The Amnesiac Bride

by Marie Ferrarella

  A sexy, mischievous smile slid over her lips. “I promise I won’t use my head.”

  He laughed. She was completely incorrigible. He wished she’d been like this before. Then maybe things would have been different. Hell, there was no maybe about it, they would have been.

  But the fact was that they weren’t and he was stuck with that. He couldn’t take advantage of her no matter how his body yearned.

  “Maybe you’re not using your head, but I am.”

  Either he was the world’s strongest man, or he had absolutely no sex drive. She couldn’t believe the latter. Maybe there was a third reason. Maybe he just didn’t find her attractive. Maybe there’d been another reason he’d married her besides love. One he wasn’t telling her. “Don’t you want me?”

  He couldn’t very well say that he didn’t, not when they were on their honeymoon. Even if he lied and said he didn’t, she had only to look into his eyes to know that he did.

  His eyes held hers. “Whitney, I want you so much that it hurts inside. Believe me, this is a lot harder on me than it is on you.”

  She believed him. He thought he was being noble. Whitney sighed, defeated. Here she was in one of the most exciting cities in the country, in a gorgeous room wearing what amounted to blue cellophane, practically throwing herself at her husband and managing only to bounce off his muscles. And the walls.

  “Don’t bet on it.”

  “But I am.” Leaning over, he pulled aside the cover on her side of the bed. “Now why don’t you get some rest?”

  Not waiting for an answer, he slid into his side. Zane turned his back to her and reached for the light, then switched it off. He could feel Whitney getting in beside him. In self-defense, he began to conjure up images of very cold places.

  It didn’t help.

  “Zane?”

  Her voice floated to him in the dark. Small, lost. Vulnerable. He felt his stomach tightening in response. “Yes?”

  The dark made her feel needy. So needy that she didn’t know if she could bear it. It wasn’t in her nature to beg—that much she knew about herself. But somehow it didn’t matter right now.

  “Do you think it would hurt anything if you just held me for a while?”

  The request sliced through him. Zane turned around. Silvery moonlight was streaming in through the window, revealing the expression on her face. It wrenched his heart.

  “No, I don’t think it would hurt anything,” he said softly.

  Shifting, he slipped his arm around her and held her close to him. With a sigh, Whitney rested her head on his chest. Her breath rippled along his bare chest.

  Yeah, Purple Heart. Definitely. Maybe even two.

  He was the source of every question that rang in her mind, every haunting doubt. Yet being here with him like this, with his arm protectively around her, made her feel safe.

  Whitney curled her body into his and hung on to that sensation.

  Within a few minutes, her breathing became rhythmic. He knew he could easily slip his arm away and get some sleep himself. God knew he needed it.

  Zane remained just as he was, holding her.

  Damn, that hurt.

  Zane tried to stretch his arm. It felt as if rigor mortis had set in. Served him right for allowing guilt to dictate to him, he thought.

  Behind him, he heard Whitney moving around in the bathroom. She’d risen before him. When he had woken up to find her gone, he’d thought the worst. But she was here. Her memory, however, still wasn’t. It was the first thing he’d asked.

  Zane sat up in bed, moving his shoulder to and fro, trying to restore circulation. At least it was his left arm, he thought, though there was small compensation in that.

  Whitney walked out of the bathroom. Zane looked like an eagle, trying to rev up for takeoff. A majestic eagle, she thought with a warm smile.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Not knowing if she had changed out of her nightgown yet, he didn’t look in her direction. Instead he deliberately turned away.

  “My arm’s stiff.”

  That was because he’d held her all night, she thought. It had been nice, waking up in the morning to find his arm still around her. The fact that he’d held her like that, even when she was asleep, filled her with tenderness. It told her far more than his words had. Zane really did care about her.

  “Here, let me,” she urged.

  Before he could tell her not to, she got up on the bed behind him. Scooting over on her knees, she began to knead his shoulders. He had knots the size of walnuts.

  She wondered if persuading Quinton to allow him to be his partner was making Zane tense, or if there was some other reason for it. Leaning against him, Whitney squeezed harder, trying to work the knots out.

  “Better?”

  “Yeah.”

  He was lying. He was completely unaware of her hands on his shoulder or what they were accomplishing. All he could think of was the body that was pressed against his back. The body that was covered by something so flimsy that it looked as if it could be blown away with a sneeze. Her thighs were brushing against the small of his back as she worked.

  Her thighs and...

  Shifting, Zane caught her hands in his. “It’s fine. Terrific. You can stop now. I feel like a brand-new man.”

  She saw the way he was looking at her. Her smile bloomed, filtering into every part of her.

  “Funny, because I seem to be a brand-new woman.” She sat back, her eyes never leaving his. “What should we do about that?”

  He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to...

  “Get dressed,” he said abruptly, dropping her hands and getting out of bed. He tugged on the waist of his pajamas, pulling them up higher on his hips as he rose.

  She was getting used to this, she thought, wondering if it was a bad sign. “You know, for a minute there, I thought you were going to kiss me.”

  “I was.” To prove it and to close the subject, he brushed his lips against hers quickty—so quickly that it was as if he’d scarcely touched them at all.

  At a loss, Whitney could only laugh. “In a hurry, are we?”

  “Yes,” he told her. “I am.” Yanking open a drawer, Zane took out a sweatshirt and a matching pair of pants. The bathroom door slammed in his wake. He hurried into the clothes, emerging again within three minutes. “I’ve got to get down to the gym. I’ve already skipped my usual routine for too long.”

  It was a poor excuse at best, but if he didn’t get out of here soon, away from her, he wasn’t going to be responsible for his actions. Even saints had their breaking point.

  Like now.

  Whitney was lying across the bed, looking for all she world like heaven. And sin. The nightgown served only to make him want to unwrap what it didn’t succeed in covering.

  Whitney would have killed him for what he was thinking if she were herself. But then, he reasoned, if she were herself, she wouldn’t have been lying there like that, tempting him.

  Making his knees turn into butter.

  He was weakening, she thought. “I’ve got another way for you to exercise.”

  Zane made one last attempt to make his rejection of her palatable. “We’ve already discussed that, Whitney. Look, this abstinence is hard on me, as well. But I don’t want to take a chance on anything happening to you just because I couldn’t control myself.”

  She rose from the bed slowly. Maybe he was right. It was just that she couldn’t shake this feeling that she was finally free to love him and she couldn’t do anything about it.

  Her own thought echoed in her mind, surprising her. “Did I have a very strict upbringing?” Whitney asked suddenly.

  He was almost out the door. The question, coming out of the blue, caught him off guard. “What?”

  “Did I have a very strict upbringing?” she repeated. “I mean, was I hidden in a convent until I was twenty or told that my body would turn into a pillar of salt if I had sex?”

  He began to laugh. What the hell was she talking ab
out? “Not that I know of. Why?”

  She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I’ve just got the oddest feeling about us.” She raised her eyes to his face. “About you. That I’m free to make love with you and now, because of that accident, I can’t. I thought maybe I was repressed and told that I wasn’t supposed to have sex until I was married or something.” It was the only thing that made even a little sense, although it sounded absurd when she said it aloud. “That maybe I believed that.” And then she remembered what he had told her. “But you said we did have sex, right?”

  He paused for a moment, trying to get the stories straight in his mind. He was beginning to wish that he was the one who’d gotten amnesia.

  “Yes. And you were fantastic.” Because she looked as if she needed the reassurance, he crossed to her and kissed her cheek quickly. “And you will be again. Once I’m satisfied that you’re all right.”

  And when would that be? She was afraid of the answer. “Zane, you’re not going to wait until my memory returns, are you?”

  She was impatient to make love with him. Who would have thought, he mused. “No, I promise. I just want to wait a couple of days to make sure that I don’t add to what you’ve already suffered.”

  It was the best he could come up with and he knew it was lame even before he said it. But he needed those two days. And once they were over, he could explain things to her. And then she’d probably kill him.

  He had to get going before he gave in. An hour of free weights and jogging should do it. Maybe two, he amended silently. “Now you stay put and I’ll be back in forty-five minutes. An hour, tops.” He was gone before she could answer.

  Whitney frowned as she stared at the closed door. Frustrated, she got off the bed and went to take a shower. A particularly cold one.

  Chapter 7

  The small club was crowded with bodies and the sound of voices as people tried to outshout one another in order to be heard above the din. It was only if he listened intently that Zane could hear the music coming from the band in the far corner of the room. Around the band, people were dancing or simply moving in tune to another melody they heard.

  Crowded, noisy, it wasn’t the kind of place he would have thought that Quinton would be attracted to, but it had been the man’s choice. After a second evening of gambling, Quinton had insisted that they cap the night by celebrating at the trendy club. Located at the extreme opposite end of the Zanadu, the Club Z was enjoying its own reputation as the in place, a place to see and be seen.

  As if anyone could really see in this dim lighting, Zane thought. He looked around at the patrons elbowing one another out of the way in order to gain a small shred of space. There were a lot of customers here for what Quinton had to offer.

  He could see that the same thought was in Quinton’s mind. The man looked out on the floor like a wolf perusing a large flock of sheep, thinking about mealtime.

  A waitress with jet black hair and dressed in sequined black from head to foot bumped against their table as she brought them more drinks. Murmuring an apology, she collected the empty glasses and distributed the new round. It didn’t seem to matter who got what. Sally sat sipping hers, getting quietly drunk while Quinton tossed money around as if it was growing in his pocket.

  He looked at Whitney. She was nodding in response to something Quinton was whispering in her ear, a smile on her lips.

  An emotion Zane couldn’t recognize began to cast out long vines around him, snaring a good hold. It had been three days since Whitney had lost her memory. Three days that he had been leading a double life. A triple one, actually, but who was counting?

  He wasn’t sure just how much longer he could keep this up.

  Everything with Quinton was progressing at a painfully slow pace. But he could tell that the other man was beginning to trust him. As much as a man like Richard Quinton could trust anyone.

  Despite his initial concern, Whitney gave him no reason to worry. She did her best to appear to be warming toward the other couple. To the outsider, it looked as if she actually liked them. Zane knew better and was grateful to her for keeping up a charade she didn’t begin to appreciate or understand.

  Given the circumstances they were laboring under, this was going far better than he’d hoped.

  It was the other part that was giving him trouble.

  The part that was happening when they were away from Quinton.

  Whitney was systematically tearing through the fabric of everything he had managed to construct around himself since the first time he’d laid eyes on her. Tearing through it and bringing him solidly back to day one. Making him remember what he’d told himself he was going to forget.

  Even now, thoughts of her, of wanting her, were creeping in where they had no place being. Where they couldn’t be. He was supposed to remain alert, on his guard for any wrong movement, any indication that things were going awry. Everything depended on it.

  And yet here he was, staring at Whitney, watching the way her mouth moved when she spoke, the way her eyes glinted at some joke Quinton had told her. The way her breasts rose and fell with each breath she took.

  He hadn’t noticed before how her hair was like a web of sunbeams trapped in a silken shower that fell about her shoulders. How her eyes looked like two perfect spheres of pristine pool water. And how her skin was like heavenly cream.

  No, he hadn’t noticed that before at all.

  Or had he?

  Yeah, he had. Noticed and learned how to suppress it. Successfully. Until now. She wasn’t making it easy on him.

  Damn, he was carrying on like some hormonal preteen about the latest nubile model to hit the magazine covers. He was a professional, for heaven’s sake. What the hell was wrong with him?

  Someone would have thought that he had been the one who had gotten amnesia. Maybe that was just the trouble. If she were acting like Whitney instead of this free-spirited, sensual woman, he wouldn’t have to struggle to keep his mind on business. Whitney would have done it for him.

  Zane looked across the small tabletop that was barely large enough to accommodate all four glasses. Quinton had been studying Whitney as if she were a piece of candy and he was a man with a sweet tooth that needed satisfying all night.

  Zane blew out a breath as he shifted on the small chair. All that proved was that he wasn’t the only one letting his mind drift tonight. But then that too was probably part of Quinton’s facade: the successful businessman who had huge appetites to satisfy. Zane doubted that Quinton had to do any amount of great acting in that regard.

  Given half a chance, he knew that Quinton would have taken Whitney away, intent on amusing himself. Zane felt more or less confident that the other Whitney would have been more than equal to handling the situation. But stripped of her memory?

  This Whitney had no idea what was really going down. What was really at stake. He wasn’t all that certain that she would be able to defend herself if it came down to that.

  Quinton turned in his seat, placing a well-manicured hand on Whitney’s shoulder. The gesture was far too proprietary to suit Zane.

  “Would you mind terribly if I borrowed your wife, Russell?”

  Yes, he minded. Minded more than he knew he should. Zane banked down the sudden rush of jealousy as he raised his voice to be heard. The band, in self-defense to the swelling noise, had begun to play louder.

  “That all depends on how long and what for.”

  Quinton merely laughed. His expression made it very clear what he would have wanted to be doing with Whitney. Not waiting for an answer, he pushed back his chair and urged Whitney to her feet. “Is that distrust I hear in your voice, Russell? I sincerely hope not. That wouldn’t be a becoming way to treat a new business associate.”

  Three days and evenings of dancing attendance. And six months of groundwork, not to mention two years of planning. It was cinched. He was in. Zane waited to savor the moment and found that the surge he usually experienced was muted.

  “Then you...?�
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  Quinton inclined his head ambiguously. He enjoyed toying with people and Zane was no exception. He’d already placed a few significant calls and had the man checked out So far, he appeared to be exactly what he claimed to be. That was no reason to give him any slack on the rope he was twisting on.

  Quinton smiled to himself. The thing about being in the driver’s seat was that you were the one who decided when to start the car and where to take it. He enjoyed the feeling. Exercised it every chance he got. There was no greater rush than power.

  “Perhaps.” He looked at Whitney. “It might all depend on just how well your wife dances.” His hand closed over hers. “Ready?”

  No, she wasn’t ready. She wanted to leave. More than anything, she wanted to get away from these people. She’d tried her best, for Zane’s sake, pretending that she was hanging on every one of Quinton’s words, laughing at his stories. Humoring Sally. And all along, all she wanted to do was take a shower and wash the invisible film of dirt off her body.

  But she wanted to make Zane happy, so Whitney acquiesced.

  “Ready.” One dance, only one dance, she promised herself. After that, if Zane wanted Quinton entertained, he was going to have to dance with the man himself.

  “A man can’t ask for more than for a woman who’s ready.” Quinton looked over his shoulder as he began to lead Whitney through the crowd to the tiny dance floor. “By the way, Sally dances only with me. Anyone else breaks her rhythm.” The warning was stated mildly.

  Sally followed Quinton’s progress with eyes that were rimmed with anger. The bastard. She was getting tired of being taken for granted, of dancing on a string every time he pulled it. Of doing what she was told. She took another sip from her almost-empty glass. “Don’t listen to him, I dance with anyone I want to.” She looked at Zane expectantly.

  If he was going to butt heads with Quinton, it certainly wasn’t going to be over his mistress. “I’ll just sit this one out,” Zane answered. And watch Whitney.

  Sally shrugged and wrapped her hands around the Scotch-and-soda glass. She glanced down at the bracelet on her wrist and then waved to the waitress for another drink.