Confessions of the Heart

by Amanda Stevens

  With an effort, Anna did as she was told, but it wasn’t easy. Adrenaline still raged through her bloodstream, and her instinct for survival, always powerful, demanded that she fight. Putting her life in Ben’s hands without a struggle took a monumental effort on her part.

  Luckily, he was a strong swimmer. He had them to safety in a matter of seconds. They both collapsed on the sandy bank, Anna on her hands and knees, coughing up water.

  Ben said a little breathlessly, “We need to get you to a hospital.”

  “No,” she protested weakly. “I’m fine.”

  “You almost drowned, Anna. We have to get you checked out.” He lifted her into his arms, and then rose easily with her weight.

  Anna was too shaky to fight him. “I’ll be fine,” she said on a trembling breath. “I swallowed some water, but other than that, I think I’m okay.”

  “We’ll let a doctor decide that.”

  She buried her face in Ben’s chest, letting the steady beat of his heart calm her until, several minutes later, he carried her into the house.

  Katherine’s house.

  Something happened to Anna then. Something she couldn’t explain. She’d almost died at the bottom of the river, and she should be grateful to be inside the comforting warmth of a home. Any home. But there was something about this house…

  The first time she’d seen it, she’d thought the place held secrets. She still thought that. But she no longer wanted to unveil them.

  As if sensing her uneasiness, Ben’s arms tightened around her. They were standing in the foyer, dripping water all over some exotic rug, but he seemed oblivious to the damage. “You’re still shivering,” he murmured. “I’ll just get the car and we’ll drive to the hospital.”

  As foreboding a place as this house now seemed, the mention of the hospital alerted Anna to a new danger. An examination would reveal the scar on her chest, and the doctor on call would undoubtedly insist on knowing her medical history. If she told him about the transplant…if Ben found out…

  He’s bound to find out sooner or later, a little voice warned.

  Not that way, Anna thought. She needed time to explain to him exactly why she’d decided to carry out such a deception. She had to somehow find a way to make him understand.

  She pushed herself away from him. “Please put me down. I’m fine. I don’t need a doctor.”

  He scowled in disapproval. “A near drowning is nothing to take lightly, Anna. We need to make sure your lungs weren’t damaged—”

  “But I was only under water for a few seconds. Less than a minute, surely. It seemed like an eternity, but it wasn’t. I never lost consciousness. I’m fine, Ben. Really.”

  He gave her an exasperated look. “Why not let a doctor make that determination?”

  “Because I spent a good portion of the last two years of my life in hospitals,” she blurted. “I don’t want to go back to one unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  He stared at her for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay, if that’s the way you want it. You’re a grown woman. I can’t make you go.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But we have to call the police,” Ben said. “Someone tried to kill you. You weren’t tied to that boat by accident.”

  “I know, but it’s already starting to seem like a bad dream, like it happened to someone else.” She shuddered and Ben wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

  “Come in here,” he said, leading her into the living room. “Sit down and I’ll get you a blanket.”

  “But I’m all wet,” Anna protested. “It’ll ruin the sofa.”

  “Who the hell cares about that?” Ben turned abruptly and left the room. He was only gone for a few minutes, but delayed shock was already taking a toll on Anna’s nerves by the time he came back.

  She trembled uncontrollably as he wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and tucked it snuggly around her legs. “Still think you don’t need a doctor? You’re shaking so badly I can almost hear your teeth chatter.”

  “I—I’m o-okay.” She clutched the blanket tightly to her chest.

  “Are you up to talking? Can you tell me what happened?”

  “I’m not sure I know.” She put a hand to the back of her head, finding the knot. The wound was tender to the touch, but surprisingly, it didn’t hurt. “Someone must have knocked me out,” she murmured.

  “Where?”

  “Back at the hotel.” She took a moment to test her memory. “I heard someone playing the piano so I went down to the music room, but no one was there. I saw someone on the steps, and I thought it might be Emily. Or Acacia.”

  Ben stared at her with a puzzled frown. “So you followed them? I can understand if you thought it was Emily, but why would you follow Acacia?”

  Because I wanted to ask her if she was the one who’s been playing “Heart and Soul”. Aloud Anna said, “I don’t know. I guess it was just a spur of the moment thing.” That much was true at least. “I saw the boat tied to the dock and I remembered how you said that Emily may have gotten into a boat of her own free will. I thought maybe she’d come back to the hotel. So I went to check it out, and I saw bloodstains. I think someone must have come up behind me then, hit me and pushed me into the boat. The next thing I knew, I woke up strapped to the oar hooks and the boat was sinking.” She glanced at Ben. “You saved my life.”

  He shrugged off her gratitude. “I’m just glad I came along when I did.”

  “Why were you out here?” she asked suddenly. “At just the right moment?”

  Something flickered in his eyes. “That’s not an accusation, I hope.”

  “No, of course not. But you have to admit the coincidence is pretty amazing.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t such a coincidence.”

  Anna frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Ben looked suddenly at a loss. He rose and walked over to the windows to stare out. “As it happens, I was on my way to the hotel to see you.”

  “You…were?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, meeting her gaze. “I can’t seem to stay away from you.”

  The admission stunned her, although Anna wasn’t sure why. She felt the same way, had from the moment she’d first laid eyes on him.

  But things had changed between them now. She could sense it. Ben had risked his life to save her, and Anna knew if the situation were reversed, she would have done the same for him. The bond between them was no longer merely a physical attraction, if it had ever been only that. The connection now was deeper, more spiritual and much more complex.

  Love at first sight? Anna wasn’t convinced she believed in the concept still, but whatever she and Ben had, it wasn’t going away. Not in a day. Not in a year. Maybe not ever.

  He came back to the sofa and sat down beside her. “When I got to the mission tonight, I stopped for some reason to stare at the river. I saw something in the water. I started to ignore it, but something warned me not to. When I swam out to it, I saw that it was the bottom of a boat, and I somehow knew you were down there, in danger. I don’t know how I knew. It was the oddest thing, Anna. I rarely carry a pocket knife, but I had one with me tonight.”

  To cut away the cords.

  Electricity tingled along Anna’s nerve endings, making her shiver.

  Ben saw her and reached over to tug the blanket more securely around her. “You’re still shaking. You need to get out of those wet clothes while I call the police. Come on,” he said, pulling her to her feet. “A hot shower will do you a world of good. I’ll have Gwen find something for you to put on. No argument, okay?”

  She shook her head. “No argument. But Ben—” When he turned to glance down at her, she paused. “Everything you just told me…knowing that I was in danger…the pocketknife. How do you explain it?”

  “I can’t,” he said with a shrug. “I guess we’ll just have to chalk it up to luck.”

  But it was something more than luck, and they both knew it.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ann
a knew immediately that the room Ben showed her to was his own. The heavy furniture and dark accessories were very masculine, but with a hint of the same elegance she’d seen in the rest of the house.

  As she stood gazing around, Ben said with some irony, “This room is as big as my entire apartment back in Houston.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Anna murmured. “The whole house is incredible.”

  “Incredibly creepy,” he muttered.

  She turned in surprise. “You feel it, too, then. I thought it was just me.”

  He frowned. “I’ve never liked this house.”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but when I first saw it, I thought it had a secretive quality.”

  Ben’s expression turned grim. “It’s not crazy. This house does have secrets.”

  Anna shivered as she stared up at him. “And you know what they are, don’t you?”

  He hesitated. “Not all of them.”

  “The first time I saw you, I thought you had secrets, too,” Anna said softly.

  “Don’t we all?” He turned then and walked across the room to open a door. Reaching inside, he turned on the bathroom light. “There’re plenty of fresh towels, soap, shampoo, everything you need.”

  He watched her from the bathroom doorway, and Anna suddenly grew very nervous. There was something so darkly sensuous about the way he looked, something so dangerously seductive about the way he looked at her.

  When she walked across the room to join him, he moved back, allowing her to enter the stone-and-marble bathroom, done in monochromatic shades of beige.

  “I’ll give you some privacy,” he murmured, then closed the door between them.

  Anna gazed around again, hesitant for some reason to undress in Ben’s bathroom. Then telling herself she was being ridiculous, she turned on the shower and let the water get hot while she quickly stripped off her clothes. Stepping into the steamy shower, she closed her eyes for a moment, reveling in the instant warmth that invaded her. The river had been so cold….

  She stayed in the shower for a long time, then as the water began to cool, she reluctantly turned off the taps and stepped out. Drying off quickly, she wrapped one beige towel around her body and wound another around her hair.

  As she cleared the steam from the mirror, Anna’s gaze went immediately to the thick, ropey scar that split her chest cavity in two.

  What man would want to see that in bed?

  Unbidden, Hays’s words came back to her, and she remembered something else, too—the dream she’d had her first night in San Miguel. Ben had been making love to her, but when he’d seen her scar, he’d vanished into thin air.

  She suddenly wondered if that dream could have been a portent, and with that thought, Anna abruptly turned away from the mirror. Opening the bathroom door a crack, she glanced into the bedroom. Finding the room empty, she walked out, her gaze going straight to the bed where a red dress had been laid out on top of the spread.

  Anna walked over and picked up the garment, holding it against her body. It was a simple sheath in a beautiful semi-sheer silk. The fabric gleamed against her pale skin, and she knew when she put it on, it would mold itself to even her meager curves.

  Anna had only met Gwen Draven once, but she couldn’t picture her in such a garment. The dress seemed more suited to…

  Katherine.

  This was exactly the kind of dress Katherine would have worn.

  Was that why she was so drawn to it? Anna wondered. The color. The fabric. Everything about it was perfection. Everything about it screamed seduction….

  Anna had a closetful of expensive garments at home—designer suits, cocktail dresses, casual slacks and sweaters—all in somber colors.

  She’d never owned a red dress in her life. Red wasn’t even her color, she told herself, as she slipped it over her head. The fabric glided like a breath of warm air over her hips.

  On bare feet, Anna walked across the room to the full-length mirror and preened in front of it.

  Amazing.

  The dress not only made her feel different, but she also looked different. A warm rosy glow replaced her usual pale complexion, and her damp hair hung in heavy waves down her back. Even her body looked different. She’d been very thin since the surgery and her restrictive diet, but the dress made her look as if she had curves. Feminine curves. Womanly curves.

  She ran her hands down her sides, admiring the cut and drape of the garment, the sensuality of the silk. Her gaze lifted suddenly, and she saw Ben in the doorway watching her.

  His arms were folded as he leaned one shoulder against the frame. His gaze met hers in the mirror, and an electric shock rode up Anna’s spine. Then, very slowly, he moved toward her.

  Anna didn’t turn as he approached, but instead she watched him in the mirror. When he stood behind her, he lifted his hands to her shoulders. “My God,” he breathed. “You look…incredible.”

  “It’s the dress,” Anna murmured.

  “It’s not the dress.” His voice had gone all deep and husky. His fingers feathered down her arms to entangle briefly with hers. Then, with slow deliberation, he moved his hands to her hips, sliding them slowly up her sides, tracing her waist, grazing her breasts. He put an arm around her waist and drew her to him.

  Anna leaned into him, letting her head tip back as he bent to nuzzle her neck, to whisper in her ear what he wanted to do to her.

  She couldn’t believe they were having such an intimate moment. They were both still dressed, but she’d never been so aroused in her life. Never wanted a man as badly as she wanted Ben at that moment.

  It didn’t matter that they were strangers. He didn’t seem like a stranger at all to Anna.

  It didn’t matter that only a little while ago, she’d been fighting for her life beneath a cold, dark river. Ben had saved her.

  With a sigh, Anna turned her head and his mouth found hers. He greedily parted her lips and then plunged his tongue inside to tangle with hers. She met his thrusts and matched them with her own fevered urgency, moaning softly as he lifted his hand to her breast.

  When he broke the kiss, Anna buried her face in his neck, drinking in the scent of him, the feel of him, the very essence of him. Then she turned slightly so that she could see their reflections in the mirror. So that she could watch his hands glide over her, stroking her, making her want him even more.

  A slight movement in the mirror drew her gaze away from Ben, and Anna saw that someone else watched them from the doorway. She had only a brief glimpse before the figure turned and darted away.

  Anna stiffened. “Someone was in the doorway, watching us.”

  Ben lifted his head. He had the dazed look of a drunk. “What?” he said thickly.

  “Someone was in the doorway. I think it might have been Gabby.” Anna turned in his arms. “Oh, Ben…she saw us….”

  “It’s okay. We were just kissing.”

  But it wasn’t exactly as innocent as all that, either. Anna had been very close to succumbing to the passion, to the almost unbearable sexual tension that had been building inside her from the moment she’d entered this house.

  “You’d better go after her,” she said. “She may be upset.”

  Ben ran a hand through his dark hair. “You’re probably right. I’ll go talk to her.” He strode across the room and turned at the door. “The police are on the way. You can wait downstairs if you want to.”

  And then he was gone. Anna hugged her arms tightly to her middle, telling herself that it was only her imagination that the room had suddenly grown quite cold.

  But no longer comfortable in Ben’s bedroom, she stepped into the hallway. She’d meant to go downstairs and wait for the police as Ben had suggested, but her gaze was drawn to an open door across the hallway. As Anna moved past it, she glanced inside.

  A lamp had been left on, and the opulence of the room drew her inside. The walls were chartreuse glazed with gold, and the draperies were a fine Indian silk trimmed with crystal beads. The huge four-poster
bed was adorned with a plush cheetah throw and stacked high with pillows in delicate embroidered silks.

  A painting of a woman hung over the bed. She was dressed in a beautiful red gown that glowed like a ruby in the subtle lighting.

  It was a life-size portrait of Katherine, but the artist’s brushstrokes were so clever and subtle that Anna could almost believe for a moment it was Katherine’s ghost hovering over her. Those dark, knowing eyes seemed alive somehow, and the sly, sensuous smile taunted Anna.

  Across from the portrait, French doors opened onto a balcony, and Anna moved across the room to glance out. A curving stone staircase led down into a walled courtyard where a lighted fountain trickled in the center. In the cast-off illumination, Anna saw a young girl hiding in the shadows. It had to be Gabby.

  Anna watched her for a moment, then opened the door and stepped out onto the balcony. She was almost at the bottom of the stairs before Gabby heard her footsteps—or sensed her presence—and whirled. In the glow from the fountain, her skin looked very pale. Paler, even, than Anna’s.

  She said on a gasp, “Mother?”

  Anna was at once stricken with guilt. “Oh, Gabby, no. I’m sorry. My name is Anna Sebastian. I’m…a friend of Ben’s.”

  “I thought you were my mother’s friend,” the girl said coldly. She sat down on a nearby bench, her gaze still on Anna.

  “I wasn’t actually friends with your mother,” Anna said carefully.

  “Then why are you wearing her dress?”

  Anna glanced down. “I had an accident earlier. I…fell in the river. Ben asked Gwen to find me something to wear.”

  “And she picked out that dress?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you,” Anna said softly. “I’ll change if you’d like.”

  Gabby shrugged. “No, I guess it’s okay.”

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  She shrugged again, then turned to stare at the fountain.

  Anna studied her for a moment in the dim light. She was a plain girl by most standards, but Anna thought she had a very interesting face. Her cheekbones were high and angular, her eyes wide-set and dark, radiating, even from a distance, a cool, keen intelligence. Her lips were full and lush like her mother’s, and in time, on an older face, they would probably become very seductive.