‘You know exactly who I am. And I’ve got no time for this game of yours.’
‘Game? You think this is agame?’ Her voice rose as she lifted one hand towards her throbbing head.
The man’s attention moved from her face to her raised hand, then down, past her mouth to her shoulder. Something about his stare made her look down.
She wore a fine cotton shirt, buttoned at the front and with the sleeves rolled up around her elbows. The shirt wasn’t hers. She knew that from the way it swamped her, lying askew and revealing the whole of one shoulder.
For a second fear stabbed. Where were her clothes? Why wasn’t she wearing her own things?
She thrust the questions aside and yanked the cotton up over her bare skin, clutching it closed at the neck. Her hands were unsteady and she refused to try tackling the buttons under this man’s hawklike scrutiny.
‘I assure you Mr... Mr Whatever Your Name Is, that this is no game.’
‘I agree. There’s nothing remotely amusing about it. So let’s cut the pretence. Tell me what you’re doing here.’
‘I was injured. On the beach.’
That was what the doctor said, but she struggled to visualise it.
Something darted through her brain and her breath caught. But again, when she tried to hang onto it, it vanished into foggy nothingness.
‘How were you injured?’ His voice had a remorseless quality she hated. ‘And on this particular beach?’
‘I don’t...’ She paused, trying to still the strange, quivery feeling inside. ‘Which beach was it? Where was I found?’
Anxiety nibbled at her, growing stronger by the second. The question wasn’t just where she’d been but where she was now. And much more. There was so much that, she suddenly realised, she didn’t understand. The strangely vague quality of her thoughts took on a new, sinister cast.
He rattled off a name in a foreign language. It was totally unfamiliar.
No, not totally. ‘Isola?That means island, doesn’t it?’
He raised his hands and clapped, his expression mocking. The applause was deliberately slow, making heat flood her cheeks. ‘Brava. A fine performance. But not convincing enough. I know you, remember?’
She wanted to protest that she wasn’t trying to convince him. That she didn’t care what he thought. But she had bigger concerns. Finally her hazy brain clicked into gear and she understood the implications of what before had been only vaguely unsettling.
It hurt to swallow, as if sandpaper lined her throat. But that was a minor inconvenience. It was nothing compared with the huge, scary truth suddenly filling her brain. The truth she’d been too dazed to realise earlier.
‘You know me?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Spare me the playacting. Of course I do.’
She gripped the shirt closer with fingers that had turned clammy as she fought rising panic.
‘Then you can tell me who I am. Because I don’t remember anything.’
CHAPTER TWO
ANGELOSTAREDDOWNat the woman before him, disbelief vying with fury.
Experience told him she was up to no good. Yet, despite what logic said, he found himself noting how vulnerable she looked.
There was more colour in her face than there’d been down on the beach. Then she’d looked pale as a corpse. Yet even now she conveyed an impression of fragility.
Those extraordinary eyes were wide and shadowed and a smattering of freckles on her nose and cheeks gave her an unexpectedly wholesome, almost naïve look. As if the sophisticate he’d known had turned into an innocent farm girl.
Angelo suppressed a bitter laugh at the idea.
Her hair, dark honey now rather than the pale gilt she’d once favoured, was dishevelled and naturally sexy. The woman he recalled had done everything she could to appear sleek and well-groomed at all times.