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“Why would you say that?”
She’d searched his eyes. He was smiling again and she felt a sense of relief. Whatever he’d thought he saw, he’d already forgotten about it.
“No reason.” She smiled back a bit warily. “It’s just that we like our privacy out here in the islands. It’s pretty much a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ situation. You’re playing with fire if you delve too much into others’ lives.” She shrugged. “You have your life and I have mine. We tend to let sleeping dogs lie.”
He’d given a snort of amusement. “You’re just an encyclopedia of useful sayings,” he noted, teasing her again. “I’m sure I’ll be improving my English if I’m around you long enough.”
She’d laughed and teased him back, but his recent reaction stayed with her for a while. She certainly had her reasons for avoiding his curiosity. There was nothing she was prepared to share with him. As she remembered it now, she’d shaken his question away at the time and held the shirt out for him and he slipped into it, leaving the buttons undone so that the shirt hung open. There was still a lot of gorgeous flesh on display, but it was a big improvement, and she’d thought that she could relax a little.
What a fool she’d been. Relax! She’d invited a viper into her life, a spy into her home, and she was thinking she could relax.
At the time, she’d been somewhat concerned that he might recognize her face, but she’d thought that wasn’t very likely. Only a year before, her face had dominated the tabloids, but she’d taken steps to make herself look very different from that girl who’d been considered a media sensation. Her hair had been shorter, straighter, redder, and she’d faced the world with a permanent pout.
Attitude, they called it. Spoiled selfish brat behavior, she called it now. To the tabloidreading public, she’d been considered a “bad girl” who always went right to the edge of trouble, but didn’t quite slip over that cliff. Few had understood how tempting that fall would have been to her. Anything to save her from the life she’d been leading.
She’d been born Summer Hudson, daughter of Glendenning Hudson, one of the richest real estate moguls in Manhattan—a man who partied with film stars and raced yachts for recreation—always firmly in front of the cameras. As a child, her birthday parties had been covered on the evening news, her first ride on a pony documented, her first prom night celebrated. She’d grown up in the public eye.
She knew most people would choke with laughter if she told them it wasn’t easy being rich and famous. But the truth was, it wasn’t. Living life on a constant high of attention was exciting at times, but it quickly became a numbing sort of hell. That public ordeal might have been tolerable if only her private life had given her the support she needed—the support anyone needed. But her father’s insatiable appetite for publicity and acclaim left her with no safe haven.
In fact, she sometimes thought it had driven her a little insane. She did things, said things, ended up with people, who were obviously all wrong for her. Life was a mad, speeding carousel with clown faces coming at her out of the dark, and as it began to turn faster and faster, she knew she had to jump off or it would destroy her.
She’d tried often enough, and each time, her father had found a way to pull her back into the spotlight. Finally, she’d escaped secretly and on her own, using a lawyer friend as her only contact to let people know she was okay, and she’d made her way, with a new identity, to this most remote of tropical islands.
When she’d first arrived she had been exhausted and heartbroken, as damaged as a broken butterfly. She’d thought she would stay for six months or so, heal herself, take a deep breath and go back into the fray a stronger contender.
But it had been so different living here—being a real person, not a media creation; living by her own rules instead of serving as the center of other people’s emotional attachments and needs. Being able to understand that people were dealing with her as a normal person, not as some kind of sick icon.
She’d grown. She’d expanded. She felt as though her heart were bigger now. Her life was bigger. She knew what real joy was. And most important, she knew she would never voluntarily go back.
No, she hadn’t been concerned about him recognizing her, and that was just as well, since it seemed he’d already figured out who she was long before. It might have been nice if he’d let her in on that little secret that first day. Then she might have avoided the opportunity to fall for someone so wrong.
But she had fallen. And then she’d found out who he really was, why he really was there, and her heart had broken in two. Seemingly heedless, he’d left the island. She’d tried to get over him. She’d been stern with herself and attempted a quick recovery. And now she’d realized he’d left her with more than memories. Her world had tilted on its axis. That changed everything. And yet…
Well, now he was back. What next?
As she pulled herself back to the present, she found him leaning forward and looking at her with a strange, intense light in his lush dark eyes. She had the feeling he was looking for something in her he just wasn’t finding and he was losing patience with the search.
“Would you like something to eat?” she asked as a quick distraction.
“I’m not hungry,” he said, and it was lucky. Just the passing thought of food made her queasy at the moment. The last thing she wanted to do was let him see her current condition. That was something she was going to keep from him at all costs.
“Tell me, Shayna,” he said abruptly, “what is it that you want from me?”
She drew back, surprised. His tone was just…unacceptable. That was the word. Who the heck did he think he was, anyway? She stared at him, sending daggers his way. He was, after all, the one who had come back. She hadn’t asked him to.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, a bit of sarcasm showing. “An apology would be nice.”
One dark eyebrow rose and he looked a little startled. “An apology for what?”
Her eyes flashed. “Well, that’s the crux of the matter isn’t it? If you don’t feel there’s anything to apologize for, forget it.”
She knew as the words left her mouth that she was falling into the usual female trap of expecting a man to understand how his actions had affected her. You had to explain these things to them. Saying “forget it” just gave them an out to do exactly that. She bit her lip. Was he going to try, at least?
He started to say something, then changed his mind, as though he was reining in what he’d really like to tell her. She waited, simmering. Of all the arrogant men in the world, she had to choose this one.
But she still reacted to him. When she thought of his kiss, her body warmed with memories. Looking at him now, she could hardly believe it hadn’t been a dream. He seemed cold and somewhat angry. At first she had thought he appeared very much the same, but she’d been wrong. He was like a different person. She put a hand over her mouth, holding back that queasy feeling again, a feeling that was beginning to be a regular around here. Closing her eyes, she swayed, waiting for it to ease. There was no denying the signs. It was only waiting to be confirmed by the doctor.
Finally, he shook his head and gave a short laugh. “Okay, Shayna, here’s the deal. You know who I am, don’t you?” He said it, as though that still surprised him.
“Of course I know who you are.” She frowned, beginning to find this conversation eerily convoluted. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t up for the challenge in his tone. She leaned toward him. “In fact, I know both of who you are.”
His wide mouth was like a slash against his handsome face and it turned up at the corners.
“Both, huh? Are you referring to my wellknown split personality?”
He sounded as if he was teasing, but he had to know what she was talking about.
“Is that your alibi?” she tossed back.
He blinked, and then his eyes narrowed. “Do I need one?”
“You tell me. You’re the one with two names.” She winced. There she went again, talking before thinking. After all, she had two names herself, and he knew it very well.
But, strangely, he didn’t seem to have caught her very obvious mistake. Instead, he just looked puzzled.
“This is fascinating,” he said lightly. “Why don’t you give me a full explanation. What are my two names?”
“Well, first there’s Marco Smith, the man I got to know for two weeks.”
His dark eyes looked bewildered by that name. “Smith?” he repeated, giving it an Italian accent that made it seem all the more phony.
She sniffed, assuming he was just covering his tracks.
“And then there’s Marco DiSanto, the man I only met that last day, before he bid me a careless adieu and flew off into the clouds, never to be seen again.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he told her, shaking his head and frowning. “And anyway, I’m here, aren’t I? Marco DiSanto, in the flesh.”
She cocked her head to the side, pretending to consider the dilemma.
“Where do you want to go with this? Shall we discuss which one I liked better?” She shrugged. “That’s easy. I liked the liar, of course. He was funny and sexy and great to be with.”
His puzzlement was growing, but she’d gone too far to stop now.
“But you see, that’s the paradox. He was the lie. Bye-bye Marco Smith.” She pretended to wave a fond farewell toward the doorway. “Marco DiSanto, on the other hand, was not very nice to me. He told the truth, but it was a truth I didn’t want to hear.”
She stared into his eyes, looking for any tiny sign of regret he might be willing to bestow. Just a hint. It might have made her feel better.
For just a moment, she remembered how he used to laugh with her, his white teeth flashing against his tan skin. She would give almost anything to see that laughter now, that warmth. Instead, she saw amusement, but she couldn’t tell if he was smiling with her or against her. He had a sense of reserve in his face as he looked at her. She wanted passion and he was giving her polite appreciation instead. A little passion, a bit of memory, would have cancelled out a lot of her resentment.
But instead, he asked her a question she wasn’t expecting.
“Do you always tell the truth, Shayna?”
That startled her. She turned away. He knew the answer to that. He knew she’d lied to him about who she was for two weeks, just like she lied to everyone. She supposed it was only fair that he bring it up, since she’d brought up his lies. But still…
He went on, speaking softly.
“Truth can be a slippery thing. You know what they say. One man’s truth is another man’s fairy tale.”
She sighed. It seemed he did want to make her suffer. Well, she could give as good as she got. She gave him a direct look.
“Telling stories did seem to be a talent of yours when you were here before,” she noted.
He barely acknowledged her dig, waving it away as though he had larger things on his mind.
“Okay, here’s some truth for you, Shayna.” He paused, took a deep breath, and let it out. “I don’t know you.”
Her head whipped around and she stared at him. For a few seconds, she went back over his words in her head. Had she really heard what she’d thought she heard?
“What are you talking about?”
He met her gaze firmly. “I don’t have any idea who you are. I feel like I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
For a second or two, she felt sick. The room seemed to sway. She closed her eyes and steadied herself, then looked him in the eye again, searching hard. The man she’d spent all that time with just a few weeks ago had to be in there somewhere, but she couldn’t find any sign of him at the moment.
“Is this some kind of game, Marco?”
“No. It’s not.” He shook his head, holding her gaze. “I’m serious as a midnight clock.”
She pulled her arms in close around her. It was a steamy tropical day, but she was shivering. Something in his words, something in his attitude, had chilled her to the core.
“I do not know who you are. I can’t remember a thing.”
CHAPTER THREE
“I KNOW THIS IS HARD to believe,” Marco said, running a hand distractedly through his thick dark hair. “I can hardly accept it myself.”
Shayna drew her breath in softly, then let it out again. “Accept what, exactly?” she asked, surprised that her voice wasn’t trembling. “Please explain.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then laughed shortly. “You see, that’s the problem. How can I explain what I can’t remember?”
“Marco…”
“Okay, I’ll try.” He grimaced. “When I left here, on my way back to Rome, I must have taken a regular flight, since that’s all that comes through here. But somewhere along the way, I transferred to a small plane, a commuter flight, and we went down in the Mediterranean off Sicily.”
She gasped. “Oh, Marco!”
“The pilot and another passenger were killed, but somehow I was rescued. I woke up in a hospital in Napoli. I couldn’t even remember who I was, much less where I’d been.”
She had to hold herself back. Every instinct cried out to go to him, to touch him, to convey her feelings as best she could. Despite everything, she cared about him more than she’d ever cared for any other man. Whatever it was she felt for him was pretty darn close to love. You couldn’t just throw that away at will. It tended to linger.
“Were you hurt? Are you all right?”
He looked at her and managed a slight smile. “I’m fine, Shayna. Physically. And over a few days, most of my memory came back.”
She nodded slowly, feeling very much at sea. These were circumstances she’d never dealt with before. It was hard to imagine how this could be true.
“But not all.”
“No, not all. I seem to have totally lost those two weeks I spent here on Ranai. I can’t remember a thing about them.”
She shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around this weirdness. And at the same time she had to decide whether or not she believed him. Could this really be true? Was there any reason he might want her to think this in order to gain some sort of advantage—though she couldn’t say what that might be. Just the thought of that made her feel a bit guilty. After all, didn’t she trust him?
Hell, no! The man had lied to her from the beginning. Marco Smith indeed.
She didn’t say it aloud, but her eyes flashed and she wondered if he realized this whole story was a bit hard to swallow. Memory loss. Amnesia. She’d never known anyone to have it before. Why him? Why now? What did he want?
“How odd,” she said softly.
“Yes. Odd and awkward.”
Her brow furrowed as she purposely tried to harden her heart toward him. She had to stay objective if she had any hope of finding out the truth. There were certain questions that came up about this. Her eyes narrowed as she studied his face. Time to see if he had answers.
“If you couldn’t remember anything about those weeks, how did you know where you’d been?” she asked.
He didn’t seem surprised that she had questions. “I had a copy of my plane tickets, and records of my reservations at home in my office.”
“In Naples?”
He nodded. “Yes. That is where I live most of the year.”
She nodded. That seemed reasonable enough.
“Do you know why you came?”
He hesitated. “I was probably looking for a vacation of sorts. A getaway. A place to work in peace on…some ideas and problems I had.”
Hah. That wasn’t the half of it. But maybe he didn’t remember that part. It hadn’t been until that last day that she’d even known he was a world-famous racing yacht designer—and worked with her father. Glendenning Hudson loved competitive sailing and had the money to hire the best. Marco DiSanto was his designer, his ace in the hole when he competed in some of the biggest offshore races. And Marco had very carefully kept all that from her for those two weeks and probably wouldn’t have told her at all if she hadn’t walked in on him in his hotel room and seen the evidence with her own eyes.
“Why did you come here in the first place?” she challenged. “To Ranai, I mean.”
He frowned, shaking his head. “Damned if I know,” he muttered. “That’s part of the mystery.”
“Uh-huh.” Okay, she could either buy that he didn’t remember or she could suspect him of all kinds of nefarious things. It was up to her. Which way was she going to bend?
And finally, the pièce de résistance.
“So tell me this,” she began slowly and carefully. “If you don’t remember anything about your time here, how is it that you knew to come and find me?”
