The Twelve-Month Mistress (15 page)

It wasn’t all he had dreamed of. But it was as much as he could hope for. And he would have to be satisfied with it. For now at least.

‘I’ll hold you to that,’ he said harshly, struggling to keep his already uncertain grip on his feelings. ‘This isn’t going to go away, Cassandra. I won’t let it.’

He ran a finger along the lines of shadow under her eyes, noting the look of exhaustion on her face.

‘But tonight you’re tired—we both are. We’ll see how things look after a good night’s sleep.’

Getting to his feet, he drew her up with him, one arm around her waist, holding her tight so that she couldn’t break away from him if she tried.

‘But we sleep in the same bed,’ he told her, his tone making it clear that there was no way he was going to concede this point, no matter how she argued. ‘I don’t give a damn about any doctors and their orders, or anything else. I want you with me, beside me, in my bed—where you belong.’

She didn’t argue. For a second he thought she might. She opened her mouth, drew a breath, seemed to think of it. But then in the space of the same heartbeat she changed her mind, swallowed down what she had been about to say, and closed her eyes, nodding silently in surrender.

‘Good,’ was all he said as he swung her up into his arms,
supporting her head against his shoulder, her slender body against his chest. She was his woman, and one day she would see that was true.

His woman. He felt his heart lift and a new warmth of joy creep into it as if he were bathed in the warmth of the morning sun, not the cool, pale light of the moon.

She would spend the night in his bed, sleep in his arms, they would wake up together tomorrow.

And tomorrow was another day.

Another day when he would start his campaign afresh, and one day, some day, she would give him the answer he wanted.

He wasn’t prepared to take that ‘No’ she had given him. There was no way he could live with that.

So he took her to his bed, and it was just as he had imagined. For all that she was so tired, Cassandra turned to him and held him close, and once more the inevitable passion flared between them, hot and strong and undeniable. The long hours of the night were burned away in that passion, taking all time, all memory, all uncertainty with them so that there was no room for anything else. No space in his mind for anything but the knowledge that this was the woman he wanted for the rest of his life.

He fell asleep on that thought. Replete and contented, and totally sure that tonight had just been a temporary glitch, an unexpected twist on the path towards the future he had believed was in his grasp. He slept deeply and long, barely even registering the vivid dreams that filled what little was left of the night, waking when the sun was high in the sky, and the time on the clock told him that he was late. That unless he went
now
, he would miss the meeting completely.

Automatic pilot got him out of bed and into the shower when it was the last thing he wanted. The same unthinking instinct made sure he was dressed and ready, forcing down the furious protests of the body that longed to be back in
the bed beside Cassandra, and the heart that was in total agreement with that need.

He wanted to lie with her in his arms and watch her slowly emerge from the deep, exhausted sleep she had fallen into. He wanted to inhale the sweet scent of her skin, kiss her awake with the taste of her on his lips. He wanted to hear her soft sigh, see her eyelids flutter open, her eyes looking straight into his as she came back to reality. Most of all he wanted to see their clear, bright blue darken and cloud with the desire for him that there was no way she could hide.

But because of this stupid, boring meeting there was no way he could do that now. Cursing the fact that he hadn’t deputised someone to stand in for him, he tried to head for the door, only to know as his hand touched the door that he couldn’t make himself go now.

Not yet. Not without a word of goodbye; without one last kiss; without seeing Cassandra one last time.

He’d really got it bad, he told himself, shaking his head in despair at the way he was acting as he mounted the stairs. He really had lost his heart and his soul to this woman if just the thought of being away from her for a couple of hours did this to him.

It was as he came to the top of the stairs, turning to walk down the landing, that something, some trick of the light, some warning little voice hidden until now, some secret realisation jolted his thoughts and made him realise that something was wrong.

He wasn’t thinking straight at all. He didn’t have to go to work. He didn’t have to go anywhere.

It was a Saturday. It was Saturday morning, and so it didn’t matter how late he woke, how long he stayed in bed. The meeting with the London buyers that he had thought he had to go to wasn’t an appointment he had to meet at all. It wasn’t even happening today.

He was up and dressed, and on his way out—to a dinner that had actually been held three weeks before.

His footsteps stilled. The hand that he had raised to open the bedroom door froze in mid-air, the action uncompleted. And he knew what had happened.

The dreams that had pursued him through the night had taken his numbed brain and shaken it awake. The effects of the accident, of the blow to the head, had eased at last, sweeping away the clouds and leaving his thoughts as clear and sharp as they had ever been.

The lost month was missing no more. His memories were back, strong and vivid and totally devastating.

Because now that he could see those memories so starkly, he knew exactly why he had wanted to erase them from his thoughts.

C
ASSIE
came awake slowly and reluctantly.

The deep, deep sleep into which she had fallen had held her like someone drugged and even now, with the sunlight bright enough to burn through her closed eyelids, she still wanted to stay exactly where she was. She longed to linger in this half-asleep half-waking state where nothing else mattered but her blissful contentment and the knowledge that Joaquin was there, beside her…

But he wasn’t.

A faint frown creased the space between her eyebrows as the questing hand she had put out to find the man in whose arms she had fallen asleep encountered only empty space and the rapidly cooling sheets that told her Joaquin had left their bed some time before.

It was enough to bring back the memories. Images of the other time when she had woken late to find Joaquin gone flashed through her thoughts, jolting her wide awake in a shocking rush. Had he left her to sleep—or had he other things he planned to do, as he had that time? Or was she just making too much of a simple absence?

Oh, when would this constant fear of Joaquin’s memory returning leave her? Or wasn’t the truth that it never would? Because if he remembered everything then the fear would become so much worse—becoming a fear of reality, rather than anticipation.

The thought was enough to jolt her upright, sitting up in bed in sudden shock, and then wincing as the unguarded movement made her head spin unpleasantly.

Not enough to eat, she realised belatedly. They had never had that meal last night, which meant that she hadn’t eaten
solid food for over twenty-four hours. And a solid diet of stress and caffeine had done nothing to help her feel any better. In fact she felt…

‘Oh, no!’

The thought of food had brought a wave of nausea, one that had her flinging back the bedclothes and dashing for the bathroom. She only just made it in time to lurch over the basin, retching and heaving miserably.

Oh, now what was wrong? Didn’t she have enough on her plate without being ill? Or…

Horror held her frozen, unable to think, unable even to breathe. Was it…?

‘Something you ate,
querida
?’ A darkly cynical voice from behind finished the question that she didn’t even dare to ask herself.

‘I don’t know,’ she managed to mumble, keeping her head bent, her hair concealing her face, the panic she knew must show in her eyes.

She knew she must look at her least glamorous possible, in total disarray, with not a stitch of clothing to cover her, but an ice-cold shaft of fear cut away any embarrassment she might fear, leaving only a freezing, dark sense of horror. Something about Joaquin’s tone warned her there was much worse to come and his next words confirmed as much.

‘You don’t know? I thought it was me that had the memory problems, not you. So tell me,
amada
, is it likely that this means what I suspect it does—and if that’s the case then is the baby most likely to be mine or my brother’s? Or is that something else you “don’t know”?’

So how did she answer that in a way that she could make him believe? Cassie’s throat was already raw and uncomfortable from being sick, but now the drying effects of fear added to the sensation as she straightened up, drew in a deep, ragged breath, struggling to find the strength with which to answer him.

‘You’ve remembered,’ she croaked, her face still turned away, her hair in a tangled mess over her pallid face.

‘I’ve remembered,’ Joaquin confirmed icily. ‘I’ve remembered everything—absolutely everything.’

‘I’m glad.’

She was too, though it hurt her terribly to say it. The days of waiting, fearing, dreading this moment had stretched her nerves to breaking-point. She couldn’t have taken much more if she’d tried. At least now, this way, the axe had fallen. She no longer had to wonder what would happen when it did.

She knew. And it was every bit as bad as she had feared.

In fact, it was worse, she added wretchedly as she finally found the strength to lift her head and look at Joaquin’s reflection in the mirror. He was lounging in the bathroom doorway, strong arms folded across his chest, his stunning face set into harsh lines of rejection and cold fury. The same fury that turned his eyes opaque and impenetrable when they locked onto her own nervous gaze through the glass.

‘Glad?’ he echoed now, turning her word into a sound of pure contempt. ‘How can you be glad when this means I’ve found you out, that I—’?

‘I said I’m glad and I meant it!’ Cassie flung out, whirling round to face him so fast that it made her head spin and she had to clutch at the white porcelain basin behind her for support. ‘I’m glad that your memory’s come back, glad that you no longer have to live with a hole in your life where those weeks should be—glad that—that…’

‘That I remember what you’ve been up to?’ Joaquin drawled, low and dangerously intent. ‘That I now know—or at least have some suspicion just whose bastard you might have tried to foist on me.’

‘Whose…?’

Through the dizzy buzzing inside her head, Cassie struggled hard to make sense of what he was saying. She didn’t
know yet if she was pregnant, though she had to admit it was a horrifying possibility, but Joaquin at least appeared convinced that she was. He also seemed to think that—

‘That’s just not true!’ she gasped when realisation of just what he meant hit home to her beleaguered brain. ‘I would never do that! And besides—’

‘No?’ Joaquin cut in again. ‘So what have you been doing all week? Staying here with me while knowing all the time that you were pregnant with—’

‘I knew nothing of the sort! I
didn’t
!’ she emphasised as a cynically lifted eyebrow questioned the truth of her declaration. ‘I didn’t know—or even suspect that I might be pregnant until now.’

‘Naïve of you. After all, sexual activity is what makes a baby and, as you’ve been more active than most, you might at least have had some sort of suspicion.’

But that was just too much.

‘How dare you? How dare you imply—? I have
not
been more sexually active than most…’

‘Sleeping with two members of the same family at the same time doesn’t count, then?’ Joaquin enquired so nastily that her fingers itched to wipe the sneering contempt from his face with a well-aimed slap. She had to twist them together tightly in front of her to keep herself from giving in to that temptation.

‘No, it doesn’t, because I haven’t done any such thing! I wouldn’t!’

‘No?’

‘No! So you can take that damned sneer off your face—and if you were any sort of a gentleman you’d not stand there like that—you might at least have the courtesy to let me past and let me get dressed!’

She would feel just a little more at ease if she got dressed, she told herself. Not better. Nothing could make her feel better about this hateful situation—but she might
at least feel a bit more comfortable, less shockingly vulnerable, if she was covered up.

‘
Perdón lo siento!
I am deeply ashamed!’ Joaquin flung back with a cynicism that made a total mockery of his claim to penitence, making her wince as if the lash of his tongue had been an actual physical flick of a whip. ‘But somehow, when I am with you, there is something that makes me forget to behave like a gentleman.’

But all the same he moved away from the door, stepping back into the bedroom so that she could come past.

Struggling to preserve any tiny shreds of the dignity that had totally deserted her, Cassie forced herself to march past him, head held defiantly high, every ounce of strength she possessed exerted to keep her legs from wobbling, her face from revealing the misery that ravaged her soul.

She made it to the bed before her strength deserted her and she sank down on the edge of it, thankful that she hadn’t actually fallen.

‘Here…’

Joaquin’s rough-spoken words drew her attention and, looking up, she was amazed to find that he was holding something out to her.

The green silk robe that she had been wearing the night before.

And that was something she couldn’t put on. Something that came too interwoven with memories, good and bad, for her to wear with any degree of ease, or any hope of getting Joaquin to forget just why he was so furious with her.

‘Oh, no,’ she managed, shaking her head violently so that her hair swirled around her face, golden strands catching on her mouth, her eyelashes. ‘No—please—don’t you have anything else?’

‘Like what?’

Following the direction of her wildly waving hand, he
dropped the silk to the floor and snatched up the item she had indicated, tossing it into her lap.

Cassie stared at the black cotton with a desolate, sinking feeling in her heart. Was the black cotton robe that she had worn in such similar circumstances on the morning before she had left Joaquin any better at all? she couldn’t help wondering. Or was it in fact worse?

Because some cruel, malign fate had led to Joaquin putting on exactly the same sleek steel-coloured suit as he had worn that last morning before he had left for work. In fact his outfit was exactly the same, right down to the burgundy and blue tie, the gold cufflinks that gleamed at his wrists. It made her think of some sort of appalling action replay, going back over some of the worst moments of her life.

But at least the black robe was some sort of cover, some protection from those cruelly assessing eyes. That was something to be thankful for. So she huddled herself into its enveloping folds, hugging it tightly around her and cinching the belt in so hard that it dug into her flesh.

‘Haven’t we been here before?’ Joaquin drawled cynically, jet-hard eyes flicking over her slim form with undisguised contempt. ‘And I suspect the end this time will be much the same as the last—only this time I’ll be the one to shut the door behind you when you walk.’

Was she hearing things, Cassie couldn’t help wondering, or had there been a hint of extra bitterness in that last comment? The sort that, if she was even more weak and foolish than she was already, she might actually be fool enough to think had come from some deep inner feeling, some longstanding regret that he was trying to hide.

Oh, who was she trying to kid? Regret was not in Joaquin’s vocabulary, nor was ‘deep feeling’, not unless she was very badly mistaken.

‘You think I’m going to leave?’

Desperately needing something to do, Cassie’s restless
fingers pleated the black cotton covering her knees over and over again.

‘I
know
you’re going to leave. I don’t want you here in my home, in my life any longer. I want you to pack your bags and go. That was the very first thought that came into my head when I realised that I remembered—and what I remembered. So now are you still going to claim that you’re glad my memory has come back?’

‘Yes.’

It came out on a deep sigh.

‘Yes, I’m still glad—I couldn’t be anything else. At least, not for you.’

‘Yeah, it’s worked out fine for me.’ Joaquin acceded, nodding his head, a cynical twist on his lips, a savage light in his eyes. ‘But not so wonderfully for you. You should have grabbed at my marriage proposal while it was still on offer, Cassie,
querida
. You might have had a chance then. But at least I expect you still have Ramón as a stand-by option. If, of course, he still wants you when he knows you’re back to sharing your favours between us.’

‘You’re completely wrong about Ramón, you know,’ Cassie sighed despondently. ‘He’s not interested in me—never has been. He’s lost his heart to a fiery Spanish lady who’s been making his life a misery. The trouble is that he just doesn’t know it yet.’

‘Well, in that case you should have a chance to make your move before he realises. Get in there fast and he—’

‘No,’ Cassie cut in, cool and firm, not allowing him to finish the statement.

‘No? Why not?’

‘I should have thought that was obvious.’

She forced herself to her feet, relieved to find that her legs supported her much more steadily this time. At least the violence of the nausea was starting to ebb away a little, though the sight of her appearance in the mirror made her grimace in appalled distaste.

She looked dreadful with her face pale, her eyes red-rimmed and her hair like a windblown haystack. But she was past caring. All she could think about was the shocking things Joaquin believed her capable of, the bitterness they had caused him. And all she wanted to do was to get the truth home to him in whatever way she could.

But how?

‘Why is it obvious?’ Joaquin persisted, giving her the best cue she could ever want.

She brought her head up, chin lifting determinedly. And she looked him straight in the eyes so that he could be in no doubt at all that she meant what she said.

‘I’ve no intention of making any move on Ramón for two reasons—one, because I know he’s already involved with someone, and two, because there is only one Alcolar that I’m in the least bit interested in—and that’s you.’

Only one Alcolar—and that’s you.

If she had given him the slap that he knew her fingers had been itching to deliver just a few moments before, then she couldn’t have knocked him back more strongly, Joaquin admitted to himself. Because the problem was that he almost caught himself believing her. Hell, he
wanted
to believe her, even though he knew he was being all kinds of a fool if he did so.

But he couldn’t doubt the evidence of his own eyes. And he’d seen her, installed in Ramón’s flat, in that damnably seductive slip of a gown, and she’d told him herself that his brother gave her something special.

‘He gives me something that you never did!’ were the words she had flung at him that night. The night when he’d had the accident, when all memory of the occasion had been wiped from his mind. And, using that, she had moved back in with him again, playing him like a fool, bringing him to the point where he had confessed his feelings for her. Hell, he’d even proposed again—a proper proposal of
marriage this time, not like the desperate, wildly foolish one she’d forced from him in Ramón’s apartment.

And what had she said then?

‘My answer is no! No! Never! No way! Not in my lifetime! I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man alive on this earth and the future of the human race depended on it.’