Natalie had been certain that once she regained her memory, every blank space would fill and every question would have an answer. Instead, all new questions were piling up.
“This is so frustrating.” She shook her head. “Like a circle that doesn’t quite close. You, me, the duchess, the castle, the painting, this guy Lagy. They’re all connected, but I can’t see how they come together.”
“Nor do I,” he said, digging his cell phone out of his jeans pocket, “but I intend to find out.”
She watched wide-eyed as he pressed a single key and was instantly connected. She understood just enough of his fluid French to grasp that he was asking someone named Andre to run a check on Janos Lagy.
* * *
Their return sent the hound into a paroxysm of delight. When Natalie laughed and bent to accept his joyous adulation, he got several quick, slurpy kisses past her guard before she could dodge them.
As a thank-you to the dog-sitters, Dom gave Katya the green light to purchase the latest Justin Bieber CD on his iTunes account and download it to her iPod—with her father’s permission, he added. The indulgent papa received the ten-pound Westphalia ham that Dom had picked up at the butcher’s on the way home. The hound got a bag of bones, which tantalized him all the way up to the loft.
When Dom unlocked the front door and stood aside for Natalie to precede him, she was hit with a sudden attack of nerves. Now that she’d remembered her past, would it overshadow the present? Would the weight of all those months and years in her “real” life smother the brief days she’d spent here, with Dom?
Her heart thumping, she stepped inside and felt instant relief. And instantly at home…despite the dust motes dancing on a stray sunbeam and the rumpled bedcovers she’d straightened so meticulously before the hound had pounced on them. She knew she was just a guest, yet the most ridiculous sense of belonging enveloped her. The big fat question mark now was how long she’d stay camped out here. At least until she and Dom explored this business with Lagy, surely.
Or not. Doubt raised its ugly head when she glanced over her shoulder and saw him standing just inside the still-open door.
“Aren’t you coming in?”
He gave himself a little shake, as if dragging his thoughts together, and dredged up a crooked smile.
“We left your case in the car. I’ll go get it.”
She used his absence to open the drapes and windows to let in the crisp fall air. Conscious of how Dom had teased her about her neat streak, she tried to ignore the rumpled bed but the damned thing pulled her like a magnet. She was guiltily smoothing the cover when he returned.
Propping her roller case next to the wardrobe, he made for the fridge. “I’m going to have a beer. Would you like one? Or wine, or tea?”
“Tea sounds good. Why don’t I brew a fresh pitcher while you check with your friend to see what he’s turned up on Lagy?”
Dom took the dew-streaked pilsner and cell phone out to the balcony. Not because he wanted privacy to make the call to Andre. He’d decided last night to trust Natalie in spite of that unexplained arrest and nothing had happened since to change his mind. Unless whatever he learned about Lagy was classified “eyes only,” he intended to share it with her. No, he just needed a few moments to sort through everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours.
Oh hell, who was he kidding?
What he needed was, first, a deep gulp of air. Second, a long swallow of Gold Fassl. And third, a little more time to recover from the mule kick that’d slammed into his midsection when he’d opened the door to the loft and Natalie waltzed in with the Agár frisking around her legs.
He liked having her here. Oddly, she didn’t crowd him or shrink his loft to minuscule proportions the way Zia did whenever she blew into Budapest on one of her whirlwind visits, leaving a trail of clothes and scarves and medical books and electronic gadgets in her wake. In fact, Natalie might lean a bit too far in the opposite direction. She would alphabetize and color-code his life if he didn’t keep a close eye on her.
He would have to loosen her up. Ratchet her passion for order and neatness down to human levels. He suspected that might take some work but he could manage it. All he had to do was take her to bed often enough—and keep her there long enough—to burn up any surplus energy.
As he gazed at the ornate facades on the Pest side of the river, he could easily envision fall rolling into winter while he lazed under the blankets with Natalie and viewed these same buildings dusted with snow. Or the two of them exercising the hound when the park below was tender and green with spring.
The problem was that he wasn’t sure how Natalie felt about resuming her real life now that she’d remembered it. He suspected she wasn’t sure, either. Not yet, anyway. His conscience said he should stick to the suggestion he’d made last night to take things between them slowly, step-by-step. But his conscience couldn’t stand up to the homey sounds of Natalie moving around inside the loft, brewing her tea, laughing at the hound’s antics.