‘I haven’t got a mind, remember?’ she gibed. ‘And he’ll know that too the moment he speaks to me!’
‘It’s your memory you’ve lost, not your wits.’ He sighed in exasperation. ‘All you need to do is smile a reasonably convincing smile, and leave the talking to me. You can do that, can’t you?’
Could she?
‘André—Samantha!’ a deep voice greeted. ‘This is a pleasant surprise!’
Speak for yourself, Samantha thought childishly.
‘Maybe a bigger one for us than it must be for you?’ André suggested dryly as he took the other man’s outstretched hand.
‘Caught red-handed in the enemy camp.’ Stefan Reece admitted it. ‘What can I say? Unless I remind you that the boot was well and truly on the other foot the last time I saw you.’ He grinned. ‘Sydney, about a year ago if my memory serves me right. And you were checking out my establishment—but without this lovely creature along with you to make my day. Hello Samantha,’ he murmured warmly, offering his hand to her next. ‘You’re looking as beautiful as ever, I see.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. If he’d noticed the scar he hid it well, she thought, and was grateful enough to find an answering smile. His laughing eyes darkened; it took him longer than it should have to release her hand again. And she felt the man standing beside her give a restless shift.
‘How’s business?’ André asked, and it was so near to an angry rasp that she glanced sharply at him.
‘Good—though not as good as you seem to be having it,’ Stefan Reece was saying ruefully. ‘Which reminds me.’ He then turned to Samantha, his face lighting up. ‘I went by the Bressingham the other day, expecting it to be open by now, but…’
Samantha had stopped listening. The name Bressingham name had tugged at a chord somewhere deep down inside her, and she was suddenly experiencing such an overwhelming sense of grief that she could barely cope with the power of it. Her heart began to throb so slowly and thickly that her fingernails coiled into taut male flesh without her even being aware whose waist it was she was clinging to.
‘Have you just arrived, Stefan?’ The harsh rasp of André’s voice sliced through whatever it was that was holding her.
The other man blinked, glanced quickly from one tense face to the other and seemed to realise he had made some huge blunder here, though for the life of him he didn’t know what it was. ‘Just checking in when I saw you two standing here, so I…’
‘Then let me make sure they give you the best available suite. On the house, of course.’ With a snap of his fingers André brought a hotel attendant running. With only a few terse instructions he had Stefan Reece settled in one of the best suites, and the arm he had resting across Samantha’s shoulders had turned into a crushing anchor.
‘It would have been nice if we could have had dinner together tonight, but Samantha and I are leaving for London this afternoon, and…’
So soon? The information was just another shock Samantha had difficulty coming to terms with.
‘Shame,’ Stefan Reece was saying. ‘It isn’t often we get a chance to…’
Her mind kept shutting off, she realised. Concentrating on full sentences seemed completely beyond her scope. She kept hearing the word ‘Bressingham, Bressingham’. It hurt but she didn’t know why it hurt.
The arm about her shoulders urged her into movement. She complied as if through a floating haze within which she could hear the two men talking. Yet she wasn’t there with them. It was a strange experience, walking, hearing, yet feeling many miles away.
‘Cara, Stefan is saying goodbye to you,’ a voice prompted softly.
‘Oh,’ she said, and blinked but couldn’t’ focus. ‘Goodbye, Stefan. It was nice to see you again.’ The words arrived automatically. His reply was lost in the resuming haze.
The next thing she knew, she was standing in the lift being transported upwards and André was standing over her, literally propping her up against the lift wall.
‘You don’t have to do that,’ she protested. ‘I can manage on my own now, thank you.’
He moved away but she could tell he didn’t want to. And all he did was move as far as to lean a shoulder against the wall right beside her. He was concerned, she could feel it, yet he didn’t attempt to ask her what had brought the faint feeling on this time.
‘You don’t seem to have managed very well over the last year without me,’ he murmured huskily instead. ‘In fact, I would go as far as to say you’ve made one hell of a mess of trying to manage on your own.’ And, to make his point, his hand came up, gently touching the puckered scar at her temple.
She reacted by flinching away from his touch so violently, this time, that she banged the other side of her face on the lift wall.
‘You bloody fool!’ he exploded. ‘What did you think I was going to do to you?’
‘Just don’t touch me like that again!’ she choked out, green eyes flaring with bitterness. ‘I hate you! I don’t know why I hate you but I really, really hate you!’
‘You’re overreacting.’ He sighed.
‘M-maybe,’ she conceded. ‘But…’