The Amnesiac Bride

by Marie Ferrarella

  Retracing her steps carefully, Whitney was just hurrying past the bank of elevators when the last car opened. She stopped, stunned, as she saw Zane stepping out.

  Why had he gone upstairs?

  He obviously hadn’t seen her but was turning toward the rear of the hotel. He appeared intent on returning to the pool.

  “Zane!”

  Zane stopped and turned abruptly at the sound of his name. He’d been preoccupied with his phone call from Sheridan. The man had rubber-stamped his approach to the problem. Now if he could only feel he was doing the right thing...

  His eyes widened. Whitney. What was she doing here? Reining in his exasperation, Zane had no choice but to wait until she caught up to him.

  “What are you doing here?” she wanted to know.

  Damn it, couldn’t she ever stay put? “I could ask you the same question.”

  He was doing it again, avoiding answering her question. “I came looking for you,” she told him. She looked at him accusingly. “You were supposed to be right back. That man makes me uneasy.”

  He hoped she hadn’t inadvertently said anything to put Quinton off. He fell back into character. A part of him hated all this, but he had no choice. “That man can make us rich.”

  “How?” Zane still hadn’t given her any details.

  “I’m working on that,” he answered vaguely.

  Why were direct answers so difficult for him? Determined to get at least one, she pressed on. “Where did .you go just now?”

  She was acting more and more like herself, even if she didn’t know it, he thought. It was the worst of all possible worlds.

  “To answer the telephone. You were there when the bellman called me away.” A thought occurred to him. He brushed her hair aside from the bump. Was it turning colors now? “Are you feeling worse?”

  She pushed his hand away. This had nothing to do with her amnesia.

  “No, I’m not feeling worse, but I am feeling confused as hell.” What was going on here? She waved a hand toward the front of the hotel. “The desk clerk just said you didn’t take any call.”

  He’d learned to think on his feet a long time ago. If he hadn’t, he would have been dead by now. He wasn’t about to tell her that he’d taken the call in Adams’s quarters.

  “Then he’s mistaken. Maybe what he meant was that I didn’t talk to anyone. And I didn’t. When I got to the telephone, there was no one there.” He shrugged casually, then hooked his arm through hers, gently ushering her away. “I guess they must have hung up.”

  She wanted to believe him—she really did. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was missing something vital here. “Then why didn’t you come back to the table?”

  “I went up to our room.” He saw Adams, the bellman who’d come to get him earlier, over by the bar. With a barely perceivable movement, Zane nodded to him. The latter looked relieved. “I realized that I left my wallet upstairs.”

  She frowned. Why was he deliberately lying to her?

  “Your wallet? I saw you put your wallet in your pants this morning before we left for the hospital.” She remembered seeing him pick it up from the bureau. But if she was right, what did that prove? That he lied about inconsequential things? Or was there something larger at stake?

  Zane shook his head. There was pity in his eyes as he kissed her forehead. “You’re confused, honey,” he assured her. “My wallet was on the bureau when I came upstairs. Just where I left it. I had to get it. I can’t have Quinton paying for the champagne.”

  That really didn’t make any sense. “Why? He obviously likes playing the grand host. It goes along with the image he’s trying to project.”

  Without knowing it, Whitney had hit the nail on the head. “Maybe, but you have to spend money to make money. Quinton expects me to pick up some of the tab. It’s part of the game.”

  She wasn’t interested in any games. She was interested in something making sense for a change. Nothing, since she’d opened up her eyes this morning, had. “What about what I expect?”

  “I wasn’t aware that you expected anything.” Zane wanted her out of the way. And safe. He was still naive enough to hope for both. He should have known better. This was getting really difficult. But he’d made his decision and had to stick by it. Too much was at stake. “Do you want to go upstairs and lie down?”

  “Is that an offer?”

  Even as she asked, she knew it wasn’t. He was like a different person when he was around Quinton—or talking about him. Just what sort of an attraction did that man hold for Zane? What was it she wasn’t understanding here? Zane and Quinton didn’t appear to have anything in common.

  Zane shook his head. “It’s a suggestion.”

  She sighed as they made their way through the crowd. It seemed to have swelled in the past half hour. “You mean alone, don’t you?”

  This really wasn’t going to go down well once she recovered her memory. And he was going to play it for all he was worth. Maybe they’d both share a laugh over it. Eventually. Anticipation had him smiling despite his annoyance.

  “How else can you get some rest?”

  “I don’t want rest, I’m restless.” What was the use? Whitney waved her own words aside. “Never mind, let’s just get this over with.”

  She made it sound as if she thought this was the last they were seeing of the other couple. But it was just the beginning. Payoff, if it came—and it had better—wouldn’t be for at least another two to three days at the earliest, if he didn’t miss his guess.

  Zane lowered his voice as he inclined his head toward her. “I want you to be nice to Quinton. He could represent our future.”

  She didn’t know him well enough not to draw the logical conclusion at his request. Anger froze in her breast. “Just how nice are we talking about?”

  It took him less than a second to realize what she was asking.

  “Not what you’re thinking,” he snapped before he could stop himself. Did she think she was married to a pimp? This was getting to be messy. “I just want you to be pleasant and smile at the man when he looks at you. I’ll do the rest.”

  Whitney wasn’t as easily convinced of that as she might have been earlier. “Unless you get another phone call.”

  There was no danger of that. “No more phone calls,” Zane promised. He’d done what he needed to do. Now he had to be in Quinton’s face until it was over.

  He kept his arm around Whitney’s shoulders as they approached Quinton’s table. “Sorry.” He addressed Quinton. “The call was unavoidable. Business.”

  Whitney stared at Zane as she took her seat. What was he talking about? He had just told her that there hadn’t been anyone on the line. Why was he lying?

  The look in Zane’s eyes warned her not to contradict him.

  Quinton took the explanation in stride. As Zane sat down, Quinton filled his glass for him. The bottle was close to empty again. It amazed Whitney that Quinton was showing absolutely no signs of being even mildly inebriated. What was the man made of?

  Quinton eyed Zane. “What kind of business did you say you were in again, Russell?”

  He hadn’t said. He’d deliberately skated around the issue. A man didn’t come right out and declare he was on the wrong side of the law, not unless he was an idiot. And Zane knew that Quinton had no patience with idiots.

  “Same as yours, Mr. Quinton.” He took a sip of the champagne. Their eyes met in silence. Quinton understood him, Zane thought in satisfaction. “Investments. Land developing.” Zane took another sip, pausing for emphasis. “A little of this, a little of that.” He positioned his glass within the water ring it had formed on the frosted tabletop. “Wherever there’s money, I’m there.”

  He didn’t make it sound very solid, Whitney thought. And yet he could afford to give her a ring the size of Rhode Island. Business had to be good.

  Quinton tilted his head, a raven watching a worm rise out of the earth, waiting to pounce. “Then why is it I’ve never heard you menti
oned before?”

  Zane laughed shortly. “People I deal with have better things to do than bandy names about.” He waited a beat to give the next words emphasis. “But Werner’s mentioned you to me on several occasions.”

  The name obviously meant something to Quinton, Whitney thought. She saw the dark brows rise, one higher than the other. “Hans Werner?”

  Zane barely nodded, then smiled. “He’d said you’d remember. He told me he met you in Rio a couple of years ago.” With hooded eyes, Zane watched Quinton’s expression as he leisurely sipped his champagne. He was almost enjoying himself. “Said you were a very reasonable man to work with, once the terms were correct.”

  “I am.” Quinton threw back his glass as if he were downing shooters instead of a glass of champagne that went for fifty dollars a bottle. His small eyes pinned Zane to his chair. “Where do you know him from?”

  Zane deliberately played it cagey. “Like I said, I deal in the same commodities you do.”

  Whitney had the impression she was watching a very strange dance. For each step one man took, the other matched him, then moved one step on his own.

  She glanced at Sally. The woman had tuned the conversation out and was amusing herself by watching a well-muscled man who couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. He was strolling around the pool, blatantly showing off his body. The white thong he wore left little to be imagined.

  The smile on Quinton’s lips peeled back a fraction of an inch at a time as he regarded his tablemate. “Perhaps we can get together later and discuss this further, when we won’t be boring the ladies.”

  Whitney knew better than to be taken in by the thoughtfulness Quinton seemed to be expressing. He just didn’t want them around. For the first time, she wanted to stay.

  “I’m not bored,” she assured him with feeling. To prove her point, she wrapped her arms around Zane, her eyes on Quinton. “I want to know everything about my husband’s line of work.”

  Quinton studied her, as if unable to decide whether she was the genuine article. “Sometimes, my dear, too much knowledge can be a bad thing.”

  “Ignorance is bliss?” she guessed, surprised she remembered the saying. “Only if you consciously choose it to be. I don’t.”

  Quinton leaned over. “Take my advice. Choose it.” And then he smiled as he leaned back in his chair. “Somebody as pretty as you shouldn’t have to clutter up her head with details that don’t concern her.”

  Was he for real? One look at Zane told her that Quinton meant exactly what he was saying. The veneer might be smooth, but beneath it, he had the soul of a Neanderthal. She didn’t need her memory to see that. Whitney could practically see him dragging his knuckles on the ground.

  Quinton shifted in his seat until he could reach into his back pocket for his wallet. He drew out a handful of hundred-dollar bills and tossed them carelessly down on the table.

  “Sally, why don’t you take Mrs. Russell shopping? Buy something pretty for tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Whitney echoed. She thought tonight would be private. She looked at Zane for an explanation.

  Quinton answered instead. “Yes, as I said earlier, you two are my good-luck charms. I’d like to see if that luck holds up at the casino tonight.”

  Sally was already gathering the bills together and stuffing them into her purse. “You know,” she murmured to him, “a credit card would be easier.”

  Quinton laughed. “Perhaps, but I like the feel of money in my hand.” He looked at Zane, still trying to figure him out. “Nothing like the feel of crisp bills in your fingers, is there, Russell?”

  Zane didn’t want Whitney leaving, but there wasn’t anything he could say without arousing suspicion. He was forced to nod his agreement.

  “You won’t get an argument from me. But you can save your money, Mr. Quinton. I can afford to dress my own wife.”

  To Whitney’s astonishment, Zane handed her an equal number of bills. All hundreds.

  Quinton liked what he saw. “I guess you can at that.” He turned toward Sally. “Well, what are you waiting for? I asked you to leave.”

  Whitney could see that Sally didn’t care to be ordered around, sent away like an inconvenience, but the woman rose. She half glanced at Whitney.

  “C’mon...Whitney, is it?” She didn’t bother looking at Whitney for an answer. “We’re being dismissed.”

  Whitney picked up her purse. She could see that Zane wasn’t happy about her leaving. The thought cheered her. Maybe there was hope, after all.

  “Don’t be gone long,” he called after her.

  Not, she thought, if she could help it.

  Chapter 5

  Sally, Whitney discovered, descended on the mall like a queen on a country she had already conquered. Moving from store to store with Whitney in her wake, Sally spent money as if it had been printed expressly for her use. The more expensive an item was, the better. It seemed to Whitney that she took a particular delight in spending Quinton’s money.

  The spree was a revelation to Whitney. She found that she didn’t have much interest in clothes whose price tags could have easily been a down payment on a brand-new sedan. She liked her clothes simple but interesting. While Sally selected three gowns by a new designer who was all the rage and whose prices reflected it, Whitney’s attention was drawn to an electric blue satin slip dress that looked as if it knew just where to hug a curve.

  Easing it off the hanger, Whitney held it up against herself and looked at her reflection in the mirror, debating trying the dress on. So far, nothing had tempted her sufficiently to enter a dressing room. Sally glanced in her direction and surprised Whitney by nodding at the selection.

  “That should make him sit up and beg.”

  Whitney hadn’t expected a compliment. She ran her hand over the material. “You think?”

  There was a smirk on Sally’s lips. She turned her attention back to her own selections. “Trust me, honey. I know.”

  Whitney had no doubt that she did. Intrigued, she went to try the dress on. She was pleased to discover that the dress looked better on than she’d imagined. It would make Zane sit up and beg.

  Satisfied, she handed the dress over to the closest saleswoman. “I’ll take it.” She saw a half smile grace Sally’s lips. Maybe the woman wasn’t so bad after all, Whitney mused.

  The dress, plus matching shoes, were the only purchases Whitney made all afternoon. Sally, on the other hand, appeared to be determined to single-handedly resurrect the economy. They went to six other stores before Sally declared herself temporarily sated.

  “Do you always shop like this?” Whitney asked her as the chauffeur-driven limousine brought them back to the hotel.

  “Yes.” There was no apology in the answer. “If I have to put up with Richard’s roving eye, then he damn well is going to pay for it. If a woman doesn’t look out for herself, no one else will. And if she doesn’t look good,” she said tapping the top of the stack of boxes, “no one’s going to look, either.” Sally looked pointedly at her. “I’d remember that if I were you.”

  “Which part?”

  The spark Whitney had seen earlier in Sally was already waning. Sally stared out the window looking at Vegas by daylight. It wasn’t nearly as impressive as it was once the sun was down. “Both.”

  Whitney detected a note of sadness in the woman’s voice. She didn’t envy her. The next moment, she found herself wondering if, perhaps, they were in the same boat. Beneath the trappings, were Zane and Quinton alike? Her first reaction was to say no.

  Her second was to wonder.

  By the time they returned to the hotel, Whitney had managed to place her insecurities about Zane on hold until she had more to go on. For now, she would proceed slowly.

  The long, exhausting hours she had endured shopping with Sally were all worth it once she saw the look on Zane’s face when she emerged from the bathroom in her new purchase.

  Zane had spent the better part of the afternoon concerned about her. Whe
n she’d entered the suite, packages in her arms, he knew he’d worried needlessly. Instead of showing him what she’d bought, she’d disappeared with her packages into the bathroom. And remained there a long time.

  He’d been just about to knock on the door to ask her to hurry up when the door suddenly opened. Surprised, Zane stepped back to let her pass.

  The blue material glided seductively along her body like the softest of rose petals. Very sexy rose petals, Zane thought, almost against his will. His eyes skimmed over her outline. Unless he missed his guess, she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Not if the smooth, flowing lines were any indication.

  Zane felt something tightening in his gut. And lower. “Wow,” he whispered.

  His reaction, not to mention the appreciative expression on his face, pleased her. She moved toward him very slowly, aware of the way the material brushed along her body. Like the gentle touch of a lover. She wondered if Zane would touch her that way.

  She wanted to find out.

  Her eyes held his. Whitney had her answer. “Then you like it?”

  It was an effort to look up at her face. “I’d have to be dead not to like it.”

  “Good.” Her body teasingly close to his, Whitney threaded her arms around his neck. The breeze from the window fluttered her dress along his skin. She saw desire flaring in his eyes.

  Yes!

  Whitney tilted her head, a silent offer whispering in her eyes. “Then pick up the telephone and tell Quinton that we’ll take a rain check.”

  Zane didn’t have to feign reluctance. He felt it in every fiber of his being. He fervently wished that the scenario had laid itself out in a different way. But it hadn’t, and right now he wasn’t at liberty to follow through with what his body was urgently begging him to do.

  He would probably never be at liberty to, he thought with no small regret. Because if Whitney hadn’t lost her memory, this wouldn’t have been happening. She’d made their positions clear from the first.

  Very carefully, with the sincerest of apologies on his face, Zane removed her arms from around his neck. “Can’t do that.”