Intimate Strangers (25 page)

She started pacing again and moved away from Roarke. "You talk about games… games!" She threw her arms into the air in exasperation. "I played games to get a little attention from you. It was the only way you ever took any notice of me at all. You know…" She stood in front of Roarke once more, shaking her finger in his face. "The only time you ever treated me like a woman was when we were in bed." She was in a red rage now, her fury seemed to have been uncapped like a volcano that had been latent for years then finally erupted from the internal pressure. All the years of pent-up frustration, hurt, and anger were pouring out and she couldn't stop. She was aware of Roarke only as the object of her tirade.

"You want to know what I was hysterical about? Well, I'll tell you. I was standing in here, wishing I could forget the past and my love for you." Sara laughed derisively. "Isn't this ironic? Can you imagine? For months I've driven myself nearly crazy trying to remember everything, and now that I have, I want to for-forget." Sara dropped her face into her hands and began crying bitterly.

Roarke moved across the room to her like a man still caught in a dream. Lovingly he took her into his arms, and when she tried to shake him off, he tightened his grip. "Sara, my darling Sara," he whispered into her ear. He stroked her hair and lifted her chin. His lips touched her brow, brushing across her forehead.

He coaxed her over to the bed and made her sit down beside him, his arm around her shoulders, holding her protectively close to him. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and awkwardly dabbed her eyes.

Sara tried to shake off his arm and pulled the handkerchief from his grasp and wiped her own eyes. It would crush her to see his pity.

"Sara, look at me!" He forcibly turned her head and her eyes couldn't resist the compelling force of his order. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart quickened. It wasn't pity she saw in his eyes, it was love.

"Sara, I love you. I've always loved you. From the first time I saw you, I knew you would be the only woman I would ever want." His voice thickened with emotion and his eyes glistened with unshed tears.

"Oh, Roarke, I can hardly believe this." She moved closer to him and tentatively touched a tear that escaped over his lashes. "Do you really love me?" she whispered.

"I have, all my life," Roarke answered, lowering his head toward her. Sara closed her eyes as his lips moved to touch hers. He pressed her back against the bed and gently stroked the sides of her face. She ran her hands restlessly over his back to reassure herself that he was there and not a dream.

"Can this be real? Is this true?" Sara asked hungrily, starved for reassurance.

"My darling, I've always loved you, always wanted you. And my real torture is knowing that no matter what happens between us, my love for you can't be destroyed." The tears that Sara had seen shimmering on his lashes dropped onto her chest and one trickled a warm path down between her breasts and lay shining in the hollow.

In awe Sara touched the moist droplet and looked at her fingertips then in breathless astonishment gently touched Roarke's cheek. Overwhelmed by his emotional reaction, she began to sob. "Roarke, there has never been anyone else, never. Please, love me, love me. You're all I want in life. I love you."

His kisses skimmed along her neck and his fingers fumbled a little at the buttons on her blouse. She sighed as the last button gave way and his lips fondled her breast. Entranced, Sara let a soft moan of pleasure escape her trembling lips. "How I love you, my darling, how I've longed to hold you close again, feel your body against mine and love you. I'm not complete without you. Even when I couldn't remember you, my body remembered your touch and my passion for you."

He lifted his fingers to her lips and whispered, "I love you, my darling." He cherished her unresisting lips once more with his. Their movements were intense and increased in tempo until they melted together in their old passion and their renewed love.

Sara was sitting up in bed propped against the pillows, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks still flushed from their shared ecstasy. Her lips were swollen from his kisses and she gingerly touched them, running her fingertips lightly across them, and she smiled, to herself at different memories of their afternoon of delight.

She could hear Roarke in the kitchen whistling as he made coffee. The difference in him was unbelievable. No more guarded words, no mask over his face. He now had the expression that she loved—smiling happiness. His face held joy and contentment.

She wanted to get out of bed and look in the mirror to see if there was as dramatic a change in her as there was in him. He looked younger, years younger. A burden had been lifted from him, but it wasn't the burden she had worried about. Instead it was the burden of loving someone whom he thought didn't love him.

"Here we are, my love." His deep voice rumbled with delight.

Sara's heart welled with joy and she didn't know if she would be able to contain it. She threw back her head and laughed with the love and happiness that bubbled from inside her. Roarke stood beside the bed with only a towel wrapped around his waist, trying to balance the coffee cups on a tray, while trying to keep the towel from falling.

His muscles rippled as he placed the tray on the bed. The veins in his arms were like blue ropes winding their way up to his shoulders. He was magnificent! He sat down on the bed beside her with the tray between them. Sara leaned over and kissed him on the chest.

They sipped their coffee in silence, only their loving eyes holding a conversation. Then a shadow suddenly seemed to pass over Roarke's face and he moved the tray to the floor. "We have to talk, you know that, don't you?" He reached over and touched her cheek.

Sara looked at Roarke over the rim of her cup. She could only nod her head, because fear, like an icy blast of wind, gripped her insides.

"Don't look so frightened." He kissed her on the forehead, taking the cup from her hands as he gently pushed her back onto the pillows. He leaned over her, propped on one elbow. "You said a lot of things to me and about me that aren't true." He ran his finger down the side of her face and she nestled it between her shoulder and cheek.

Brushing her lips with his, he whispered, "I love you," as he shifted a little away from her so he could see her face and watch her reactions more closely. "I first saw you when you were seventeen years old. You were so beautiful. I fell in love with you then." He smiled at her tenderly; his eyes held a misty look of nostalgia. "I kept going to the house to see your grandmother on business, at least that's what I told myself. But the more I saw of you, the more I wanted to see you. I knew I was a lot older than you and that you were an innocent. Yet every time I was near you, I wanted to take you into my arms and hold you. So I decided to go to London to get away from you for a while, thinking if I didn't see so much of you or know you were close, I could maybe fall in love with someone else. But it didn't work. I couldn't forget you. Then I received the letter from your grandmother telling me she was dying and begging me to take care of you after she was gone." He caressed her face with his hand.

"I married you because I loved you, not because I felt responsible for you. I know now that I treated you wrongly, I didn't treat you like a wife. I was afraid to treat you like a woman. I knew you had a crush on me, but I wondered if it was real love. I wanted to give you time to learn to love me."

Sara put her fingers over his lips. "We were both wrong, Roarke, I did so many childish things, stupid things. Even my jealousy was immature. When I saw that file folder in your office the day I told you I was leaving you, I just knew you didn't love me, that I was nothing more than an obligation and a responsibility that a promise to an old lady trapped you into honoring. I convinced myself you had just wanted the business and I was the means to your keeping it. When you walked into the office that day with Suzanne and she was so smug, I was totally convinced my thinking was correct."

"Damn it, Sara, I told you then that you were behaving irrationally!" he sat up abruptly. "That letter from your grandmother had nothing to do with my decision to marry you." Roarke shook his head in remembered disgust. "That damned file folder. Honey, I kept legal documents like your power of attorney and other important papers in there. The letters from your grandmother were in it because I felt you might want them someday. If only you would have believed me when I told you I loved you instead of running out of my office in a damned flaming rage." His brows lowered over eyes reflecting a little of the hurt and bitterness still remembered from that day.

"No, Roarke," Sara murmured as she reached out and stroked his arm. "I wasn't ready to believe you then. It took the two years of us being apart for me to start appreciating what we had and to realize what I had lost. And everywhere I went I saw you with Suzanne and thought you loved her. That stopped me cold every time I weakened and thought of trying to talk with you."

He gathered her into his arms and held her close. "Suzanne is another story, darling. Suzanne…"

"Why did you let her pretend to be my friend?" Sara interrupted. "Why did you let her try to fool me? Why didn't you stop her?"

"I felt if I made an issue of it then you'd only think I was trying to keep you isolated. Plus, I was afraid, Sara. Afraid that if I told you all about Suzanne, you'd remember, remember everything!" He released her from his arms and sat on the edge of the bed.

Sara knelt at his back, embracing him from behind, holding him close. "Are you… are you and Suzanne… lovers?" Sara whispered, frightened by what his answer might be. What if he said yes? Could she cope with that knowledge, and was her love strong enough to help her to forgive him and forget it?

He turned his face away from her but not quickly enough so that she didn't see the look of shame and anguish flush over it. Her heart stopped. She had her answer! Her arms went limp for a fraction of a second, then, bowing her head, she placed her forehead on the smooth skin of his back and lightly touched the satin firmness with her lips. No matter what he said, she knew and now had to live forever knowing for certain that somehow, through hunger, need, or whatever the reason, for a small part of her life with Roarke, she had shared him.

Her hands ran over his muscular chest, her fingertips catching themselves and entangling m the curls that covered it. Tears gathered on her lashes as she murmured against his back, her breath making the skin under her cheek feel hot, "Don't answer that, darling. I don't want to hear the answer. It doesn't matter now."

Roarke twisted his body in her arms, but she kept her face firmly against his back, her hands clutching him to keep him from seeing her face. She didn't want him to know that she knew. "Sara…" Roarke gasped, "I—"

"Roarke," Sara whispered low and huskily, "there's only one thing I need to hear about her from you. I thought you wanted to marry her. She told me that you were going to divorce me and marry her and I believed her. She had keys to this apartment and told me she was living here after she had moved out of our house. Of course, once I remembered everything, I realized she was lying, but how did she get the keys? Were you going to divorce me?"

Roarke turned his head to glance at her over his shoulder. "She lied… lied about everything, Sara. When I got home the other day and Martha said you were here at the apartment, I called and called, but you didn't answer the phone. I called Suzanne, since she lives near here and asked her to go to the office and get the key and check to see if you were here. That's how she got the key. As for living in our house—that's a damnable lie!" He grasped her hand and caressed it with his lips. "I couldn't have divorced you! When you told me yesterday that you wanted a divorce, I almost broke apart. After I left here, I drove for hours and hours just thinking about us and trying to figure out a way to convince you that I loved you and didn't want to lose you. That's why I called at four this morning. I had just gotten home and received the message that you called."

He turned to look at her again. "Darling, when I got the call that you had been seriously injured and I was to get to the hospital immediately, I almost died. When Ted told me there was some doubt that you would survive the accident, I wanted to die along with you."

Sara shivered and hugged him close and kissed his nape. He put his hands over hers that she had entwined around his chest and held them tighter to his body.

"Your memory loss seemed to be a gift from heaven," he continued in a low voice. "I thought we could start our lives over with a clean slate. I was determined to go slowly and not pressure you. I wanted to give you time to know me again and hopefully learn to love me. I wanted to forget the hurtful things from the past also. I felt you were almost lucky not to be able to remember."

Sara sighed. "I've done a lot of things these past two years that make me ashamed when I think of them. I don't have any excuse except that I loved you and didn't know how to tell you or how to make you love me. I used other men to make you jealous."

Sara leaned her head against his back and tightened her arms around him, the firm flesh of his back warm against her bare breasts and her cheek. "I never meant to hurt you, but I couldn't understand the way you treated me."

"We have a lot of making up to do to each other, Sara. I know I treated you horribly most of the time you were ill. I don't have an excuse either, except that I looked on your memory loss as our last chance to start over and undo all the wrongs of the past."

"When you would have a flashback, I would panic, thinking your memory was returning and I'd lose you again. I just couldn't cope with the idea of you remembering even the smallest detail. I reacted badly, I know. Instead of being mature and facing the probable return of your memory, I mentally denied it would happen. Instead of helping you, I was so afraid, I closed you off. Built up the wall you felt."

"The miracle seemed to be that with your memory loss, you had become the woman I always dreamed you would be. I was afraid that if you remembered everything, you'd be the immature child again." He let go of her hands that held his chest and ran his fingers through his hair. Turning around, he took her face between his hands. The look in his eyes made Sara's heart ache.