November Harlequin Presents 1(112)

‘Kyrie Petrakos asked for me,’ she added hastily when she saw that the younger man was hesitating. ‘I promise I won’t wake him—or do anything to disturb him.’

At last he nodded.

‘He did ask for you,’ he said, indicating a chair with a wave of his hand. ‘But I should warn you that the blow to the head has left him with some memory problems—the doctors believe they will be only temporary. So he may be a little confused when he wakes. Would you like a drink sent up?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Becca assured him hastily, squashing down the weak thought that a cup of tea might warm the sudden coldness of her blood, give her a strength she so much needed. What she needed more was to be left alone, to have time to catch her breath, mentally, since the telephone call had rocked the balance of her world so desperately.

As Leander left the room she sank down thankfully into the chair he had indicated, her legs giving way beneath the weariness that was both mental and physical, her eyes fixed on the still form of the man in the bed.

She had promised not to wake him, not to disturb him, but the truth was that he was disturbing her for all he lay so silent and unmoving. The sight of Andreas, whom she had last seen so tall, strong and proud, lying still and pale in the bed was almost more than she could take.

But it was worse than that.

She’d spent the last year telling herself that this man had been a mistake, one she deeply regretted, but she was over him. It had taken just one glance at the man in the bed, at the dark, stunning profile, the broad naked chest where the bronzed skin showed livid, disturbing bruises, ones that made her heart clench just to see them, to rock that belief in her head. If she had seen him standing, if her first awareness had been of the powerful, forceful man he was, the man who had used her and then thrown her out of his home, perhaps it would have been different. This man was too quiet, too vulnerable.

Too deceptively vulnerable, a warning voice sounded inside her head. Because at any other time, vulnerable was not a word she would ever associate with Andreas Gregorie Petrakos.

‘I hate him.’

In a low, desperate whisper, she tried the word hate out for size, feeling it strange and alien on her tongue. For almost a year now, she had used it every day in connection with Andreas’ name. Used it and meant it.

‘I hate Andreas Petrakos,’ had been the first words she had said on waking and often the last ones that had been on her tongue at night. They had replaced and reversed the ones that had been there before, in the brief time before her marriage, when she had whispered to herself how much she loved this man, afraid to voice the thoughts aloud for fear that she might be tempting fate and the happiness she dreamed of would evaporate just as a result of saying them.

She shouldn’t have bothered, Becca told herself bitterly. She hadn’t tempted fate but the cruel blow had fallen after all. Andreas had never loved her as she had loved him; in fact, his marrying her had only been an act of revenge.

The man in the bed sighed, stirred, muttered something, immediately drawing her eyes to his face once again. Had those heavy, closed eyelids flickered once or twice, or was she just deceiving herself?

Just the thought of it made her heartbeat kick up several notches, making her blood pound in her ears.

What would she do if—when he woke? When he spoke?

And what about these ‘memory problems’? How much had they affected him? Knowing Andreas as she did, she could just imagine how difficult he would find any limitation to his awesome mental abilities. He would hate it and it would chafe at him like a net thrown over a wounded lion, holding him captive. He would rage against it, and Andreas in a rage was a terrifying sight.

But perhaps more importantly, she should also consider what this news meant for her. Would Andreas even remember that he had asked for her? And what had been on his mind when he had?

The long-fingered hand that lay on the bed had definitely twitched, flexing briefly as he sighed again. There was a long, angry-looking scratch running from the base of his ring finger right to his wrist and it pulled on something deep in her heart to see the raw tear in the beautiful, bronzed skin that seemed so very dark in contrast to the soft white cotton of the coverings.

Becca bit down hard on her lower lip to hold back the faint gasp that almost escaped her and she fought to push away memories of how it had felt to know the touch of that hand, have it caress her skin, rouse her to heated longing…

‘No!’

She wasn’t going to let herself go down that road. To do so would destroy her even before she’d spoken to Andreas, or found out just why he’d asked for her. And she was having enough trouble holding on to her self-control as it was, with the bitter memories that assailed her at just being in this house.