Wife With Amnesia

by Metsy Hingle

  “Is that right?”

  “Absolutely,” he told her.

  “We’ll definitely get back to that in a moment,” she promised, but her eagerness to hear about her and Matt’s first meeting outweighed this newest piece to the puzzle of who she was. “Go on. Tell me how we met. You were saying that you needed a pastry chef…”

  “That’s right. Evidently you’d been trying for more than a week to get an appointment to see me so you could pitch the idea of letting your company supply the dessert items to the restaurant instead of hiring a new chef. But you kept hitting a brick wall because my assistant wouldn’t give you an appointment.”

  “But I finally managed to get one?”

  “No. Callie knew I would have had her head. I wasn’t interested in a supplier. I wanted a pastry chef.”

  “Then how—”

  “You bribed one of the valets to let you know when I was at the restaurant. Then you came over and bluffed your way into the kitchen by saying you were a food inspector and demanded to see me.”

  “What happened?” she asked, both surprised and curious about this aggressive person Matt described.

  “You confessed who you really were and said that if I was half as good a businessman as people said I was that I would at least listen to what you had to say. I listened, but I wasn’t interested in having a company supply the desserts to Gallagher’s. I offered to hire you as the pastry chef.”

  “Obviously, I didn’t take the job.”

  He grinned. “You turned me down flat, then challenged me to at least taste your white chocolate cheesecake. If I didn’t agree that it was better than anything that came out of the restaurant before, you would work in the restaurant as my pastry chef free of charge for one full month until I could hire someone else.”

  “And?”

  “And I tasted the sample you had smuggled in the bag you were carrying and I agreed with you. It was the best cheesecake I’d ever tasted, bar none. So I ordered a dozen for the three restaurants and asked you out to dinner.”

  “And I went.”

  “Not easily. It took a bit of persuading on my part, but I’d already made up my mind that I was going to marry you.”

  Claire laughed. “You don’t honestly expect me to believe that, do you?”

  “I don’t see why not. It’s true. The minute you walked through the doors of that kitchen I wanted you. Inside of five minutes I was falling in love with you, and by the time I brought you home after dinner I knew I wanted to marry you.”

  “It all sounds very romantic. But somehow I find the idea of you succumbing to love at first sight a bit hard to swallow.”

  “Believe me, it wasn’t an easy concept for me to swallow, either,” he said, his expression suddenly serious. “But you don’t live in a city like New Orleans all of your life and not find yourself at least a little superstitious. I’d been to a party earlier that year, where they had a fortune teller reading Tarot cards as part of the entertainment. She told me before the summer was over I was going to meet the woman of my dreams, the person who was my soul mate. I knew you were that woman the moment I set eyes on you.”

  Claire didn’t know what to say. It all sounded so lovely, so romantic. And looking at Matt’s handsome face, remembering how incredibly kind and patient he had been with her, she imagined falling in love with him wouldn’t have been difficult. But had she fallen in love with him? Or had she married him because of his money?

  She didn’t realize she had voiced the question aloud until Matt roared with laughter. “Trust me, Red. My money was definitely not a plus where you were concerned.”

  Flushing at her slip, Claire chewed on her lower lip for a moment. “I’m glad you find this amusing. But how am I supposed to know what kind of person I am? From what you’ve told me about my background and after seeing this house and hearing about your family’s prominence, I thought it might be a possibility.”

  Matt removed the glass of tea from her fingers, placed it on the table and then claimed a corner of the lounge chair, which caused him to brush against her hip. He caught her hands, held them in his own and stared into her eyes. “Listen to me, Claire Gallagher, the idea of marrying me for my money never entered your mind.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you’re one of the most down-to-earth and honest people I know. Money has never been a key motivator for you to do anything—in your business or your personal life. In fact, when I didn’t want a prenuptial agreement before the wedding, you were the one who insisted on it. You said you wouldn’t marry me unless I signed the thing.”

  Relief flooded through Claire. “Thank you,” she whispered, not realizing until that moment how very worried she had been about her own depth of character.

  “I’m the one who should be thanking you…for coming into my life, for being my wife.” His expression still serious, Matt turned over her hands and pressed a kiss to first one palm and then the next.

  Claire shivered at the intimacy, at the warmth of his lips against her skin. Enthralled, she could scarcely breathe as she stared at his dark head bent over her hands. She had the most ridiculous urge to pull her hands free and run her fingers through that thick dark hair, then tip his beautiful face up to hers.

  As though he could read her thoughts, Matt lifted his head. Desire burned in the piercing blue-gray eyes, and Claire could feel an answering need humming in her veins.

  “I love you,” he murmured.

  She wanted to give him the words back. He deserved them, she reasoned. Matt was her husband, the person she had vowed to love and cherish until death. And even though she was attracted to him, she just couldn’t lie to either one of them by returning the sentiment. “I’m sorry. I…I don’t know what to say. I don’t remember and—”

  Matt pressed his fingers against her lips. “I don’t expect you to say anything—not unless you feel it. Which you don’t. I mean, how could you? You don’t even remember me.” He washed a hand down his face, sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m making a mess of this. I didn’t tell you that to try to pressure you. It’s just that I’ve missed you so much and I—I’m glad that you’re home.”

  “So am I,” she said, and realized it was true. She’d hated those nights in the hospital and, although returning home hadn’t sparked her memory as she had hoped it would, she felt more comfortable here. Or maybe it was simply the fact that she was more comfortable because she was with Matt. She still didn’t remember him or the life they had shared. Yet, it felt as though they were starting over together somehow. Which was actually a crazy notion since they were already man and wife. She couldn’t help it. The distress in his eyes tugged at her heartstrings. “Matt, I…” She reached out, cupped his jaw. The innocent gesture sent awareness shooting through her like a lightning bolt, and she dropped her hand, but not before she saw the answering fire leap into his eyes. “You haven’t made a mess of things and you haven’t made me feel pressured.”

  The sexual spark hovered in the air between them so strongly that Claire worried it would burst into flames. Then she heard the shriek of a buzzer, and Matt pushed to his feet.

  “I’d better go check on our dinner,” he said, breaking the crazy spell that had ensnared them both. “Sit tight. I’ll be back in a minute,” he told her before disappearing inside the house.

  Inside the house Matt shut off the annoying buzzer. Snatching up a dish towel from the counter, he removed the casserole dish from the oven and swore as the heat seeped right through the too-thin towel and singed his fingers. Flicking on the cold-water faucet, he stuck his hand under the cool spray. But his reddening fingers didn’t come close to the burn he’d felt at Claire’s touch. That whisper-soft brush of her fingers against his jaw had been as powerful as a branding iron. His entire body had gone hot and hard in an instant, and the hunger that he’d tried so hard to keep in check had nearly swallowed him whole.

  And he had damn well better get under control, Matt reminded himself as he dragged in sev
eral deep breaths. Turning off the tap, he dried his hands, then went about stacking plates, silverware and napkins on the tray with the casserole and salad. Dr. Edmond had warned him not to rush Claire. According to the neurologist, the concussion or trauma of the attack or both had been the cause of Claire’s memory loss. Most likely her condition would be short-term. She would remember who she was and the details of her life when she was ready. Until then, he intended to use every one of the days, weeks, or however long he had, taking care of her and trying to win back her trust.

  In the meantime it probably would be a good idea to give Delvecchio a call and let him know about the latest bit of info the P.I. he’d hired had discovered about Claire’s mother. Chances were he was being paranoid and it had no bearing on Claire’s attack. But the detective seemed to think what had happened had been more than a botched mugging. Yet the idea of a possible kidnapping attempt gone wrong didn’t feel quite right either. There were many far more prominent families than the Gallaghers in New Orleans—families with much deeper pockets and whose members would make much better targets for a kidnapping ransom. Still, if Delvecchio was right and the assault on Claire hadn’t been a random mugging gone wrong, then he wanted to cover all angles to keep her safe. And even as remote as the possibility seemed, he couldn’t dismiss the fact that his digging into Claire’s past might have made someone jumpy and put her in danger.

  Nothing like a healthy dose of guilt to take the edge off desire, Matt thought as he shoved a loaf of French bread into the oven to warm. If he had been, even inadvertently, the reason Claire had been attacked, it was just one more sin to lay at his own doorstep. Not that he didn’t already have more than enough to answer for, Matt told himself. Six months ago he had hurt Claire when he’d confessed to hiring a private investigator to locate her parents. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never be able to forget the look of betrayal on her face when he’d told her that he’d tracked down her mother. Or rather, he corrected with a grim twist of his mouth, what had happened to Claire’s mother. He thought she’d be relieved, even feel a sense of closure, to learn that her mother hadn’t abandoned her in that church as she’d always believed. Her mother hadn’t come back for Claire because she couldn’t. She’d been murdered—probably not long after leaving Claire.

  Never had he dreamed that Claire would see his actions as a betrayal. That she would believe him unhappy with his nobody wife, as she’d called herself, or that she could possibly think he would find her lacking. How could she have loved him, lived with him for more than a year and believed he could be so shallow? How could he have loved her as deeply as he had and never recognized how deep her scars and insecurities ran? Or anticipate that she would leave him?

  He had a second chance, Matt reminded himself. He just hoped to God that he hadn’t blown it by deciding to pursue the investigation into her mother’s death. For the life of him, he still wasn’t quite sure why he had kept the P.I. on the case after everything had fallen apart between him and Claire six months ago. Maybe it was the outrage he’d felt at discovering that Claire’s mother’s death remained an unsolved murder on the books of New Orleans’ finest. Or maybe it was simply learning that the woman’s body had been buried in an unmarked grave for those without next of kin or the means to bury them properly. All he knew was that each time he thought of Claire growing up without a mother, with so many shadows looming from her childhood, he hadn’t been able to simply walk away and forget it. Ordering the headstone for her mother’s grave had given him a measure of peace. Someday he hoped it would do the same for Claire.

  But the headstone hadn’t been enough, he admitted. He had wanted some sort of justice for the woman who had given birth to his Claire. So, right or wrong he had told the private investigator to keep digging. And as of three weeks ago, the P.I. had finally gotten a lead on the mother’s last boyfriend and identified him as Carl Dexter. From the profile he’d been provided by the P.I., Dexter had been as mean and sleazy as they came, a man who wouldn’t hesitate to smack around an innocent little girl or to kill that child’s mother.

  The buzz of the oven telling him the bread was ready pulled Matt from his dark thoughts. First thing in the morning he’d call Delvecchio and tell him about Dexter. Chances were there was no connection between his pursuit of info on Dexter and Claire’s mugging, since the guy had virtually disappeared twenty-five years ago. But just to be on the safe side, he’d let the detective know. Wrapping the warm loaf of bread in a towel, he placed it on the loaded tray along with a container of butter and headed out to the deck. “I sure hope that trek on the crutches helped you work up an appetite,” he said as he joined Claire. “Because you’re in for a real treat.”

  “It smells heavenly,” she said, and smiled up at him.

  Matt’s heart jumped in his chest. His throat went dry. With the exception of the bandage at her temple, she seemed like the old Claire again. It had been so long since she had looked at him without wariness or hurt in her eyes. It made him feel a little less guilty for deceiving her now by allowing her to believe that they were a normal, happily married couple. Somehow he would make this work, Matt told himself. He would earn Claire’s trust again.

  “Is that hot bread?”

  “Yeah,” he said, and placed the tray on the table.

  “I love hot bread and butter.”

  “I know,” he said, amused.

  “Here, let me help.”

  She reached for the loaf at the same time that he did. Matt’s breath caught in his lungs as their fingers brushed and that shimmer of electricity shot right through him.

  “I guess I did work up an appetite,” she said, giving him an apologetic smile before releasing the bread.

  “I’d say we both did,” Matt said as he placed the loaf between them. Giving himself a mental kick, he finished unloading the tray. And as he did so, he promised himself that he would take things slowly with Claire even if it killed him.

  And it might just kill him after all, Matt decided thirty minutes later as Claire put down her fork and sighed. “If I eat another bite, I swear you’ll have to cut me out of these slacks, because I won’t be able to get them off by myself.”

  Images of stripping Claire out of her pants, of running his hands over the curve of her hips and down those long slender legs had perspiration beading between Matt’s shoulder blades and desire burning below his belt. “Not a problem,” he finally managed to get past a throat that had gone from dry to parched in a heartbeat. “But I expect it will take quite a few more of Emma’s meals before I need to whip out my trusty scissors again and use them on anything besides the pant’s leg.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” she said, laughing, and the easy carefree sound made his chest tighten. It seemed a lifetime since he’d heard Claire laugh like that. “Right now I feel about as stuffed as my ankle looks with that bandage. But it’s almost worth it. Everything was delicious. Emma’s a terrific cook.”

  “She’ll be pleased to hear that you enjoyed it.”

  “Oh, I did,” Claire told him, and eyed the solitary shrimp covered in a tangy tomato sauce that remained on her plate.

  “Go ahead and finish it off,” he encouraged.

  Grinning, she swiped the shrimp from the plate and popped it into her mouth.

  Matt chuckled at the look of pleasure on her face. Sitting next to him at the table, with her face free of makeup, her hair loose and flowing around her face and shoulders, she looked more like a teenager than a grown woman of twenty-eight. “You’ve got a little sauce on the corner of your mouth,” he told her.

  She flicked her tongue at the corner of her mouth and along her bottom lip. She went from innocent to sultry in the blink of an eye, and Matt went from relaxed to aroused just as quickly.

  “Did I get it?”

  Matt swallowed—hard—and tried to beat back the rush of desire that roared in his veins. “No,” he managed to get out in a voice hoarse with wanting. Gritting his teeth, he prayed for strengt
h when she repeated the maneuver a second time.

  “Is it gone?”

  Prayer obviously wasn’t going to work, Matt admitted. Unwilling to put himself through that torture again, he decided to take care of the problem himself. “Hang on,” he said. “I’ll get it.”

  Big mistake, Matt realized the second he touched her. He ran his thumb across the corner of her lower lip and sent the desire already fisting in his gut on a fast track to parts due south. Judging from Claire’s quick intake of breath and the combination of confusion and hunger in her brown eyes, she had stumbled onto the same path with him.

  To hell with it, he thought. And before his conscience or reason could kick in, he slid his hand around her neck and urged her closer. He pressed his mouth to hers. Just a taste, he promised himself. But the jolt was immediate and as powerful as a nuclear explosion. Matt lifted his head, gave her a chance to retreat. He would let her go, he swore to himself. But then she looked up at him out of eyes that had gone all smoky with need. When she tipped her mouth up to him again, Matt made a grumbling noise low in his throat and swooped down for a deeper taste.

  He devoured that perfect mouth, molding and shaping it beneath his. He could feast on the sweet softness of her mouth alone for hours, he thought as he ran his tongue along the seam of her lips. When she parted them for him, pleasure shuddered through Matt and he deepened the kiss.

  Then her fingers bit into his shoulders as she returned his kiss. And Matt forgot all the reasons he had told himself this couldn’t happen. He forgot that he had sworn he would give Claire time, that he would regain her trust first. He forgot his promise to only take a taste.

  No, a taste of Claire would never be enough. Not when he wanted so much more. Not when he wanted all of her. And she would give him what he wanted, he realized. She would give herself to him even though it was too soon and she would regret it later. And if that happened, he would lose her.