by Amelia Autin
“So she could wake up at any time,” said Colonel Damek Borka from the doorway.
The sergeant and the lieutenant both jumped, then turned and saluted the founder and supreme commander of the Zakharian Liberation Front.
The sergeant cleared his throat. “I have taken steps to ensure she will never awaken.”
“How, if she is being closely guarded?”
“There will be an unfortunate mix-up with her morphine drip,” the sergeant explained. “It was not cheap—the aide was greedy and time was short. But the money will come out of my own pocket,” he rushed to add.
“Since it was your mistake to begin with,” the colonel said in icy tones, “I never assumed otherwise.”
* * *
“You did what?” Carly demanded, and Marek couldn’t really blame her. He could hardly believe it himself.
“I told Tahra we are engaged,” he repeated. “I cannot tell you why I said it, unless subconsciously I believed it. But I must ask you not to contradict my statement.”
Carly stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “You can’t possibly think I’m going to lie to my sister.”
“Not lie. Just do not disabuse her mind of the notion that I have the right to look after her, both here in the hospital and once she is discharged.”
“You’re crazy if you think—”
“To protect her. That is all I am asking.”
She made a gesture of frustration. “I can take Tahra back to the States. She’d be safe there.”
He shook his head. “Even the United States is not immune to acts of terrorism—you of all people must know this. We know almost nothing of the organization that set the bombs. Ergo, one or more of these men could easily slip into the US, kill Tahra and slip out again before anyone was aware.” Icy determination speared through him. “That is not going to happen to Tahra, even if I die for it. I give you my word, I will not take advantage of the situation. Tahra will be as safe with me as—” He broke off, then finished, “As you could wish her to be.”
“Protecting Tahra doesn’t require lying to her.”
“No,” Marek agreed. “But only I know the memories she is missing. For the past year and a half she and I... That is, I know what her life has been here in Zakhar. I know who she knows, I know who her friends are. Can you say the same?”
Carly shook her head.
“It is also possible that being in close proximity to me will trigger something and those missing memories will return. We were nearly inseparable for most of the past eighteen months, and despite what you might think, Ms. Edwards, the fact that Tahra and I are not truly engaged is a mistake I had every intention of rectifying. When I first proposed, she accepted. Did she tell you that?” He didn’t wait for a response. “It was only later, when I revealed—”
“She told me.”
He continued with barely a pause. “Then you know why she returned my engagement ring. But you cannot think I would leave it at that. I was merely giving Tahra time to come to terms with it. But then this terrorist attack occurred, and I...”
He writhed internally as Carly just stood there for a moment without saying a word, but years of the stoicism demanded of a soldier allowed him to stand calmly under her piercing gaze. Finally she said, “I’ll probably live to regret it, but okay. You’ve convinced me for now not to tell her the truth. But if anything happens to Tahra,” she added fiercely, “I will hold you personally responsible, Captain. That is not a threat—merely a statement of fact.”
“If anything happens to Tahra,” Marek replied, “you will have no target for your vengeance, Ms. Edwards, because I will already be dead. That is also a statement of fact.”
* * *
Marek headed back toward Tahra’s room with Carly at his side keeping pace with his longer stride. He saw a nurse’s aide approach the door carrying something and noted with approval that she was challenged by one of the guards stationed there. He was too far away to hear what was said, but the aide showed the guard something she wore on a lanyard around her neck—hospital badge, Marek guessed, since it was perused intently before she was allowed to pass inside. A minute later Marek quietly pushed open the door and entered the room himself, Carly right behind him.
The aide had already disconnected the drip tube from the half-empty saline bag hanging from the IV stand beside Tahra’s bed and was attempting to insert the tube into another fluid-filled bag, smaller than the first one. She jumped when the door opened, and dropped the full bag she was holding.
“Here,” Marek said, moving quickly to retrieve it from the floor, “let me help you.”
“No. No. I need no help, thank you,” the woman blurted out, grabbing at the bag in Marek’s hands.
Her strange behavior set off warning bells in his head, and he refused to let go. He quickly read the label and went cold all over as he realized exactly what he’d barely managed to prevent. “This is not saline,” he accused the aide. “This is intravenous morphine.”
The woman yanked the bag from Marek’s hands and tried to make a break for it. But he snagged her arm and deftly jerked it behind her back, incapacitating her and making her whimper in pain as she tried ineffectively to free herself.
Carly had swiftly moved to block the door to prevent the aide from escaping but stepped aside when Marek bellowed, “Guard!” and both soldiers on duty burst into the room, guns drawn.
The guards were followed closely by a nurse, and Marek realized someone must have pressed the call button. He shot a look at the bed and saw Tahra—pale and obviously in pain—clutching it in her left hand. Their eyes met for a moment, and another flash of pride in her ripped through him. His Tahra wouldn’t let herself be a victim if she could help it.
* * *
“Retrograde amnesia,” the neuropsychologist explained to Tahra later that morning, long after the aide who’d tried to kill her had been hauled off, under arrest by the Drago police. “Most likely a result of the head trauma you received.”
Tahra glanced from Carly standing on one side of her bed to Marek standing on the other, and with her left hand lightly touched the right side of her head, which was still bandaged. They hadn’t shaved it, the surgeon had explained when he’d visited earlier; they didn’t do that much anymore because of the increased risk of infection. And they hadn’t even had to clip it. She had a deep contusion from where her head had made contact with a park bench, but no laceration, which meant no stitches, no staples, nothing of that nature.
Just a headache, and—oh, yes—the loss of eighteen months out of her life.
“At this stage, I would not worry too much about it,” the neuropsychologist reassured her. “Your motor reflexes are excellent. There is no loss of auditory sensation or perception. Your sight is unaffected, and your grasp of language is unimpaired. More than likely your memory will return slowly over the next few days...possibly even a week or two. But,” he said, holding up a cautionary hand, “do not be surprised if your recollection of the actual incident and the moments leading up to it never return. That is very common in trauma of any kind. The brain...” He smiled. “We do not know everything about the brain, you understand, but this much we do know.”
The specialist continued listing what Tahra could reasonably expect in the coming days and weeks, and she tried to stay focused. But running through her mind was a thread of panic and fear—that her memory would never return. There is nothing more frightening than not remembering, she acknowledged now.
Especially when the not remembering included a terrorist attack...and a fiancé.
Her gaze slid surreptitiously to the man standing so reassuringly beside her. A fiancé who was as obviously unforgettable as Marek Zale.
* * *
Tahra was discharged from the hospital three days later. She no longer sported the bandage on her head that made
her look like a freak in her own eyes, although she still retained the cast on her right wrist that made it difficult to do something as simple as brushing her teeth. And the open wounds wrought by the fléchettes that had pierced her body from behind had already been replaced with newly formed pink scar tissue. No woman could look at scars on her body with complacence, but Carly had assured Tahra they weren’t that bad, and the doctor had said they would fade with time.
The only thing that wasn’t on the mend was Tahra’s memory. Either the concussion had been worse than the doctors had realized up front, or they’d been too optimistic in their prognosis. Regardless of the reason, eighteen months of her life had been erased, including any memory of the man who had spent every night at her bedside. Who had treated her as gently as if she were made of crystal. Who had gazed at her with the kind of love most women yearned for...although he’d never spoken a word about it. Who’d made no attempt even to kiss her.
Carly had left the day before, at Tahra’s insistence. “I’m fine,” she’d asserted. “You have a job and a fiancé who both need you more than I do now.” Inside Tahra had been afraid of the gaping unknowns in her life, but she hadn’t revealed that to her sister.
“You’re in good hands,” Carly had whispered as she kissed Tahra goodbye. “Let him look after you until you’re completely recovered.” She’d hesitated, then added enigmatically, “Be kind to him.”
Him could only refer to Marek Zale, the man who had solicitously helped her out of the wheelchair the nurse had wheeled her out in as she was being discharged, and then into the waiting limousine, before going around to the other side to sit beside her in the back.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Your apartment first, to pack whatever you need for an extended stay in the royal palace.”
“What? Why would I—”
“The nurse’s aide who tried to kill you has talked,” Marek replied. “She was bribed to switch the IV bags, which tells us you are in danger. Imminent danger. So the king has decreed you are to be housed in the palace for the time being.” He took a deep breath. “Safer for you, and the US ambassador has agreed. You are on short-term disability leave from your job until such time as your memory returns.”
She voiced her secret fear. “But what if it never returns?”
Marek took her left hand and held it in his much larger one, squeezing gently, and the gesture was more reassuring than Tahra could have imagined. “Let us not think that way, mariskya. Let us remain positive.”
Mariskya. For some reason the word was vaguely familiar, but its meaning was tantalizingly just out of reach. And yet it seemed right for him to call her that, as if he’d used it before. Many times. There was a glass barricade between the driver and them, ensuring privacy, so Tahra had no hesitation asking Marek, “What does that mean, mariskya?”
He smiled faintly. “There is no direct translation. It is a Zakharian endearment along the lines of ‘my dearest one,’ although it is much more comprehensive.”
“You can’t expect me to be content with that.” Her brow wrinkled, and she asked hesitantly, “Should I know what it means? Did you tell me before?”
His answer was slow in coming. “Yes. The first time I called you mariskya you asked me. But I would not tell you because you would not have understood. Not then. Only later, after I... That is, after we...”
He seemed to be heading down a path he found difficult to speak about, and Tahra made an educated guess. “After we became lovers?” Her words hung in the air between them, and though he didn’t respond immediately, Tahra knew somehow she’d guessed wrong—that was not what he’d been trying to say.
After a long silence, Marek finally said in a low voice, “We have never been lovers.”
Chapter 4
“Why not?” Tahra’s question seemed to take her by surprise as much as Marek, because warm color rose in her cheeks and she gave a little embarrassed laugh. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that. Please forget I asked.” She tried to pull her hand away from his, but he held tight.
“But I want to answer that question.” His thumb brushed the engagement ring on her finger. “I have said this to you before...when I asked you to marry me.”
Her eyes sought his, and she said softly, almost shyly, “Please tell me again.”
“It was harder than you know leaving you at the door to your apartment,” he confessed in a low voice. “Holding you...kissing you...” He shook his head. “Letting you go every night took every ounce of determination I have.”
“Why did you?”
He smiled faintly. “Because you are the first woman I have ever envisioned as my wife. And in Zakhar a man does not... That is, we are taught...”
To his amazement, Tahra’s cheeks whitened and she jerked her hand away from his. “In other words, you have a double standard where women are concerned.” Her voice was cool, but he heard a thread of anger running through it. “I thought that went out of fashion fifty years ago.”
“That was not what I meant.”
“Isn’t it?” She gave a scornful snort. “Virgin brides are the exception nowadays, Marek, not the rule. Are you a virgin?”
He couldn’t believe she was asking him, but his answer was automatic and immediate. “Of course not. I am thirty-three and I am a ma—”
She cut him off. “Man. You’re a man, and therefore it’s expected that a thirty-three-year-old man wouldn’t be a virgin.”
He tried to possess himself of her hand again, but she refused to let him. At a loss to understand what was happening, he asked, “Why are we arguing about this?”
“So what you’re saying is that if you knew I wasn’t a virgin, we would have been lovers long ago...but you wouldn’t have asked me to be your wife.” She tugged furiously on his engagement ring, which wasn’t easy with the cast on her right wrist. When it was finally free, she grabbed his hand and slapped the ring in it, then forcefully closed his fingers around it. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t hold you to an engagement entered into under false pretenses.”
“Tahra!”
“I can’t believe you told me this before, and I agreed to marry you,” she said under her breath. “I don’t believe it.”
“I did not tell you that part.” He opened his fingers and stared at the ring it contained...the second time Tahra had returned it to him. The second time she’d turned him down. “That is not why—” He broke off when he realized what he’d almost said.
She wasn’t listening to him, and Marek could only thank God. “How could I?” she was saying to herself. “How could I possibly... Especially since...”
Then he focused on what she’d said earlier, and a savage pain slashed through his heart. “...if you knew I wasn’t a virgin, we would have been lovers long ago...but you wouldn’t have asked me to be your wife.”
Was Tahra telling him she wasn’t a virgin? Could it be possible his sweet, shy Tahra hadn’t waited for him? Had...slept with other men?
Just as swiftly her scornful question leaped to mind. “Are you a virgin?”
A two-word litany began repeating in his brain—double standard, double standard, double standard—and shock sent icy shards everywhere. Tahra was right. He had slept with other women. Women he’d desired but hadn’t loved. He had not waited for Tahra. Why had he automatically expected she would have waited for him?
This new thought struggled with the Zakharian concepts with which he’d been raised, a culture clash of momentous proportions. Out of the maelstrom, only one thought emerged—he loved Tahra. That hadn’t changed. Could never change. No matter what, she was still his darling to cherish. To protect. And that meant maintaining the fiction they were still engaged so long as she needed his protection.
“No,” he told her firmly, capturing her left hand and sliding the engagement
ring back on her finger. “Do not.” His voice was as implacable as his words when she opened her mouth to protest. “Do not fight me on this, mariskya. Your accusation is untrue. Whether you believe it or not, I would have asked you to marry me no matter what.”
Tahra stopped resisting, but her eyes searched his face, as if needing confirmation of his words. Finally she nodded. “Okay. I believe you.” Then she smiled and he could breathe again. “They told me in my pre-assignment briefing that Zakharians are a little...shall we say...behind the times where women are concerned. Not like some other countries where women have to go around covered head to toe and aren’t even allowed to drive a car, but...”
His fingers tightened on hers. “I am a product of my upbringing, yes,” he admitted. “But I am not wedded to my ignorance. You know I have already learned a few home truths about women and their role in society from Angelina, and I—” He stopped when confusion spread across her face. “Captain Angelina Mateja-Jones,” he explained patiently. “Head of the queen’s security detail, a post I held until the king asked me to take over the security for the crown prince. She is married to the man you work for at the US embassy, Alec Jones.” He paused for a moment, then stated flatly, “None of this strikes a chord in your memory, does it?”
She shook her head, a shadow creeping into her eyes. “No, it doesn’t. I wish it did.”
“We are friends with them,” he continued after a moment. “Alec is the regional security officer—RSO, you call it—at the embassy, and you are his administrative assistant. That created a slight problem at first, because Alec and I are friends, as are Angelina and I. But we all agreed that when you are at work, you and Alec act as professionally as if that is all there is to your relationship. When we are together as friends...that is a different story.”
“I see.” There was a tinge of doubt in her voice, but she didn’t add anything.
“As I started to say, Angelina has taught me much about women and their place in society.” His voice dropped a notch. “As have you, mariskya. You must believe me. I am not the man I was two years ago. I am not even the man I was two weeks ago.” That was getting dangerously close to revealing too much he was concealing from Tahra, and he gratefully changed topics when he saw they had arrived at Tahra’s apartment building. “Ahh, here we are.”
