Faith gave a choked laugh. ‘I could have done with that advice a few months ago, Mrs Hitchin.’ Then perhaps she wouldn’t have made such a complete and utter wreck of her life.
Another nurse hurried into the room, her cheeks flushed and her eyes glowing. Excitement radiated from her like a forcefield and she had the
look of a woman just bursting with serious gossip.
Her eyes slid to Faith and her expression changed to one of awe and fascination. ‘I know you think your memory is fine, Faith,’ she said sympathetically. ‘But I’m afraid we now have evidence that you are suffering from amnesia.’
Faith gritted her teeth. ‘My memory is fine.’
‘Really? Then why can’t you remember that you’re married? You’re married to a billionaire,’ the nurse said faintly. ‘And he’s standing outside right now waiting to claim you. I mean, he’s gorgeous, sexy—’
‘Nurse!’ Dr Arnold interrupted her with a scowl and the nurse blushed.
‘All I’m trying to say,’ she muttered, ‘is that he just isn’t the sort of man any woman would ever forget. If she really doesn’t remember him, then she definitely has amnesia.’
Simmering with impatience, Raul glanced at the Rolex on his wrist, oblivious to the fact that the force of his presence had brought the entire hospital ward to a standstill. Like a thoroughbred racehorse at the starting gate, he radiated coiled, suppressed energy, as confident and unselfconscious in this environment as he was in every other, his powerful legs planted firmly apart, his intelligent dark eyes fixed on the room straight ahead of him.
Female members of staff suddenly found reasons to hover around the central nurses’ station, distracted by the unexpected presence of such a striking man.
Raul didn’t notice.
He was entirely focused on the task in hand and this brief, unexpected delay in reaching his final objective was a thorn of irritation under his richly bronzed skin.
A lesser man might have spent the time worrying that the information he’d received might be wrong, that it wasn’t her. Raul had no such concerns. He only employed the best. His security team had been hand-picked and the possibility that they might have made a mistake didn’t enter his head.
Barely containing his impatience, he stood still for a full thirty seconds—which was twenty-five seconds longer than he’d ever waited for anything in his life before—and then took matters into his own hands and strode purposefully across the corridor and into the six-bedded side ward.
The doctor greeted his sudden entrance with a murmur of disapproval that Raul ignored. His gaze swept the room and came to rest on the slender figure of the woman lying in the bed by the window.
The anger that had been building inside him erupted with lethal force and he ran his hand over the back of his neck in order to stop himself from punching something. And then he took a closer look at the solitary figure staring up at the ceiling and the anger died, only to be replaced by a surge of very different emotions.
Emotions that he didn’t want to feel. Primitive urges that mocked his belief in his own sense of discipline and self-control.
Raul almost laughed. The weakness of man was woman, and that hadn’t changed since the beginning of time. From Eve in the Garden of Eden and Pandora with her box, for every man there was one woman who seemed to be designed for the express purpose of complicating life.
And for him, that woman was lying in front of him.
He could negotiate the most complex business deal without once losing his clarity of thinking but here, in the same room as her, a witch’s cauldron of emotions stirred to life, clouding everything.
‘Faith.’ His strong voice reverberated round the small room and her head turned, her expressive green eyes widening with horror and disbelief as she saw him.
‘No!’ Immediately she shrank under the blankets and her reaction was like a fist in his gut but the biggest shock was seeing the remains of the bruises on her face and shoulders before they vanished under the covers.
‘What happened to you?’ Two weeks before her mouth had been permanently curved into a happy smile and her blonde hair had rippled down her back. Now it was cropped short in a rough, jagged style that made her eyes look huge and her face pale and vulnerable. And there was no trace of the cheeky, teasing smile that was so much a part of her.
Kiss me, Raul, go on. You know you want to. Forget about work.
That one brief glance had been enough to show him that she’d lost weight. She’d always been fine-boned and delicate but now her skin seemed almost preternaturally pale and her jagged haircut gave her face an almost ethereal quality. When had that happened?
Why hadn’t he noticed?
Something tugged at him and he ruthlessly pushed the feeling away.
She’d brought this on herself. And on him.
The doctor cleared his throat. ‘We were forced to cut her hair when we were dealing with her injuries.’
‘Dios mío, she’s skin and bone.’ Caught broadside by emotions that he hadn’t expected, Raul directed the full force of his anger towards the doctor. ‘Don’t you feed your patients in this hospital?’