Secret Heirs: His One Night Consequence. Кэрол Мортимер

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СКАЧАТЬ other reason could he have for going to such lengths? Especially since he’d dumped her so unceremoniously.

      She bit her lip, glad she was the only one to remember every ignominious detail of that scene.

      ‘You don’t remember anything?’ Pointless to ask, given his patent lack of knowledge about her, about them. Yet it seemed impossible she’d been wiped totally from his memory.

      Once they’d been close. Not just physically intimate, but close as soulmates, or so it had seemed.

      How could all that just disappear completely?

       Because what they’d shared was far less important to Alessandro than it had been to her?

      ‘My memory stops several months before my father’s death.’ His words were terse. She guessed he viewed amnesia as a weakness he should be able to master. ‘I don’t remember meeting you.’ His tone implied he still doubted what she’d told him. ‘Those months are blank. I don’t even remember driving before the accident. Just waking up in hospital.’

      Slowly Carys lowered herself into the rocking chair. She let Leo stand on her thighs while she held his hands. It was a game he loved, marching on the spot.

      Besides, it gave her a chance to rest her shaky legs. The shock of Alessandro’s revelations was a stunning blow. She still felt faintly nauseous and her limbs trembled, thinking of him injured seriously enough to cause amnesia.

      ‘You didn’t tell me how the accident happened.’ She paused, wondering if her concern was too obvious. But she had to know. She avoided staring at the scar reaching up to his temple. Instead she fixed her attention on a spot over his shoulder.

      His shrug was fluid and easy.

      ‘I was driving to Milan. The car skidded in the wet when I swerved to avoid a driver on the wrong side of the road.’

      On the way to the office, then. Of course. He preferred to drive himself, claiming it helped him sort out his priorities for the day’s business. From the rough timeline he’d mentioned, it must have happened soon after she left.

      Had she thought, even for an instant, that her departure would disrupt his precious business schedule?

      Her ridiculous naivety still stunned her.

      ‘And you’re all right?’ Her heart pounded, imagining the scene. Carys swallowed hard on a jagged splinter of regret and fear. ‘No other after-effects? No pain?’

      No matter what she told herself, she hadn’t completely severed her feelings for this man. She should despise him for the way he’d treated her, yet her conflicting emotions weren’t so straightforward.

      Carys refused to meet his intent gaze, choosing instead to watch Leo as he babbled to her.

      ‘I’m perfectly healthy.’

      Alessandro paused so long she looked up. He stared straight into her eyes as if reading her hunger for every detail. Her need for reassurance. Eventually he continued, his clipped words indicating how little he cared to dwell on his injuries.

      ‘I was lucky. I had lacerations and a couple of fractures.’

      At her hissed indrawn breath he shrugged. ‘I mended quickly. I was only in hospital a few weeks. The main concern was my memory loss.’ Darkening eyes bored into hers. ‘But the specialists say there’s nothing I can do about that except let nature take its course. There’s no other brain damage.’

      Carys slumped back, only now acknowledging the full depth of her fears. Relief warred with a sense of unreality.

      ‘I see.’ This strange, constrained conversation didn’t seem real given the past they shared. But it gave Carys a little time to work through the implications of his news.

      He mightn’t remember her, but last night in his suite he’d seduced her with a combustible passion that had sheared straight through every defence she’d painstakingly erected in the last two years.

      How had he done that if he couldn’t even recall her?

      Was he such an awesome lover he could make any woman feel the heady, mind-blowing certainty that she wanted nothing more than Alessandro Mattani, unbridled and consummately masculine? Were the intimacies she’d shared with him and always thought so special, the wondrous sensations, something he shared with countless women?

      Her weakness mortified her.

      ‘And your wife?’ Carys failed to keep the bitterness from her voice as she choked out the word. ‘I assume she’s not with you?’

      ‘Wife?’ The single syllable slashed through the heavy atmosphere in the room. ‘You’re not saying I have a wife?’

      Did she imagine it or had he paled? His lazy sprawl morphed into stark rigidity as he sat up, staring.

      Carys hesitated. ‘You were single when I left, but you were seeing someone else, planning to marry her. Principessa Carlotta.’ She couldn’t prevent distaste colouring her voice.

      Of course Alessandro would only marry one of his own, a rich, privileged aristocrat.

      Carys swallowed bile as memories surged. Of how she’d obstinately disregarded his stepmother’s warnings about Alessandro’s intentions. And about her true, temporary place in his world. Of how she’d foolishly pinned her belief and hopes on the tender passionate words he whispered in her ear. On the rapture of being with him, being loved by him.

      No! Having sex with him. The love had been all on her side.

      ‘You seem to imply I did more than just see her.’ His tone was outraged; his eyes flashed a furious warning. ‘And that I did so while you and I were…together.’

      If the cap fits, buddy. ‘So you did.’ Deliberately she turned away to focus on Leo, happily jouncing on her knees.

      ‘You’re mistaken.’ Alessandro didn’t raise his voice, but his whisper was lethally quiet, an unmistakeable warning. ‘I would never stoop to such despicable behaviour.’ Green eyes clashed with hers. They were so vibrant with indignation she expected to see sparks shoot from their depths.

      ‘I was there, remember.’ Carys took a slow breath, forcing down the rabid, useless jealousy that even now clawed to the surface. She concentrated on keeping her voice even. ‘And unlike you I have perfect recall.’

      Silence. His stare would have stripped paint at twenty paces. It scoured her mercilessly.

      Yet Carys refused to back down. He might believe he was incapable of such behaviour, but if his memory ever returned he was doomed to disillusionment.

      ‘I don’t need to remember to know the truth, Carys.’ He leaned forward, all semblance of relaxation gone. His voice echoed an unshakeable certainty. ‘No matter what you think you understand about that time, I would never betray one lover with another. Never have two lovers at the same time. It wouldn’t be honourable.’

       Not honourable!

      Carys suppressed an anguished laugh.

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