Mediterranean Men & Marriage. Raye Morgan

her suggestion sounded better than anything he’d received from the psychiatrist.

      “Okay. I remember…” He closed his eyes and threw his head back, leaning into the sand. “I remember about a month ago, I was considering three or four different places for my vacation. I wanted a place that was off the beaten path. I needed to rest. I’d just had a big career setback and I needed space and time to use to recover and regroup.”

      “A career setback? What do you mean?”

      He opened his eyes and looked at her. “I told you about the designer who has been dogging my steps. He actually did steal some plans from me at one point.” He grimaced. “At least, I think he did. The plans he submitted were so close…” He shook his head and grimaced, remembering when Glendenning Hudson had shown him what his rival was offering for sale. “Anyway, just knowing that such unique thinking so close to mine was out there shook me at first. I couldn’t prove they were actually stolen from me, but I wanted to take some time to evaluate the matter and figure out how I was going to get inspiration back. I needed to get away, get my head straight and come up with some new ideas for racing design. I wanted to get back my momentum.”

      She nodded. All perfectly understandable. “So you were trying to decide where to go. What were the possible places?”

      “Tahiti. The Caribbean. I was also thinking about going back home to Italy, just to lick my wounds.”

      She smiled at the picture that conjured up. But her smile quickly faded as she realized the next logical step in this journey. She was going to have to ask him the question that might restore his memory of why he’d come here in the first place. Would he suddenly snap his fingers and say, “Oh, right. It was your father who sent me here and he wanted me to bring you back. How could I forget that?”

      That was the question, wasn’t it? Carefully positioning herself so that she watch him closely, she asked, “How did you happen to think of coming here?”

      His eyes narrowed as he considered the question. She waited, holding her breath. But when he started talking, she let it out again. It was obvious he didn’t remember what she’d feared at all.

      “That was a bit odd. Not like my usual decisions. But I’d seen pictures of these islands in the office of my most important client. Glendenning Hudson, in fact. We were talking about him last night. Every time I visited his office, I couldn’t take my eyes off those pictures. They haunted me. The geography was so unique, so beautiful, so peaceful and calm. I just felt I had to go there.”

      She looked away, relief mixed with a sense of eerie coincidence. She knew exactly what he meant. She’d sat in that same office and been mesmerized by those same pictures. She could visualize it now, the large pictures that covered the walls, the huge models of racing yachts on pedestals beneath the pictures. It was quite a scene, and one she’d grown up with. When she’d decided to hide herself away from her old life, these islands had been the first place she’d thought of. The only thing that had made her hesitate was fear that it would be the first place her father would look for her, as well.

      But she’d risked it. She knew her father’s visits to the islands were from twenty years before. He hadn’t been there since and probably didn’t think of them as relevant to her in any way. And for a long time, it had looked as though she’d guessed right. She kept in touch with her old life through her lawyer. He sent reports and called once a month to check on how she was doing. He also let her father know she was okay, though he did it anonymously so as not to suffer the wrath of Glendenning Hudson. She knew her father was searching for her, but he was one of the main reasons she’d had to run from her old life, and she couldn’t risk seeing him until she was sure she was strong enough to tell him she wasn’t going to be his tagalong ever again. It was only now that she’d had time and space to sit back and look at her life that she realized how much he had used her to enhance his own image. And how he would just use her again if she went back.

      “Never going back.” That was what she said to herself every morning after she’d washed her face and looked up into the mirror. “Never, ever going back.”

      But she knew he thought he needed her. He was just too big a personality to let her find her own way. He loved it when she trailed along in his orbit.

      She’d been nervous when she’d first arrived, jumpy, always sure her father or one of his assistants would show up and ruin everything. But as the weeks passed and that didn’t happen, she’d begun to relax.

      And then Marco had arrived.

      He talked about her father’s office and the work he’d done for her father without hesitation, making her think his memory loss must include what she assumed was that original assignment to come after her. She only hoped he didn’t remember it until she got him back off the island. Of course, that all presupposed that this was all on the up-and-up—that he was telling her the truth. That this wasn’t just a ruse to get her to let her guard down.

      She looked at him strangely. She wanted to believe him. She was ready to believe him. Yes, she’d pretty much accepted that he really didn’t remember that she was the daughter of the man whose pictures he’d been so taken by.

      “I went to bed that night determined to make my decision in the morning,” he was saying. “And the next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital. Almost three weeks had gone by. At that point, I couldn’t even remember who I was.”

      She felt a pang of guilt. Sometimes she forgot that he had been in a very bad accident and that he was still suffering. “But most of it came back to you?”

      “Yes, little by little. It was some time before I realized no more was coming and I’d just lost two weeks of my life.” He sighed. “Now I want to recapture those weeks.”

      “What if they don’t come back to you?”

      “Then at least I’ll have your memories to use.” He raised one sleek dark eyebrow her way. “You’re going to tell me everything.”

      She stared at him. That wasn’t likely, was it? Did he really think that?

      Reaching out, he touched her cheek with the flat of his hand. “You are going to help me remember, aren’t you?” he asked her softly.

      Her breath caught in her throat at his touch. “No,” she said quickly, pushing his hand away. “But I will try to help you find the plans you think you’ve lost. I’ve already been doing that. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

      He gave her a bittersweet smile. “Here’s an idea. Maybe we should try out more kissing for a while. That might break the logjam.”

      She rolled her eyes. “In your dreams.”

      “Why not?” Reaching out again, he took a strand of her hair this time and curled it with his fingers. “The evidence suggests you and I were pretty close a few weeks ago.”

      She hesitated, then took a deep breath. “We were close at one point. However, by the time you left, we weren’t.”

      He frowned, studying her. “The picture…”

      “The picture depicts a time before I knew who you really were.” The words were out before she could stop them and she waited, heart beating, for what he would have to say.

      His frown had deepened and he obviously thought this whole situation curiouser and curiouser. “So you found out I design fast sailboats. Was that so horrifying you felt you had to drop me like a bad penny?”

      She closed her eyes. He still didn’t remember. “Yes.”

      “Why?”

      She opened her eyes and stared straight into his. “You really don’t remember, do you? Don’t worry. At some point it will come to you.”

      Jumping to her feet, she began to brush off the sand. “We’d better get out of here before the tide comes up,” she noted. “Come on. I’m going to take you to visit with an odd friend of mine.”

      He