One-Click Buy: November Harlequin Presents

by Susan Stephens

  ‘For—for overreacting.’

  It was the only thing she could think of. The truth—or at least as close to the truth as she dared to go—seemed to be the only way to handle this. In any case, the partial truth was the only thing she trusted herself to be able to say without making it painfully plain that she was actually lying.

  She’d hoped that that would be enough but, from Andreas’ set, unyielding expression, it was far from adequate. If anything those folded arms tightened expressively and his upper lip actually curled in an expression of arrogant scorn.

  She was going to have to try harder to convince him.

  ‘I—I do w-want you.’

  Really, there was no point in denying that. Her response to him had made it only too plain and she would only incense him further if she tried to pretend otherwise. If there was one thing that Andreas hated it was lies. A miserably cold, sneaking shiver went down her spine as she recalled the one time she had tried to keep the truth from him. She hadn’t actually lied but she might as well have done. The fallout had been as bad as if she had.

  ‘Then what are you doing over on the other side of the room while I’m here?’

  ‘Because—because…’

  Desperation brought inspiration and she hurried the words out, needing them to be said so that she could see if they had the effect she hoped for—the effect she prayed they would.

  ‘Because you were right—it isn’t a good idea. It isn’t sensible…’

  Andreas rolled his eyes in an expression of exasperation.

  ‘And we must always be sensible, mustn’t we?’

  ‘Well, you’ve just had a terrible accident.’

  ‘So now you’re back to being my nurse again. I told you I hate a fuss…’

  ‘I’m not making a fuss! I’m trying to be careful—for your sake as much as mine.’

  That caught him unawares, bringing his head up in a rush.

  ‘Me? What do I…?’

  ‘You have amnesia.’

  Becca spoke the words as slowly and as emphatically as she dared. She needed to get this through to him. If she did, then she might have a chance of staying, of working things out. Of waiting until his memory came back. And then she might have a chance of asking him to help Daisy.

  ‘I know I have amnesia,’ Andreas snarled. ‘I can’t forget that I do! Everything else I try to remember and I can’t. The fact that I can’t remember…’

  He slammed the heel of his palm into his forehead with a brutal thumping sound that made her flinch inside.

  ‘That’s what I can’t forget.’

  ‘Oh, don’t—please don’t. Can’t you see that this is why it has to be this way—because you can’t take the risk?’

  ‘You mean you can’t—’

  ‘No—you!’

  Shaking her head violently, Becca took a single involuntary step towards him, then the look in his eyes, the dangerous way they flashed made her reconsider hastily. Abruptly she came to a halt again, only metres away from him, but the expanse of polished wooden floor now seemed like a wide, gaping chasm, one she knew they could never really ever bridge.

  ‘You’re the one who has the most to lose here if we—if we…’

  ‘Lose?’

  His harsh crack of laughter had no humour in it.

  ‘From where I’m standing, I get what I want. The only thing that’s interested me—excited me—since I woke up from that damn coma.’

  ‘The only…’ Becca whispered, unable to believe what she had heard. ‘Me?’

  ‘You,’ Andreas confirmed roughly, with a brusque inclination of his head. ‘Who did you think I meant? I was talking about excitement and pleasure—passion—something that makes life seem like it’s worth living after all and not just the huge empty space where my mind—my memories—used to be. And you—you say we have to be sensible.’

  He spat the word out as if it was a vile epithet.

  Twice Becca opened her mouth, trying to find an answer for him, and both times her voice failed her, managing only a pathetic squeak that didn’t even form a syllable, never mind a whole word.

  Go to him, the irrational, emotional part of her brain was screaming. Go to him and accept what he’s offering—while he’s offering it. You want that excitement—you need that passion—you could enjoy—oh, dear God, more than enjoy—that pleasure. What are you doing, standing here when…?

  ‘But we do.’

  Becca couldn’t believe she’d actually said what she had. Until she’d actually heard the words spoken out loud she had no idea that she had even planned to say them. She certainly hadn’t thought about them rationally. She didn’t even want to say them. But she had to. There was no other way to handle this.

  ‘We do have to be sensible. At least you do.’

  ‘Don’t hide behind excuses. For some reason you won’t admit, you’re scared and you’re trying to run…’

  ‘Oh, no. No, I’m not.’

  At least this time her voice had the conviction of truth. She couldn’t run away. If she did she would let Macy and Daisy down. She saw Andreas’ proud head go back, his eyes narrowing assessingly.

  ‘You don’t know what might have happened in your life—what you might…might find out when your memory comes back. Things that could change the way you feel about everything.’

  ‘About you?’

  Andreas’ tone was sceptical.

  ‘I doubt very much that anything could change the way I’m feeling—the hunger that’s eating me up inside.’

  It was purely a physical hunger—a sexual hunger—that he was talking about, Becca reminded herself miserably. There was nothing emotional about it at all. And he probably spoke the truth. Nothing had ever lessened the savage desire he had always had for her. Even when he had hated her most, he had still wanted her. The first and last thing he had done in their short-lived marriage had been to take her to bed.

  But she knew just how much things would change if—when—he knew the truth about the way their relationship had ended. And she couldn’t bear to think of what might happen then.

  ‘Then—then what harm can it do to wait? You know what they say about anticipation adding to the pleasure…’

  ‘On that point, you might be right.’

  ‘You know I am.’

  She didn’t know quite how she’d done it, but somehow she’d managed to put a flirtatious note into her voice. And as she saw Andreas’ expression change, the dark tension easing from his face, his eyes, she didn’t know whether to feel relief or a terrible sense of fear at the thought of what she was building up for herself in the future. She might be able to persuade him now, to make him ease up, relax a little. But when his memory returned and he found out the truth, then…

  Her blood turned cold at just the thought.

  But she had no other possible route she could take. If she was to help Daisy at all, she had to do it this way. It was either that or leave the tiny girl to die. And that wasn’t going to happen, not if she could possibly do anything to stop it. She would do whatever she had to do now, and take the consequences later when, inevitably, it all blew up in her face.

  She was forced to acknowledge to herself that the thing she both most feared and most hoped for was all tangled up so that she couldn’t possibly extricate one part of it from the other. Before she could ask for his help, Andreas needed to regain his memory and so she had to stay here until that happened. But when he did get his memory back he would also remember who she was and the way they had parted and then all hell would break loose.

  And the real problem was that she was having to fight herself as well as Andreas. The truth was that she wanted to be in his arms as much as he wanted her there. She wanted his kisses, his touch…

  Whatever else had died between them, the burning passion had not. It had brought them together, rushed them into bed, into marriage, and it was still there. It still blazed white-hot between them. Andreas had only to touch her and she went up in flames. But it hadn�
��t been enough to hold them together before—and it wouldn’t be enough now. Andreas might give her body the most glorious pleasure she had ever known but he had also broken her heart and sexual ecstasy was not enough to compensate for the pain and desolation that had followed. Andreas had been the love of her life and with every day—every hour—she spent with him she risked subjecting herself to that heartbreak all over again.

  ‘All right.’

  It was the last thing she expected Andreas to say so she actually felt her jaw drop a little when he spoke, her eyes blinking sharply in shock.

  ‘All right?’ she managed and got an unsmiling nod in response.

  ‘We’ll wait—a while. You could be right and the delay—the anticipation—will whet my appetite. I reckon you’ll be worth waiting for.’

  If he expected an answer to that, then he was going to be disappointed, Becca admitted to herself. There wasn’t a single word she could find in her head, or form on her tongue. All she could manage was an incoherent little sound that might or might not have been agreement.

  ‘But I won’t wait for ever. I’m not a patient man, Becca. When I see something I want—I go for it.’

  ‘I—understand.’

  How could she not understand? She knew exactly what he meant; exactly how he was. Hadn’t she been on the receiving end of all his forceful charm, his potent sexuality, once before? When Andreas Petrakos saw something he wanted he got it—no question.

  And as if to prove it, to verify her thoughts, Andreas suddenly lifted a hand and crooked one finger in the most arrogant, supremely confident gesture, beckoning her to come to him. And from the look on his face he had no doubt that she would obey.

  He was right. She could explain to herself, justify her actions, by saying that she was playing it safe, treading carefully. But if she did she would be lying to herself, stark honesty forced her to admit. She obeyed Andreas’ autocratic summons, moving across the floor to him without a word or hesitation simply because she had no choice. She had to go to him; she didn’t have the strength to resist. And as his arms came round her again she knew she was lost, lifting her face for his kiss even before he had bent his dark head towards hers.

  The kiss made what little remained of her thought processes swoon. It seemed to draw out her very essence, heart and soul, taking them into his possession until she felt that she would be nothing without him, unable to function, unable even to exist on her own. She was floating, drifting, with no sense of direction or thought.

  ‘So you’ll stay,’ Andreas murmured, his voice low and sensual, rich with total confidence, total conviction that he was going to get his way.

  ‘Yes.’

  There was nothing else that she could say but even as she spoke Becca had the terrible feeling of water, deep, dark and cold, closing over her head, drowning her. But there was no hope of turning back.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, soft and low. ‘Yes, I’ll stay.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘SO HOW long, exactly, did you foresee this “being sensible” to last?’

  Andreas stretched lazily in the sunshine, noting with satisfaction that the rawness of torn muscles, the ache of bruising, was easing more with each day. If only he could say the same about the blank space where part of his memory should be. That and the burn of frustration that nagged at him all day, every day, simply because Becca was around.

  At least the last few days had given his body a chance to heal physically. He would never admit it but the accident had taken more out of him than he liked, so spending time showing Becca around the island, taking her to his favourite restaurant, walking along the shore, had filled in the days of convalescence and stopped him climbing the walls with boredom.

  Becca stirred her head against the cushions of the sun lounger next to him and opened those blue-green eyes in a look of such sleepy sensuality that it had his body hardening and aching in a moment, straining against the black stretch fabric of the swimming shorts that were all he wore. She was dressed all in white today in a loose sleeveless top and cotton trousers that were cut off short, revealing her slender calves and ankles.

  ‘How do you feel?’ she asked and in spite of her attempt to look relaxed he could hear the note of constraint in her voice that was always there when he moved the conversation away from the ordinary, everyday subjects they talked about.

  Just what was it she was so uptight about? Was there something she was hiding? Something she didn’t want him to know? It gave him the most disturbing feeling that the one person in the world he felt really comfortable with—someone he knew he had shared the missing part of his life with—might be deliberately holding something back from him.

  ‘I feel fine! Never better!’ he snapped, the edgy feeling getting the better of him, and he watched the change in her eyes, the way that the warm sensuality died, turning instead to a careful, defensive distance. Silently he cursed himself for his over-hasty reaction.

  ‘And the doctor said you were OK at your check-up this morning?’

  ‘You mean he didn’t give you a full report? After all, your role as my nurse seems to be the only one you’re interested in fulfilling.’

  ‘I thought you’d done away with that idea? To tell you the truth…’ Becca pulled herself up against the wooden back of the lounger so that she was sitting upright and looking him straight in the face ‘…I’m not at all sure what you want from me.’

  ‘You know only too well what I want.’

  Andreas made no attempt to disguise the blatantly sexual double meaning behind his words.

  ‘How I want you—where I want you.’

  There was that wary flicker in her eyes again. A momentary glance into his face and then away, fast, to stare out at the horizon. She affected an intense interest in the ocean that lapped lazily against the shore beyond the sunlit terrace.

  ‘I thought we—agreed to take that slowly.’

  ‘We agreed to be sensible. It’s not the same thing.’

  ‘To me it is. For one thing, I have no idea whether you have anyone else in your life—and you can’t promise that you don’t,’ she pointed out.

  ‘But if we’re a couple…’

  ‘I’ve been in England a long time…’ Becca hedged.

  So that was it. They’d been apart, and she wasn’t sure she could trust him. That he could understand.

  ‘There isn’t anyone else in my life.’

  ‘And you can swear to that, can you?’

  ‘Well, for one thing I think she’d have turned up by now if there was someone. She’d have heard of my accident. And for another, then Leander would have told me if I was married or anything stupid like that.’

  Now what had he said to make her mouth tighten as if against something she’d thought better of saying? And her eyes had moved to the swimming pool, studying the water there as if she had never seen anything like it before.

  ‘And I doubt if Medora is going to sit back and watch me make a fool of myself over you if she knows I was committed to anyone else.’

  ‘So that’s what you think you’re doing, is it?’ Becca’s tone was tart. ‘Making a fool of yourself?’

  ‘How the hell should I know?’ Irritation at the way she wouldn’t look at him, as much as at her tone, roughened the edges of the words. ‘I don’t know if I’ve behaved—or felt—this way before.’

  He couldn’t have felt this way before, he’d decided that already. If he’d ever felt this heat of desire for a woman, the sort of burning hunger that made his days impossible to get through without being with her, seeing her, touching her, and turned his nights into sweat-drenched, sleep-deprived endurance tests, then surely he would remember that?

  And how could he wipe away the memory of the brief moments of restless sleep that he’d finally managed? Sleep in which his dreams were so vivid, so hot, so passionately erotic that they were almost unendurable. And yet waking to find that they had only been a dream had left him gasping for breath and struggling to regain any trace of
his lost control.

  He couldn’t have forgotten those feelings. Not if he had ever experienced anything like them for anyone else before.

  ‘And I believe that in England you have some saying about kettles and pans…’

  ‘Pots,’ Becca corrected automatically, still using that stiff little voice that scraped over his nerves. ‘Pot calling the kettle black—so what has that got to do with me?’

  She sounded so English, so controlled, so sensible that it set his teeth on edge and made him determined to shake her out of that mood. He wanted back the Becca he had seen under the prim and proper exterior on the day of her arrival. The sensual Becca, the hotly responsive Becca. The Becca whose soft, full mouth had felt so wonderful, tasted so delicious under his. Whose firm, high breasts had fitted so perfectly into his hands, the tight nipples pushing against the palms. The Becca who would have been in his bed there and then if she hadn’t had ridiculous, apprehensive, sensible second thoughts.

  ‘You say you don’t know if there’s anyone else in my life but I could say the same about you.’

  ‘About me?’

  That edgy look was back, making him think even more of words like guilt and concealment—and lies.

  ‘Are you a free agent? Is there anyone else in your life?’ he pressed.

  ‘Oh…’

  For a second she looked blank, and then he noticed that her white teeth were digging into the soft fullness of her lower lip, worrying at the soft skin that only moments before he had been imagining kissing.

  ‘Becca?’ Suspicion darkened his voice on the question.

  Was this what she wasn’t telling him? Was the reason she wanted to be ‘sensible’ because there was another man in her world? Someone she didn’t want to tell him about?

  ‘Is there—?’

  ‘No!’ she said firmly and hastily—too firmly, too hastily so that instead of putting his mind at rest it put him more on edge than ever. ‘No—there’s no one.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  That brought her head round, dark hair flying, chin coming up defiantly as she met his assessing stare head-on.