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“Joanna.”
She knew the voice. It was the same masculine one that she’d heard an eternity ago when she’d surfaced from unconsciousness.
“Yes,” she said.
She heard the soft creak of leather and a shape rose from the chair beside her bed. Slowly, carefully, she turned her head on the pillow.
His figure was shrouded in shadow, his face indistinct She could see only that he was big and broad of shoulder, that he seemed powerful, almost mystical in the darkness.
“Joanna,” he said again, his voice gruff as she’d remembered it yet tinged now with a husky softness. His hand closed over hers and this time she had no difficulty flexing her fingers and threading them through his, clasping his hand and holding on as if to a lifeline. “Welcome back,” he said, and she could hear the smile and the relief in the words.
Joanna swallowed hard. There was so much she wanted to ask, but it seemed so stupid to say, “who am I?” or “who are you?” or “where am I?” or “how did I get here?”
“You probably have a lot of questions,” he said, and she almost sobbed with relief.
“Yes,” she murmured.
He nodded. “Ask them, then—or shall I get the nurse first? Do you need anything? Want anything? Water, or some cracked ice, or perhaps you need to go to the bathroom?”
“Answers,” Joanna said urgently, her hand tightening on his, “I need answers.”
“Of course. Shall I turn up the light?”
“No,” she said quickly. If he turned up the light, this would all become real. And it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. “No, it’s fine this way, thank you.”
“Very well, then.” The bed sighed as he sat down beside her. His hip brushed against hers, and she could feel the heat of him, the strength and the power. “Ask away, and I’ll do my best to answer.”
Joanna licked her lips. “What—what happened? I mean, how did I get here? Was there an accident?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
“I seem to remember... I don’t know. It was raining, I think.”
“Yes,” he said again. His hand tightened on hers. “It was.”
“I stepped off the curb. The light was with me, I’d checked because... because...” She frowned. There was a reason, she knew there was, and it had something to do with him, but how could it when she didn’t...when she had no idea who he...
Joanna whimpered, and the man bent down and clasped her shoulders.
“It’s all right,” he said, “it’s all right, Joanna.”
It wasn’t, though. The touch of his hands on her was gentle but she could feel the tightly leashed rage in him, smell its hot, masculine scent on the carefully filtered hospital air.
“The taxi...”
“Yes.”
“It—it came flying through the intersection...”
“Hush.”
“I saw it, but by the time I did it was too late...”
Her voice quavered, then broke. The man cursed softly and his hands slid beneath her back and he lifted her toward him, cradling her against his chest.
Pain bloomed like an evil, White-hot flower behind her eyes. A cry rose in her throat and burst from her lips. Instantly, he lay her back against the pillows.
“Hell,” he said. “I’m sorry, Joanna. I shouldn’t have moved you.”
Strangely, the instant of pain had been a small price to pay for the comfort she’d felt in his arms. His strength had seemed to flow into her body; his heartbeat had seemed to give determination to hers.
She wanted to tell him that, but how did you say such things to a stranger?
“Joanna? Are you all right?”
She nodded. “I’m fine. I just—I have so many questions...”
He brushed the back of his hand along her cheek in a wordless gesture.
“I need to know.” She took a breath. “Tell me the rest, please. The taxi hit me, didn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And an ambulance brought me to... What is this place?”
“You’re in Manhattan Hospital.”
“Am I... am I badly hurt?” He hesitated, and she swallowed hard. “Please, tell me the truth. What kind of injuries do I have?”
“Some bruises. A cut above your eye... they had to put in stitches—”
“Why can’t I remember anything? Do I have amnesia?”
She asked it matter-of-factly, as if she’d been inquiring about nothing more devastating than a common cold, but he wasn’t a fool, she knew he could sense the panic that she fought to keep from her voice because the hands that still clasped her shoulders tightened again.
“The taxi only brushed you,” he said. “But when you fell, you hit your head against the curb.”
“My mind is like a—a blackboard that’s been wiped clean. You keep calling me ‘Joanna’ but the name has no meaning to me. I don’t know who ‘Joanna’ is.”
Her eyes had grown accustomed to the shadowy darkness; she could almost see him clearly now. He had a hard face with strong features: a straight blade of a nose, a slash of a mouth, hair that looked to be thick and dark and perhaps a bit overlong.
“And me?” His voice had fallen to a whisper; she had to strain to hear it. “Do you know who I am, Joanna?”
She took a deep, shuddering breath. Should she remember him? Should she at least know his name?
“No,” she said. “No. I don’t.”
There was a long, almost palpable silence. She felt the quick bite of his fingers into her flesh and then he lifted his hands away, carefully, slowly, as if she were a delicate glass figurine he’d just returned to its cabinet for fear a swift movement would make it shatter.
He rose slowly to his feet and now she could see that he was tall, that the broad shoulders were matched by a powerful chest that tapered to a narrow waist, slim hips and long, well-proportioned legs. He stood beside the bed looking down at her, and then he nodded and thrust his fingers through his hair in a gesture instinct told her was as familiar to her as it was habitual to him.
“The doctors told me to expect this,” he said, “but...”
He shrugged so helplessly, despite the obvious power of his silhouette, that Joanna’s heart felt his frustration.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m terribly, terribly sorry.”
His smile was bittersweet. He sat down beside her again and took her hand in his. She had a fleeting memory, one that was gone before she could make sense of it. She saw his dark head bent over a woman’s hand, saw his lips pressed to the palm...
Was the woman her? Was he going to bring her hand to his mouth and kiss it?
Anticipation, bright as the promise of a new day and sweet as the nectar of a flower, made her pulse-beat quicken. But all he did was lay her hand down again and pat it lightly with his.
“It isn’t your fault, Joanna. There’s nothing to apologize for.”
She had the feeling that there was, that she owed him many apologies for many things, but that was silly. How could she owe anything to a man she didn’t know?
“Please,” she said softly, “tell me your name.”
His mouth twisted. Then he rose to his feet, walked to the window and stared out into the night. An eternity seemed to pass before he turned and looked at her again.
“Of course.” There was a difference in him now, in his tone and in the way he held himself, and it frightened her. “My name is David. David Adams.”
Joanna hesitated. The black pit that had swallowed her so many times since the accident seemed to loom at her feet.
“David Adams,” she murmured, turning the name over in her mind, trying—failing—to find in it some hint of familiarity. “We—we have the same last name.”
He laughed, though there was no levity to it:
“I can see you haven’t lost your talent for understatement, Joanna. Yes, we have the same last name.”
“Are we related, then?”
His mouth twisted again, this time with a wry smile. “Indeed, we are, my love. You see, Joanna, I’m your husband.”
CHAPTER TWO
THE nurses all knew him by name, but after ten days there was nothing surprising in that.
What was surprising, David thought as his driver competently snaked the Bentley through the crowded streets of midtown Manhattan, was that he’d become something of a celebrity in the hospital.
Morgana, his P.A., had laughed when he’d first expressed amazement and then annoyance at his star status.
“I’m not Richard Gere, for heaven’s sake,” he’d told her irritably after he’d been stopped half a dozen times for his autograph en route to Joanna’s room. “What in hell do they want with the signature of a stodgy Wall Street banker?”
Morgana had pointed out that he wasn’t just a Wall Street banker, he was the man both the President of the World Bank and the President of the United States turned to for financial advice, even though his politics were not known by either.
As for stodgy...Morgana reminded him that CityLife magazine had only last month named him to its list of New York’s Ten Sexiest Men.
David, who’d been embarrassed enough by the designation so he’d done an admirable job of all but forgetting it, had flushed.
“Absurd of them to even have mentioned my name in that stupid article,” he’d muttered, and Morgana, honest as always, had agreed.
The media thought otherwise. In a rare week of no news, an accident involving the beautiful young wife of New York’s Sexiest Stockbroker was a four-star event.
The ghouls had arrived at the Emergency Room damned near as fast as he had so that when he’d jumped from his taxi he’d found himself in a sea of microphones and cameras and shouted questions, some so personal he wouldn’t have asked them of a close friend. David had clenched his jaw, ignored them all and shoved his way through the avaricious mob without pausing.
That first encounter had taught him a lesson. Now, he came and went by limousine even though he hated the formality and pretentiousness of the oversize car he never used but for the most formal business occasions. Joanna had liked it, though. She loved the luxury of the plush passenger compartment with its built-in bar, TV and stereo.
David’s mouth twisted. What irony, that the car he disliked and his wife loved should have become his vehicle of choice, since the accident.
It had nothing to do with the bar or the TV. It was just that he’d quickly learned that the reporters who still hung around outside the hospital pounced on taxis like hyenas on wounded wildebeests. Arriving by limo avoided the problem. The car simply pulled up at the physicians’ entrance, David stepped out, waved to the security man as if he’d been doing it every day of his life and walked straight in. The reporters had yet to catch on, though it wouldn’t matter, after tonight. This would be his last visit to the hospital.
By this time tomorrow, Joanna would be installed in a comfortable suite at Bright Meadows Rehabilitation Center. The place had an excellent reputation, both for helping its patients recover and for keeping them safe from unwelcome visitors. Bright Meadows was accustomed to catering to high-profile guests. No one whose name hadn’t been placed on an approved list would get past the high stone walls and there was even a helicopter pad on the grounds, if a phalanx of reporters decided to gather at the gates.
Hollister pulled up to the private entrance as usual and David waved to the guard as he walked briskly through the door and into a waiting elevator. He was on the verge of breathing a sigh of relief when a bottle blonde with a triumphant smile on her face and a microphone clutched in her hand sprang out of the shadows and into the elevator. She jammed her finger on the Stop button and turned up the wattage on her smile.
“Mr. Adams,” she said, “millions of interested Sun readers want to know how Mrs. Adams is doing.”
“She’s doing very well, thank you,” David said politely.
“Is she really?” Her voice dropped to a whisper that oozed compassion the same way a crocodile shed tears. “You can tell Sun readers the truth, David. What’s the real extent of your wife’s injuries?”
“Would you take your finger off that button, please, miss?”
The blonde edged nearer. “Is it true she’s in a coma?”
“Step back, please, and let go of that button.”
“David.” The blond leaned forward, her heavily kohled eyes, her cleavage and her microphone all aimed straight at him. “We heard that your wife’s accident occurred while she was en route to the airport for your second honeymoon in the Caribbean. Can you confirm that for our readers?”
David’s jaw tightened. He could sure as hell wipe that look of phony sympathy from the blonde’s face, he thought grimly. All he had to do was tell her the truth, that Joanna had been on her way to the airport, all right, and then to the Caribbean—and to the swift, civilized divorce they had agreed upon.
But the last thing he’d ever do was feed tabloid gossip. His life was private. Besides, ending the marriage was out of the question now. He and Joanna were husband and wife, by license if not by choice. He would stand by her, provide the best care possible until she was well again...
“Mr. Adams?”
The blonde wasn’t going to give up easily. She had rearranged her face so that her expression had gone from compassion to sincere inquiry. He thought of telling her that the last time he’d seen that look it had been on the face of a shark that had a sincere interest in one or more of his limbs while he’d been diving off the Mexican coast.
“I only want to help you share your problems with our readers,” she said. “Sharing makes grief so much easier to bear, don’t you agree?”
David smiled. “Well, Miss...”
“Washbourne.” She smiled back, triumphant. “Mona Washbourne, but you can call me Mona.”
“Well, Mona, I’ll be happy to share this much.” David’s smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. He raised his arm, shot back the cuff of his dark blue suit jacket, and looked at his watch. “Get that mike out of my face and your finger off that button in the next ten seconds or you’re going to regret it.”
“Is that a threat, Mr. Adams?”
