haven.
In fact, she sometimes thought it had driven her a little insane. She did things, said things, ended up with people, who were obviously all wrong for her. Life was a mad, speeding carousel with clown faces coming at her out of the dark, and as it began to turn faster and faster, she knew she had to jump off or it would destroy her.
She’d tried often enough, and each time, her father had found a way to pull her back into the spotlight. Finally, she’d escaped secretly and on her own, using a lawyer friend as her only contact to let people know she was okay, and she’d made her way, with a new identity, to this most remote of tropical islands.
When she’d first arrived she had been exhausted and heartbroken, as damaged as a broken butterfly. She’d thought she would stay for six months or so, heal herself, take a deep breath and go back into the fray a stronger contender.
But it had been so different living here—being a real person, not a media creation; living by her own rules instead of serving as the center of other people’s emotional attachments and needs. Being able to understand that people were dealing with her as a normal person, not as some kind of sick icon.
She’d grown. She’d expanded. She felt as though her heart were bigger now. Her life was bigger. She knew what real joy was. And most important, she knew she would never voluntarily go back.
No, she hadn’t been concerned about him recognizing her, and that was just as well, since it seemed he’d already figured out who she was long before. It might have been nice if he’d let her in on that little secret that first day. Then she might have avoided the opportunity to fall for someone so wrong.
But she had fallen. And then she’d found out who he really was, why he really was there, and her heart had broken in two. Seemingly heedless, he’d left the island. She’d tried to get over him. She’d been stern with herself and attempted a quick recovery. And now she’d realized he’d left her with more than memories. Her world had tilted on its axis. That changed everything. And yet…
Well, now he was back. What next?
As she pulled herself back to the present, she found him leaning forward and looking at her with a strange, intense light in his lush dark eyes. She had the feeling he was looking for something in her he just wasn’t finding and he was losing patience with the search.
“Would you like something to eat?” she asked as a quick distraction.
“I’m not hungry,” he said, and it was lucky. Just the passing thought of food made her queasy at the moment. The last thing she wanted to do was let him see her current condition. That was something she was going to keep from him at all costs.
“Tell me, Shayna,” he said abruptly, “what is it that you want from me?”
She drew back, surprised. His tone was just…unacceptable. That was the word. Who the heck did he think he was, anyway? She stared at him, sending daggers his way. He was, after all, the one who had come back. She hadn’t asked him to.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, a bit of sarcasm showing. “An apology would be nice.”
One dark eyebrow rose and he looked a little startled. “An apology for what?”
Her eyes flashed. “Well, that’s the crux of the matter isn’t it? If you don’t feel there’s anything to apologize for, forget it.”
She knew as the words left her mouth that she was falling into the usual female trap of expecting a man to understand how his actions had affected her. You had to explain these things to them. Saying “forget it” just gave them an out to do exactly that. She bit her lip. Was he going to try, at least?
He started to say something, then changed his mind, as though he was reining in what he’d really like to tell her. She waited, simmering. Of all the arrogant men in the world, she had to choose this one.
But she still reacted to him. When she thought of his kiss, her body warmed with memories. Looking at him now, she could hardly believe it hadn’t been a dream. He seemed cold and somewhat angry. At first she had thought he appeared very much the same, but she’d been wrong. He was like a different person. She put a hand over her mouth, holding back that queasy feeling again, a feeling that was beginning to be a regular around here. Closing her eyes, she swayed, waiting for it to ease. There was no denying the signs. It was only waiting to be confirmed by the doctor.
Finally, he shook his head and gave a short laugh. “Okay, Shayna, here’s the deal. You know who I am, don’t you?” He said it, as though that still surprised him.
“Of course I know who you are.” She frowned, beginning to find this conversation eerily convoluted. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t up for the challenge in his tone. She leaned toward him. “In fact, I know both of who you are.”
His wide mouth was like a slash against his handsome face and it turned up at the corners.
“Both, huh? Are you referring to my wellknown split personality?”
He sounded as if he was teasing, but he had to know what she was talking about.
“Is that your alibi?” she tossed back.
He blinked, and then his eyes narrowed. “Do I need one?”
“You tell me. You’re the one with two names.” She winced. There she went again, talking before thinking. After all, she had two names herself, and he knew it very well.
But, strangely, he didn’t seem to have caught her very obvious mistake. Instead, he just looked puzzled.
“This is fascinating,” he said lightly. “Why don’t you give me a full explanation. What are my two names?”
“Well, first there’s Marco Smith, the man I got to know for two weeks.”
His dark eyes looked bewildered by that name. “Smith?” he repeated, giving it an Italian accent that made it seem all the more phony.
She sniffed, assuming he was just covering his tracks.
“And then there’s Marco DiSanto, the man I only met that last day, before he bid me a careless adieu and flew off into the clouds, never to be seen again.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he told her, shaking his head and frowning. “And anyway, I’m here, aren’t I? Marco DiSanto, in the flesh.”
She cocked her head to the side, pretending to consider the dilemma.
“Where do you want to go with this? Shall we discuss which one I liked better?” She shrugged. “That’s easy. I liked the liar, of course. He was funny and sexy and great to be with.”
His puzzlement was growing, but she’d gone too far to stop now.
“But you see, that’s the paradox. He was the lie. Bye-bye Marco Smith.” She pretended to wave a fond farewell toward the doorway. “Marco DiSanto, on the other hand, was not very nice to me. He told the truth, but it was a truth I didn’t want to hear.”
She stared into his eyes, looking for any tiny sign of regret he might be willing to bestow. Just a hint. It might have made her feel better.
For just a moment, she remembered how he used to laugh with her, his white teeth flashing against his tan skin. She would give almost anything to see that laughter now, that warmth. Instead, she saw amusement, but she couldn’t tell if he was smiling with her or against her. He had a sense of reserve in his face as he looked at her. She wanted passion and he was giving her polite appreciation instead. A little passion, a bit of memory, would have cancelled out a lot of her resentment.
But instead, he asked her a question she wasn’t expecting.
“Do you always tell the truth, Shayna?”
That startled her. She turned away. He knew the answer to that. He knew she’d lied to him about who she was for two weeks, just like she lied to everyone. She supposed it was only fair that he bring it up, since she’d brought up his lies. But still…
He went on, speaking softly.
“Truth can be a slippery thing. You know what they say. One man’s truth is another man’s fairy tale.”
She sighed. It seemed he did want to make her suffer. Well, she could give as good as she got. She gave him a direct look.
“Telling stories did seem to be a talent of yours when you were here before,” she noted.
He barely acknowledged her dig, waving it away as though he had larger things on his mind.
“Okay, here’s some truth for you, Shayna.” He paused, took a deep breath, and let it out. “I don’t know you.”
Her head whipped around and she stared at him. For a few seconds, she went back over his words in her head. Had she really heard what she’d thought she heard?
“What are you talking about?”
He met her gaze firmly. “I don’t have any idea who you are. I feel like I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
For a second or two, she felt sick. The room seemed to sway. She closed her eyes and steadied herself, then looked him in the eye again, searching hard. The man she’d spent all that time with just a few weeks ago had to be in there somewhere, but she couldn’t find any sign of him at the moment.
“Is this some kind of game, Marco?”
“No. It’s not.” He shook his head, holding her gaze. “I’m serious as a midnight clock.”
She pulled her arms in close around her. It was a steamy tropical day, but she was shivering. Something in his words, something in his attitude, had chilled her to the core.
“I do not know who you are. I can’t remember a thing.”
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.
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