Dark Oasis. HELEN BROOKS

her wavering gaze on the hard male face in front of her.

      ‘You have been slipping in and out of consciousness for the last few minutes.’

      He was dark and magnificently male, his voice the one she had heard before. The accent teased her mind. French? Italian perhaps?

      ‘Just lie still and try to concentrate on my face only until the dizziness stops,’ he continued softly. ‘OK?’

      It was more than OK. If Michelangelo’s David was beautiful, this man’s face was stunning. His gleaming hair was a thick tawny brown worn unusually long, almost down to his shoulders. High, hard cheekbones, straight nose and sensual, almost cruel lips below eyes that were the same tawny gold-brown as his hair completed a picture of such aggressive, vibrant masculinity that Kit felt her toes begin to curl.

      But who was he? And where was she? And why did she feel so desperately ill? ‘Please...’ As she tried to struggle into a sitting position on the wide leather couch on which she was lying, he moved quickly, his body carrying the same powerful grace as a beautiful wild animal.

      ‘I said lie still.’ His voice was firm and cool. ‘You’ve received a nasty blow on the head so just take it easy.’

      ‘I have...?’ As her voice trailed away on a little gulp, she felt hot tears of weakness and pain prick against her eyelids seconds before he spoke again.

      ‘And do not dissolve on me, not yet.’ He fixed her with that hard tawny gaze that reminded her of the piercing stare of one of the big cats watching its intended prey. ‘I need to know your name, hotel, something. You are a tourist, I think?’ His voice was cool and steady and quite unemotional.

      ‘A tourist?’ Her tongue felt too big for her mouth. ‘I don’t know.’

      A tourist? The panic that had been at the back of her mind ever since she had opened her eyes began to claw at her throat with strangling fingers. She could be a tourist. She could be anything. She didn’t remember.

      ‘Just relax.’ He saw the naked horror in her eyes and recognised it for what it was. ‘You’re clearly concussed, which is not surprising in the circumstances. Unfortunately the animal that did this to you also took your bag, so we have no identification to help us. I was hoping when you awoke you could provide a few answers but as it is—’ he shrugged massive shoulders slowly ‘—the police will have to sort it.’

      As he leant towards her she cowered instinctively into the bulk of the couch, flushing as he eyed her sardonically with cool raised eyebrows before wiping her face and mouth gently with a damp perfumed cloth. ‘As I said, relax’

      He stood up from his crouching position at her side and it registered on her just how tall he was, well over six feet, inches over, and with a powerful hard frame that would win first prize in any Mr Universe competition. ‘My name is Gerard Dumont, by the way,’ he added lazily as he folded muscled arms to stand staring down at her impassively. French. Yes, she should have known. ‘And you are...?’

      ‘I...’ Her voice trailed away as her eyes widened. ‘My name... I don’t know it.’ She raised agonised eyes to the gold of his. ‘I don’t know who I am.’

      ‘This is not a difficulty; do not panic.’ The pronunciation of his words and correct English in that broken accent was incredibly attractive, she thought faintly as she struggled for composure. ‘The bump will heal and then you will remember.’ He smiled suddenly and she drew in a hard short breath of air. He was something. He really was something. Did he know the effect he had on women? She looked into the darkly tanned handsome face silently, mesmerised by her own unaccustomed helplessness and vulnerability and the frightening loss of memory. She had to try to remember. She must remember something. ‘The police are on their way, incidentally.’ He eyed her lazily. ‘It would seem you were perverse enough to be, how you say, mugged at the same time as a rather large jewellery robbery was under way in the middle of the town. Needless to say, you were not considered the immediate priority.’

      ‘Oh.’ Her head felt as though it was going to explode any minute. ‘Where am I?’ It was the ultimate stage response to fit the situation, but for the life of her she couldn’t think of a less unsubtle rejoinder.

      ‘In my office.’ The gold eyes narrowed a little. ‘Can you not remember anything at all? Look down at your clothes; they may produce a spark. It would be preferable to the mountain of questions the police may ask. Subtlety is not their strong point here.’

      She glanced down at her legs stretched out in front of her encased in light white cotton trousers, the cut impeccable, and tried to focus her whirling thoughts into some sort of order. Her feet were shod in slender coffee-coloured sandals that matched her waist-length blouse exactly, and again she noticed that both items seemed expensive. Well, fine. She obviously wasn’t destitute, but who on earth was she?

      ‘No.’ She sank back against the couch and shut her eyes again. ‘I’m sorry.’

      When the police arrived a few minutes later she discovered one thing; she couldn’t speak the language. Fortunately the two police officers seemed quite fluent in English but she couldn’t tell them much, repeating the same thing over and over again until her head spun.

      ‘I think the lady needs to see a doctor,’ Gerard cut into the interrogation after a time, his hard face autocratic.

      ‘Do I have to go with them?’ She looked up at him, her large grey eyes suddenly terrified at the thought of leaving the only person she had any knowledge of, albeit a slight one, in this strange country.

      ‘You will be quite safe.’ His tone was slightly abrupt, preoccupied, and she noticed as he spoke that he glanced at the heavy gold watch on his wrist before meeting her eyes, a small frown wrinkling his brow.

      ‘I suppose I will.’ She wasn’t aware her voice was sharp, but he couldn’t have made it more clear that she was an awkward inconvenience and everything in her rose up in immediate opposition. ‘You must be a very busy man, Mr Dumont; please don’t let me keep you. Thank you for your kindness.’ The words were grateful, the slight edge to her voice anything but. And then he looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time and grey eyes met gold, the former defiant, proud and very dismissive and the latter narrowed with surprise. ‘Have you finished for now?’ She spoke directly to the older policeman, a plump hard-faced individual in his middle fifties with eyes of stone. ‘Then if you wouldn’t mind taking me to the nearest hospital, we’ll sort things out from there.’

      Was she used to directing people like this? she asked herself faintly as she stood gingerly on her feet, her head thudding. It didn’t feel unnatural so she supposed she must be. She felt terrified, sick and desperately helpless but this man Gerard had made it perfectly plain he didn’t want to get involved, and she was blowed if she’d beg—she’d sort it out herself. She suddenly had the feeling she’d been doing that for a long, long time. Tears prickled under her eyelashes again and she blinked them away quickly. She’d cry later.

      ‘Look.’ Gerard steadied her with his arm round her waist as she stood swaying in the cool, air-conditioned room. ‘Please do not misunderstand me. I have an important appointment, that is all. I—’

      ‘Thank you, Mr Dumont.’ She moved out of his hold on trembling legs and offered him a slim hand, her chin high. ‘I hope you won’t be late...’ As the blackness took over again she just heard him growl something in muttered French that sounded incredibly rude as she fell, and then there was nothing, nothing but this soft enveloping darkness that cushioned her buzzing racing senses in the thick blanket of unconsciousness.

      

      She awoke to the sterile neutrality of a small white room that smelt of antiseptic and carbolic, and the realisation that she had tried to surface several times before from the crazy world she had inhabited for the last little while, a world of whirling images and alien voices all of which were dominated by grinding, unrelenting pain in her head. But there was no pain now. She moved her head slightly on the hard pillow and winced as a flash of something hot spiked into her brain. Well, not if she kept