CHAPTER ONE
SHE WOKE TO a sense of disorientation.
Blinking, she took in the dimly lit room. The visitor’s chair, bedside table and small window. Now she knew where she was. Rome. The hospital they’d brought her to after she’d been knocked down on the street.
Yet, instead of feeling calmer, her pulse quickened. The sense of disorientation didn’t ease. How could it when everything beyond this room was a blank?
Her name.
Her nationality.
What she was doing in Rome.
She didn’t recall anything.
Impulsively, she reached out to the bedside table, fingers running over the small comb and vanilla lip-balm that were the only possessions she could call her own. Her clothes had been so torn and bloodied they were unwearable and whatever bag or wallet she’d carried was missing.
She shut her eyes, forcing her breathing to slow. Forcing down the fear at not knowing anything.
After all, she did know some things.
She wasn’t Italian. She spoke English, with only a smattering of tourist Italian.
She was in her twenties. Pale-skinned with regular, if ordinary, features. She had grey-blue eyes and tawny hair that looked limp after the blood had been washed out.
And she was pregnant.
Her breath hissed in as she struggled with fear at the thought of being pregnant, nameless and alone.
The amnesia would pass. The doctors were hopeful. Well, most of them were hopeful. She was determined to cling to that. The alternative was too horrible to contemplate. She’d feel better in daylight when the medical staff bustled around the ward. Even the continual barrage of tests would be a welcome change from lying here, utterly alone and...
Something tugged at her senses. The hairs on her nape rose and her skin tickled with the awareness someone was watching her.
Slowly, since quick movement made her head ache, she turned towards the door.
She blinked, then blinked again. Wasn’t it enough that her memory was shot? Had she begun hallucinating too?
In the shadowed doorway stood a man who surely didn’t belong here. Tall, broad-shouldered and lean enough to wear his dark suit to elegant perfection, he looked like a model for designer menswear. That square jaw, the hint of a groove low in each cheek and those soaring cheekbones were all ultra-masculine and stunningly attractive.
A fillip of emotion stirred in her belly. Surprise, obviously. And attraction. As a distraction from self-pity he was perfect—the epitome of the ‘tall, dark and handsome’ cliché.
Except, as he stepped into the room, she discovered he wasn’t anything so simple as a pretty face.
There was an underlying toughness about him that made her skin prickle. He was the sort of guy who made designer stubble sexy instead of effete. His nose was strong rather than suave and his eyes hinted at shrewd, calculating intelligence. His height made him dominate the room and the effect was magnified when he stopped by her bed.
She tilted her head up, heart pounding.
‘Who are you?’ It seemed vital she sound calm, though everything inside her quickened.
Maybe he was some fancy consultant. That might explain his lack of bedside manner. No cheery smile, no platitudes about time being a great healer. No stethoscope. She couldn’t picture anything so mundane draped over that superbly fitted suit.
His eyes bored into hers and she saw now why they looked so unusual. They were brown flecked with gold and glowed with an inner fire, their colour unexpected given his olive skin and dark hair.
His silent scrutiny made her uncomfortable. ‘I said—’
‘You don’t remember me?’ His voice was honey and whisky, velvet and steel, and it would have made her hang on his every word even if he’d recited from a phone book. But when he implied...
She scrambled to sit up then winced as the movement made her head pound.
‘Are you all right? Should I call someone?’
Not a doctor, then.
‘Should I remember you? Have we met?’
Something she couldn’t identify flared in those golden eyes.
‘Do you know me?’ She leaned towards him, silently pleading for him to say he did.
Someone somewhere held the key to her identity.
‘I—’
There was a bustle in the doorway and one of the doctors entered. The chubby one with the kind eyes who’d reassured her when the fear she’d never regain her memory had grown close to terror. He burst into excited Italian, questioning the man at the bedside. The stranger responded, those grooves in his cheeks more pronounced, as if carved by concern. Back and forth they talked, the doctor voluble, the stranger answering with terse responses.
As if she weren’t there!
‘Can one of you please explain who this man is and why he’s here?’
Instantly the doctor turned towards her. Which was when she registered that the tall stranger hadn’t once taken his eyes off her. Even as he’d spoken with the medico his scrutiny of her had been constant.
She shivered, pulling the light cotton blanket higher up her body.
There was something about the intensity of his regard that made her feel naked. Not simply naked beneath the flimsy hospital gown, but as if he could strip her character back to the private self she kept hidden from the world.
Which was completely fanciful, as she had no idea what sort of person she was! If he could read her innermost character... Good—maybe he could enlighten her!
‘My apologies.’ It was the doctor who spoke. ‘We should have spoken in English.’ Then he smiled, his eyes bright with enthusiasm. ‘But we have excellent news for you.’
She swung her gaze back to the man standing silent at her side. Her tongue swiped her suddenly dry lips. ‘You know me?’ Despite her best efforts the words were shaky.
Abruptly he nodded. ‘I do. Your name is Molly. You’re Australian.’
Molly. An Australian.
She sank back, barely aware of the doctor leaning in to prop up some pillows behind her.
Australia. That explained why she spoke English, not Italian.
Molly? She frowned. She didn’t feel like a Molly.
Did she?
Her frown became a scowl as she tried and failed to feel any familiarity with the name.
She swallowed, petrified as she realised even her own name was foreign to her. She’d assumed that, once she had more information about herself, her memories would kick into gear. But the revelation of her name hadn’t worked any magic at all. There was still nothing but that dreadful foggy nothingness.
‘It probably sounds strange, hearing it for the first time again, but you’ll get used to it.’
She stared up at the tall stranger, registering his reassuring tone. How had he known about her panic when she didn’t recognise her own name?
‘Are you a doctor too?’
He shook his head and she heard the doctor murmur something under his breath.
‘Yet you know me?’
Gravely he nodded. Why didn’t he look happy or at least relieved to help her discover her identity?
‘And?’ She gritted her teeth. Did she have to plead for every nugget of information?
‘You came to Italy working as an au pair for an Italian-Australian couple.’
‘An au pair?’ She tested the idea on her tongue. Yet, once again, there was no spark of familiarity.
‘A nanny. A child minder.’
She nodded impatiently. She knew what an au pair was. Yet, how did she know, when even her own name was totally unfamiliar?
Molly. Was that really her name?
‘You’re sure you know me? You’re not confusing me with someone else?’
Was that sympathy in his eyes? Whatever his expression, it was swiftly masked.
‘Absolutely sure. You’re a teacher but gave it up for the chance to come to Italy.’
‘A teacher...’
‘You love children.’ Something in his voice, something sharp and hard, snagged her attention. Was it imagination or was the golden light in his eyes more pronounced than before?
Yet for the first time she accepted his words without question. Yes, she did love kids. She could visualise herself as a teacher. Not that she could remember any individual children, but for the first time in this odd conversation his words struck a resonance deep within her.
She’d been dumbstruck to discover herself pregnant in such extraordinary circumstances. Terrified at the idea of bringing a child into the world, not knowing who she was or who the father was. Yet even her fear couldn’t completely obliterate her wonder at the new life she carried. Maybe, once her memory returned, she’d actually be excited about it.
She sank back against the pillows and offered a tentative smile.
Instantly he reacted. His nostrils flared, as if he drew in extra oxygen, and his eyes...
She didn’t have time to worry about his eyes, no matter how gorgeous they were. This was about her. Molly... Molly what?
‘What’s my last name?’ Once she had that she could find her past, locate her family and friends and begin to knit her life together again. Her fingers tightened, clenching the thin blanket. If she could get her memory back. If she wasn’t doomed to lose her past for ever.
The idea sent a shaft of fear right through her.
The tall man’s gaze flickered towards the doctor, who nodded.
‘Agosti. Your name is Molly Agosti.’
She frowned. ‘Agosti?’ Once more she waited for her subconscious to recognise the unfamiliar name. Nothing. Not even the faintest quiver of recognition. ‘Are you positive? That sounds Italian. But I’m Australian.’ And her colouring wasn’t typical of someone descended from Italians.
‘Absolutely sure.’
She’d have to take his word until she had proof to the contrary. ‘And you are...?’
Did he stiffen? No, he didn’t look at all put out. Yet something had changed. Surely the vibration in the air between them grew charged?
She blinked. Vibrations? Charged air? Was she a person who thought in terms of auras and unseen forces? Or was she just preternaturally attuned to this man?
‘I am Pietro Agosti.’
She stared up past the disturbingly powerful hands resting on the rail at the edge of her bed and that long, elegant body.
‘Agosti. But that’s the same name.’
He inclined his head. ‘It is.’ Then the corners of his mouth curled up in a smile that made the breath stop in her lungs, even though the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. That golden-brown stare remained watchful, assessing.
Deep in her subconscious, an alarm bell sounded.
‘That’s because I’m your husband.’
Copyright © 2018 by Annie West