Rafael's Love-Child. Kate Walker

of her assertion.

      ‘You don’t believe me?’

      Angry now, she could no longer stay still. Swinging her legs out of bed, she got to her feet, snatching up the calf-length robe that matched her nightdress and pulling it on, belting it firmly around her slim waist with a rough, jerky movement that betrayed her inner feelings.

      This was better. At least her slender height gave her the ability to look him in the eyes, even if he was still some five or so inches above her five-feet-nine.

      ‘How dare you? You have no right to sit in judgement on me when you don’t even know me—if that is the truth.’

      ‘I had never set eyes on you in my life until the first day I came to this hospital and saw you lying unconscious in that bed.’

      ‘Then—then you can’t tell me what I was doing at the time of the accident or just before it and why.’

      Her delicate toes curling on the soft carpet, Serena shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another. She didn’t want to think of Rafael standing beside her bed, looking down at her unconscious form from that imperious height. Just the thought of those cold eagle’s eyes watching everything about her, judging, assessing, when she was utterly defenceless, unaware even of his presence, made her blood chill in her veins.

      ‘You can’t know anything about me—who I am or what I am—so you’ll have to take my word for it that I’m just not that kind of woman.’

      ‘You may believe that you were not that sort of woman—’

      He bit off the sentence swiftly, but not quite quickly enough. Serena pounced on that revealing change of tense.

      ‘Were not?’ she repeated shakily. ‘Were? What does that mean? What do you know that you aren’t telling me?’

      But he wouldn’t meet her eyes. Instead he turned to where little Tonio still lay, sleeping peacefully.

      ‘I have to leave,’ he said, not even attempting to hide the fact that he was deliberately ignoring her anxious questions. ‘Tonio will need feeding…’

      ‘No! You can’t do this to me! I won’t let you!’

      The sidelong glance he turned in her direction was one of supreme indifference. I can do exactly as I wish, it declared, as clearly as if he had spoken. And you can do nothing to stop me.

      Oh, couldn’t she?

      Just as Rafael looped the handles of the carrycot over one strong hand she slipped past him, heading for the doorway and positioning herself just in front of it.

      ‘I mean it!’ she declared, praying that her vehemence hid every sign of the uncertainty that nagged at her.

      ‘Serena…’ Her name was threaded through with a note of ominous warning, one she knew she would be wise to heed, but she couldn’t bring herself to give up the fight so easily.

      ‘No. I won’t let you go until you tell me. It’s my life, I have a right to know!’

      No, defiance was the wrong approach. It was only hardening his resolve. She could see that in the set of his jaw, the cold light in his eyes, the way they had narrowed, dangerously assessing. Hastily she rethought her plan of campaign.

      ‘Rafael, please… ‘ she cajoled, carefully adjusting her tone, making it soft and pleading, totally unlike the challenge of moments before.

      ‘Serena, don’t do this… ‘

      Are you sure you know what you’re doing? a small, nervous voice questioned at the back of her mind. Are you sure that you really want to know?

      ‘No!’

      Stubbornly she pushed the weak thoughts away, refusing to let them take root. If she gave in to Rafael now, if she let him go without answering her, then she would have lost her chance for ever. If he defeated her once, he would always be able to do so again.

      ‘Please—you don’t know what it’s been like! I’ve lain awake at nights trying and trying to remember, but it’s all just a blank—a big, gaping black hole where that day should be. Can you imagine how that feels—how frightening it is?’

      ‘Madre de Dios!’

      Rafael dropped the handles of the carrycot and raked both hands through the shining luxuriance of his black hair in a gesture so expressive of burning exasperation that Serena couldn’t hold back a smile at the knowledge that she was getting through to him at last.

      ‘You will regret this.’

      It was a flat statement of fact, not a threat, and that was what firmed her resolve, making her even more set on continuing.

      ‘I’ll regret it even more if I don’t find out what you’re talking about. This is my past—my life! How can I ever hope to move on, go forward, if I don’t know what’s behind me?’

      Rafael’s only answer was another outburst of explosive Spanish, but at the end of it he flung up his hands in a gesture of defeat.

      ‘All right, you asked for it! And perhaps it is best that you know the truth. That date you gave… ‘

      ‘It wasn’t right? I was unconscious longer than I believed?’

      ‘On the contrary. In all but one detail the date was perfectly correct. The right day, the right month…’

      ‘But…’ She had to force the word out in a hoarse, tight-throated croak, because it was obvious that there had to be a ‘but’.

      ‘But it was a year early.’

      ‘Early? I don’t understand.’

      ‘The date you gave to the doctor was the right day, right month last year. And you are not twenty-three, but twenty-four. The accident, the injury to your head, left you with partial amnesia. It’s not just the last few days that you can’t remember. You’ve lost a year of your life.’

      CHAPTER THREE

      YOU’VE lost a year of your life. A year of your life. A year.

      The words Rafael had flung at her formed a tormenting, thudding refrain inside her skull whenever she wasn’t thinking about anything else.

      And she had too much time to think. Nothing held her attention; nothing distracted her from the appalling fact that she could not manage to come to terms with.

      In the daytime she could try to read, or watch television, but inevitably she had found it was impossible to concentrate. She would find that she had been staring blankly at the screen or a page on which not a single word had registered, and all the time those impossible, incredible words had swung round and round in her mind, beating at her brain with a bruising sense of horror. But the nights, in the silence and the darkness, were much, much worse.

      You’ve lost a year of your life.

      How was it possible? How could this have happened? More importantly, why had it happened? How could she simply forget about a year that she had lived? How could something wipe out twelve months, three hundred and sixty-five days of her existence, destroying it and leaving not a trace of anything behind?

      ‘No!’

      She cried the word aloud in an attempt to drive away the demons of fear and panic that seemed to prowl around her, hidden in the shadows, tormenting her.

      She wouldn’t give in to this, she vowed. Wouldn’t go down under the waves of horror that threatened to engulf her. She would fight them with everything at her disposal. Her past couldn’t stay buried for ever. Her memories would have to emerge some day, and she would do everything she could to make sure that day came just as soon as possible.

      Not that she had much to go on. Her few belongings were no help. The clothes she had been wearing at the time of the accident had been ruined, but she was assured that they had been strictly anonymous, inexpensive chainstore items,