Nor was she aware that she was interspersing her words with his name, just as she’d used to do. And her hands—always the most busy tool she used to express herself—were motioning and measuring, long fingers pointing, marking, making those delicate circling movements with a twist of her slender wrists that were so familiar to him.
It made him want to hit something. Because the sensual sound of his name falling from her lips and the hand movements might belong to the old Samantha, but nothing else about her did. Not the priggish hairstyle, nor the dowdy clothes, nor the expression in her eyes—which should be animated while she talked but was as dull and flat as the tone of her voice.
The old Samantha was a vivid bright fireball of energy. This one was shocking him by her stillness, her lack of passion for anything—if you didn’t count the moments they’d touched on the subject of their marriage. Then she’d revealed passion all right, he acknowledged grimly. A passionate horror that had had her fainting clean away.
It took over an hour to reach Exeter. But Samantha had been talking so much that she was surprised when the car came to a smooth halt in the forecourt of a hotel.
‘So this is the famous Visconte Exeter,’ she observed curiously. ‘I remember reading in the newspapers about its big gala opening last year—’
Last year, she then repeated to herself, and began to frown as a sudden thought struck her. ‘Did you come to the opening?’ she asked sharply, the very idea that he could have been this close to her without either of them knowing it hurting her for some unexplainable reason.
Something in his stillness grabbed her attention. His eyes were hooded and his jaw line clenched. He answered her question, ‘No.’ And then he got out of the car to swing round the long bonnet so he could open her door for her.
‘Why weren’t you here?’ she demanded instantly.
He began to frown. ‘I don’t understand the question.’
Her eyes flicked up, green and hard. ‘Why weren’t you here to attend the opening of your own hotel?’ She spelled it out succinctly.
‘Good grief.’ He laughed, but it was a very forced laugh. ‘I don’t attend every opening we have.’ Reaching down, he unfastened her seat belt since she had not got round to doing it herself. ‘The Visconte chain stretches right around the world. I would have to be Superman to—’
‘You weren’t even in the country, were you?’ Samantha cut in.
She could remember it now. The big party to celebrate the opening. The coverage it had received in local newspapers because of all the big-name local celebrities that had attended. My God, she’d had little else to do as she’d lain imprisoned in her hospital bed than pore hungrily over every article written in them.
Searching. She had been searching for something that might have jogged her memory. But it hadn’t happened.
Why hadn’t it happened? How could she have not even recognised her own married name when she’d read it so often?
Because she’d blocked it out, she realised painfully. Just as she’d blocked out everything else about this man until he’d come along today and had virtually force-fed the Visconte name to her.
So she could also remember the papers remarking on the fact that the owner himself had been expected to attend the opening but had pulled out at the last moment—because he’d been out of the country on other business.
Out of the country barely a month after her accident.
Her eyes lanced him with a bitter look. ‘Did you bother trying to look for me at all?’ she asked coldly. ‘Or was our marriage already over by the time I disappeared?’
His face closed up tight. ‘I’m not going to answer any of that,’ he said, taking a firm grip on her arm.
‘Why not?’ she challenged, resisting his tug. ‘Because the answer may paint you as less than the caring man you would like me to believe?’
‘Because the answer may have you fainting on me again,’ he corrected. ‘And, until we seek professional advice on that problem, we don’t talk about us.’
With that, he firmly propelled her out of the car, then released a soft curse when he saw her bite down on her full lip as she placed her weight on her injured leg.
Having to concentrate hard not to cry out, Samantha grabbed hold of his arm for support. Once again her senses went utterly haywire, and she found herself standing there, not only having to brace herself against the pain, but having to brace herself against the feel of tensile muscles flexing beneath her grip. He was all power and hard masculinity, she likened hazily, watching images build in her mind of warm dark golden flesh and a disturbingly attractive sexuality that somehow merged with the physical pain she was experiencing until she couldn’t distinguish one sensation from the other.
‘Just how painful is the damned thing?’ he rasped out angrily.
It stole the moment—stole a whole lot more—when she opened her eyes and found herself looking at a man who was still a stranger. And as she stood there, held caught in a sea of confusion, the physical pain separated itself from painful imagery like two lovers untangling, then became only a hard, tight, aching throb that completely obliterated the other.
Green, André was thinking. Her eyes were so green—a dark and pulsing passionate green colour they had only used to go when they were making love. But today there was something else there, confusion and pain and a terrible despair that made him want to hit something again.
‘Answer me,’ he commanded, aware that the violent emotions flailing around inside him had everything to do with the expression he had seen burning in her eyes.
‘Damn painful,’ she replied, lowering her gaze to watch as she carefully bent and straightened the knee a couple of times before trying to stand on it again.
And he was glad that she had looked away. Much longer having to witness her expression was likely to have finished him. It had been hard enough cont