by Maya Banks
“Wait a minute,” he ordered. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”
Her eyes came alive again, brimming with excitement. The sparkle was infectious.
“Outside, of course! It’s snowing!”
He glanced toward his window but he was too bleary-eyed to make sense of the weather. “Haven’t you ever seen snow before?”
She shook her head.
“Are you serious?”
She nodded this time. “I live on an island off the Texas coast. We don’t exactly get snow there, you know.”
“But you’ve been off the island. Haven’t you ever been anywhere it snowed before?”
She shrugged. “I don’t leave much. Mamaw needs me. I go to Galveston to do our shopping, but I do a lot of it online.”
He saw her cast sidelong glances at the window as if she were afraid the snow would disappear at any moment. Then he sighed. “Give me five minutes to get dressed and I’ll go down with you.”
Her smile lit up the entire room and he was left with the feeling that someone had just punched him in the stomach. She nearly danced from his bedroom and shut the door behind her.
Slowly he dropped the sheet to the floor and stared down at his groin. “Traitor,” he muttered.
He went into the bathroom, splashed water on his face and surveyed his unshaven jaw with a grimace. He never left his apartment without looking his best. There wasn’t time for even a shower. The lunatic was probably already outside dancing in the snow.
He brushed his teeth and then went to his closet to pull out a pair of slacks and a sweater. He realized that since she’d never seen snow, she’d hardly be dressed for it, so he pulled a scarf and a cap from the top shelf.
Any of his jackets or coats would swallow her whole so he’d simply have to limit her snow gazing to a short period of time.
After donning his overcoat, he walked out of his bedroom to find Bryony glued to the window in the living room. Big flakes spiraled downward and her smile was like a child’s at Christmas.
“Here,” he said gruffly. “If you’re going to go out, you need warmer things.”
She turned and stared at the scarf and cap he held out and then reached for them, but he waved her hand off and looped the scarf around her neck himself, pulling her closer.
“You probably don’t even know how to put one on,” he muttered.
After wrapping the scarf around her neck, he arranged the cap over her curls and stepped back. She looked…damn cute.
Before he could do something idiotic, he turned and gestured toward the door. “Your snow awaits.”
Bryony walked into the small courtyard that adjoined the apartment building, surprised that it was empty. How could everyone just stay inside on such a beautiful day? As soon as one of the flakes landed on her nose, she turned her face up and laughed as more drifted onto her cheeks and clung to her lashes.
She held out her hands and turned in a circle. Oh, it was marvelous and so pretty. There was just a light dusting on the patio surface, but along the fence railing and the edges of the stone planters, there was enough accumulation for her to scoop into a ball.
She scraped her hands together until she had a sizeable amount of snow and then she turned to grin at Rafael. He regarded her warily and then held up his hand in warning.
“Don’t even think…”
Before he could finish, she let fly and he barely had time to blink before the snowball exploded in his face.
“…about it,” he finished as ice slid down his cheek.
He glared at her but she giggled and hastily formed another snowball.
“Oh, hell no,” Rafael growled.
As she turned to hurl it in his direction, a snowball hit the side of her face and melting ice slid down her neck, eliciting a shiver.
“I see you couldn’t resist,” she said with a smirk.
“Resist what?”
“Playing. But who could resist snow?”
He scowled. “I wasn’t playing. I was retaliating. Now come on. You’ve seen the snow. We should go back inside. It’s cold out here.”
“Well, duh. It is snowing,” she said. “It’s supposed to be cold.”
Ignoring his look of exasperation, she hurled another snowball. He ducked and she ran for cover when she saw the gleam in his eyes. She hastily formed another snowball then peered around one of the hedges in time to get smacked by his. Right between the eyes.
“For someone who doesn’t play in the snow, your snowball fighting is sure good,” she muttered.
She waited until he went for more snow and she nailed him right in the ass. He spun around, wiping at his expensive slacks—but who wore slacks to play in the snow for Pete’s sake?—and then lobbed another ball in her direction.
She easily dodged this one and nailed him with another on the shoulder.
“I hope you know this means war,” he declared.
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I made you lose that stuffy attitude once. I’ll do it again.”
His eyes narrowed in confusion and she used his momentary inattention to plaster him in his face.
Wiping the slush from his eyes, he began to stalk toward her, determination twisting his lips.
“Uh-oh,” she murmured and began backtracking.
There wasn’t a whole lot of room for evasion in the small garden, and unless she wanted to run back inside, there wasn’t anywhere to go. Since it was probably his plan to herd her back indoors, she decided to meet him head-on and weather whatever attack he had in mind.
She began scooping and pelting him with a furious barrage of snow. He swore as he twisted and ducked and then he made a sound of resignation and began scooping snow from the stone benches and hurling it back at her as fast as he could.
Unfortunately for her, his aim was a lot better and after six direct hits in a row, she raised her hands and cried, “Uncle!”
“Now why don’t I believe you?” he asked as he stared cautiously at her, his hand cocked back to blast her with another snowball.
She gave him her best smile of innocence and raised her empty hands, palms up. “You win. I’m freezing.”
He dropped the snowball and then strode forward to grasp her shoulders. He swept that imperious gaze up and down her body, much like he’d done the first time they’d met. This time it didn’t rankle, for she knew that beneath that boring, straight-laced hauteur lay a fun-loving man just aching to get out. She just had to free him. Again.
She sighed at the unfairness of it all. It was like some sick joke being played on her by fate. Karma maybe. Though she was sure she’d done nothing so hideous as to have the love of her life and father of her child regard her as a complete stranger.
She shivered and Rafael frowned. “We should go inside at once. You aren’t dressed for the weather. Did you bring nothing at all to wear for colder weather?”
She shook her head ruefully.
“We’ll need to go shopping then.”
She shook her head again. “There isn’t a point. We’ll be leaving to go back to Moon Island and it’s still quite warm there.”
“And in the meantime you’ll freeze,” he said darkly.
She rolled her eyes.
“You at least need a coat. I’ll send out for one. Do you have a preference? Fur? Leather?”
“Uh, just a coat. Nothing exotic.”
He made a dismissive gesture with his hands as if deciding that consulting with her was pointless. “I’ll have it arranged.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He always did.
“When the doorman told me you were out playing in the snow, I asked him if the real Rafael had been abducted by aliens.”
Bryony and Rafael both swung around to see Devon Carter leaning against one of the light posts just outside the door leading back into the apartment building.
“Very funny,” Rafael muttered. “What are you doing here?” He took Bryony’s hand in his.
Devon raised one lazy brow. “Ju
st checking in on you and Bryony. I heard there was some excitement yesterday.”
Bryony grimaced and automatically put her other hand to the bruise she’d forgotten about until now.
“As you can see, she’s fine,” Rafael said. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re going up so she can change into some warmer clothing.”
“Actually I was checking on you,” Devon said with a grin. “Bryony strikes me as someone who can take care of herself.”
Bryony cleared her throat as the moment grew more awkward. Devon wasn’t worried about her. He was worried about Rafael in her clutches. Her face warm with embarrassment, she extricated her hand from Rafael’s grasp.
“I’ll just go up and leave you to, uh, talk. Did you leave the door unlocked?” Or whatever it was they did in these kinds of apartments. Rafael fished in his pocket and then held out a card. “You’ll need this for the elevator.”
She tucked it into her hand and hurried toward the door after a small wave in Devon’s direction.
The two men watched her go and then Rafael turned to his friend with a frown. “What was that all about?”
Devon shrugged. “Just checking in on you, like I said. You’ve had a lot to digest over the past couple of days. Wanted to see how you were holding up and whether you’d remembered anything.”
Rafael grimaced and then shoved Devon toward the door. “Let’s at least go inside. It’s cold out here.”
The two men stopped in the coffee shop off the main lobby and Rafael requested the table by the fire.
“Things are fine,” Rafael said after they were seated. “I don’t want you worrying, nor do I want you plotting with Ryan and Cam to protect me for my own good.”
Devon sighed. “Even if I think this idea of yours to jet off to this island is a damn foolish idea?”
“Especially then.”
Devon sipped at his coffee and didn’t even attempt to sugarcoat his question. But then that wasn’t Devon. He was blunt, if anything. Cut and dried. Practical to a fault.
“Are you sure this is what you want to do, Rafe? Do you really think it’s a good idea to go off with this woman who claims to be pregnant with your child? It seems to me, the smarter thing to do would be to call your lawyer, have paternity testing done and sit tight until you get the results.”
Rafael’s lips were tight as he stared back at Devon. “And what then?”
Devon blinked. “Well, that depends on the outcome of the tests.”
Rafael shook his head. “If it turns out that I’m the father, if everything she claims is true, then I will have effectively denied her for the entirety of the time I wait for the test results. If she’s telling the truth, I’ve already dealt her far too much hurt as it is. How can I expect to mend a rift if I have my lawyer sit on her while we wait to see if I’m going to be a father?”
Devon blew out his breath. “It sounds to me like you’ve already made up your mind that she’s telling the truth.”
Rafael dragged a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what the truth is. My head tells me that she couldn’t possibly be telling the truth. That the idea of me falling head-over-ass for her in a matter of weeks is absurd. It sounds so ludicrous that I can’t even wrap my head around it.”
“But…?”
“But my gut is screaming that there is definitely something between us,” Rafael grimly admitted. “When I get near her, when I touch her… It’s like I become someone else entirely. Someone I don’t know. I hear the conviction in her voice when she talks of us making love by the ocean and I believe her. More than that I want to believe her.”
Devon let out a whistle that sounded more like a crash-and-burn. “So you believe her then.”
Rafael sucked in his breath. “My head tells me she’s a liar.”
“But your gut?”
Rafael sighed because he knew what Dev was getting at. Rafael always went with his gut. Even when logic argued otherwise. And he’d never been wrong.
“My gut tells me she’s telling the truth.”
Eight
“Do you feel well enough to travel?” Rafael asked Bryony over dinner.
Bryony looked up from the sumptuous steak she was devouring to see Rafael studying the bruise on her face.
“Rafael, I’m fine.”
“Perhaps you should see an obstetrician before we leave the city.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll go see my doctor as soon as we get to the island, but I’m certainly capable of traveling. Unless you have matters to attend to here? I can go ahead of you if you can’t get away yet.”
Rafael frowned and put down his fork. “We’ll go together. It’s important we retrace all our steps and follow the same pattern we did when I was there before. Perhaps the familiarity will bring back my lost memories.”
Bryony cut another piece of her steak, but paused after she speared it with her fork. “What does your doctor say?”
Rafael became visibly uncomfortable. Even though the table they’d been seated at provided complete privacy from the other patrons, he glanced around as if the idea of anyone overhearing his personal business caused him no end of grief.
His lips pursed in distaste and then he finally said, “He thinks there’s a psychological reason behind my memory loss. If I was so happy and in love then why would I want to forget? It makes no sense.”
She was unable to control the flinch. Her fingers went numb as she realized how tightly she gripped the fork.
“I didn’t say that to hurt you,” he said in a low voice. “There’s just so much I don’t understand. I want to go back because I want to find the person I lost while I was there. The man you say you loved and who loved you is a stranger to me.”
“Apparently we’re both strangers to you,” she said quietly. “Maybe that man doesn’t exist. Maybe I imagined him.”
Rafael’s gaze dropped down her body to where her belly was hidden by the table. “But neither of us imagined a child. He or she is all too real, the one real thing in this whole situation.”
She couldn’t keep the sadness from her expression. The corners of her mouth drooped and she shoved her plate aside, her appetite gone.
“Our baby isn’t the only real thing in our relationship. My love for you was real. I held nothing back from you. I guess we won’t know whether you were real when you were with me. You deny that you could be that person. You deny it with your every breath. And I’m supposed to forget all of this denial if you suddenly remember you did and do love me.”
She dropped her hands into her lap and wound her fingers tightly together as she leaned forward.
“Tell me, Rafael, which man would I believe? The man who tells me I’m not his type and that he couldn’t possibly have loved me, or the lover who spent every night in my arms while we were on the island? No matter what you remember tomorrow, or the next day, I’ll always know that a part of you rebels at the mere thought of being with me.”
She could tell her words struck a chord with him. Discomfort darkened his features and regret simmered in his eyes. He splayed his hand out in an almost helpless gesture. “Bryony, I…”
She gave a short, forceful shake of her head. “Don’t, Rafael. Don’t make it worse by saying you didn’t mean it. We both know you did. At least you’ve been honest. You just need to remember that you’re not the only victim in this.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and she knew he meant it.
He reached across the table and slipped his hand over hers. For a moment he stroked his thumb across her knuckles and then he gently squeezed.
“I really am sorry. I’m being a selfish bastard. I know this has to hurt you and that none of this is easy for you. Forgive me.”
Her heart squeezed at the sincerity in his eyes. It was all she could do not to throw herself into his arms and hold on for all she was worth. She wanted to whisper to him that she loved him. She wanted to beg him never to let her go. But all she could do was stare across the table in helpless frustratio
n.
“What if you never remember?” she asked, voicing her greatest fear.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
She leaned back in her seat, slipping her hand from underneath his. The heaviness in her chest was a physical ache, one that clogged her throat and made it hard to breathe.
“What have you packed?” she asked lightly, forcing a smile.
He looked confused by the abrupt shift in conversation. “I haven’t yet.”
She raised an eyebrow. “We leave in the morning and you don’t know how long you’ll be gone. Aren’t you leaving it to the last minute?”
He grimaced. “I wasn’t sure what to pack. You mentioned things like swimwear and flip-flops.”
She laughed as some of the tension in her chest eased. “Well, it’s too cold to swim. The weather is still quite warm but the water is chilly. But we can buy you shorts and flip-flops like we did before. We can’t have you wearing suits all the time, and your expensive loafers will just get ruined.”
“I’m trusting you,” he muttered. “Since you swear I did this before.”
“And it didn’t kill you,” she teased. “When I was done with your makeover, you looked more relaxed and less like a stuffed shirt.”
“You’re implying I’m stuffy?” he asked in mock outrage.
“Oh, you were. Totally stuffy.”
“I don’t want to stand out this time. I’d like to keep my…problem…as private as possible.”
“Of course,” Bryony murmured.
He sat back in his chair and fiddled with his wineglass, though he didn’t pick it up to drink. He turned in the direction of the band playing soft, mellow jazz and then back to her, his expression thoughtful.
“Tell me, Bryony. Did we ever dance?”
Caught off guard by the question, she shook her head mutely.
He stood and held his hand out to her. “Then dance with me now.”
Mesmerized by the husk in his tone, she slipped her hand into his and allowed him to pull her to her feet. He led her onto the dance floor and slid his palm over her back as he pulled her into his embrace.
She closed her eyes and sighed as she melted against him. His warmth wrapped tantalizingly around her and his scent brushed over her nose. She inhaled deeply, holding his essence in the deepest part of her.
