The Twelve-Month Mistress (9 page)

But that was just a dream, and she knew it. If he opened his eyes then she was afraid that all would change. She would see the cold light in those deep dark eyes, his face would resume its hard, aloof expression, and she would know her present mood for the fantasy that it was.

‘I’ll leave you to rest,’ she murmured, reluctantly loosening her grip on his fingers.

But as she slowly eased away a sudden movement of Joaquin’s hand startled her into stillness once more. ‘No!’

Still with his eyes closed, he reached out and grabbed at her fingers, closing his around them, firm and tight. And as Cassie gasped in sudden shock he forced his heavy eyelids open again, looking straight into her face.

‘No!’ he said again, more forcefully this time.

‘What is it?’

Try as she might, she couldn’t erase the tremor from her voice. Was this the time when he remembered? When everything became clear to him again? She fought to contain the panic that was rising up inside her, struggled to ensure that the hand he held didn’t shake in his grasp.

‘Cassandra—queda, por favor…’

He was tiring even as he spoke. She could see the blurring of his gaze, sense the loosening of his focus as his eyelids drooped again.

‘Queda…’

His grip on her hand loosened as he drifted into sleep. But Cassie didn’t need any restraining grip to hold her there. If the hospital had been on fire, the room filling with
smoke, she would have stayed right where she was, as long as Joaquin was there. Nothing would have forced her to move, unless he went with her.

Queda
, he had said.

Stay.

And he had added
por favor
.

Queda, por favor
…Stay—
please
!

Her heart felt as if it would burst with happiness, in a way that was such a stunning contrast to the fear and apprehension with which she had begun the evening that it made her head swim in sheer delight.

Stay. Joaquin had said. Stay—please. He wanted her with him, didn’t want her to go. And that was all she needed, holding as it did the promise of so much more. Of reconciliation and a hope for the future that she had thought she had lost for good.

Even though she knew that Joaquin was asleep, or very nearly so, and that he wouldn’t hear her, she knew she had to answer him out loud, the words too important to keep to herself.

‘Of course I’ll stay,’ she said in a voice that was thick and rough with emotion. ‘For as long as you want—as long as you need me.’

And now, at last, she could no longer find the strength to hold back her tears but simply let them fall, cascading down her cheeks in a show of open emotion. But this time she didn’t care, because these tears were tears of happiness, the outward expression of the joy she felt inside.

Joaquin had spent an uncomfortable couple of days in which he hadn’t known quite what was real, and what was part of the weird, heightened dreams that had haunted the sleep into which he fell with a disturbing regularity. They were so vivid, so confusing, that he would have described them as delirium, even though he had been assured that he was not running a temperature.

People came and went and he never quite knew when or why. Sometimes he would open his eyes and his father was there, or Ramón, and then another time it would be Mercedes who was sitting in the chair by the bed—and occasionally Alex. He seemed to recall that Alex had said something about a baby, but it had blurred into the haze in his head and he couldn’t recall any details.

Sometimes it would be bright day, with the warm sunshine pouring in through the windows; at other times, clearly night had fallen without him noticing and the world beyond the glass was dark, the room lit softly by the bedside lamp. He’d eaten sometimes, just a bit, not tasting anything, and he’d drunk the water people kept offering him and found that that tasted surprisingly good.

But every time his eyes opened, it was always Cassandra that he saw. Day or night. Early or late. She was there. Sitting by the bed, or on the bed. Silent and watchful or talking about something that he couldn’t always take in. She was a calm, reassuring presence in a world that seemed to be always out of focus. And she was
always
there.

That was fine with him.

More than fine.

He knew that he had spoken to the other visitors, murmuring something that they had seemed to accept as the answer to whatever they had asked, but he couldn’t really recall just what he had said. The one thing he actually registered, the one thing he remembered saying, was that he had asked Cassandra to stay.

He had asked her to stay, and she had stayed.

And that was fine too.

In the end, after three hazy days, the fog that had clouded his brain finally started to clear. He no longer drifted asleep at totally unexpected moments, his eyes focused much better, and he could actually understand what people were saying to him. To his intense relief, he was also let out of the damn bed, and felt decidedly more human once he was
sitting in a chair, wearing proper clothes and with his jaw shaved free of the impossibly luxuriant growth of beard that had resulted from three days’ lack of attention.

He would feel even better if the doctors would only let him go home.

If he went home, then he could be alone with Cassandra.

But: ‘You have had a very nasty knock on the head,’ they said. ‘We need to be sure that there’s no permanent damage. What can you remember about the accident itself?’

‘Remember? The honest answer is not a damn thing—but that’s not so unusual, is it? I understand that quite often in an accident where someone is knocked unconscious, they can’t remember the actual event. The bang on the head sends it out of your mind.’

‘Yes, that can often be the case.’

‘I understand I was at my brother’s apartment. That I slipped on the steps outside, fell, hit my head. Luckily, my girlfriend was with me…what is it?’

He had caught the look that had passed between the two doctors. A slightly concerned, slightly questioning look. One he didn’t like at all. One that worried him.

‘What is it?’ he repeated. ‘What the hell’s wrong now?’

‘Nothing to concern yourself about,’ they assured him. ‘But we would like to ask you just a few more questions.’

‘Okay,’ Joaquin growled impatiently. ‘Ask. Anything, if it will help me get out of this damn place.’

So they asked and he answered. And their reaction to his responses turned his thoughts inside out and made his head reel in shock.

‘T
HE
doctor says
what
?’

It was Mercedes who asked the question, the surprise and shock they were all feeling ringing in her voice. And Cassandra could only be grateful that Joaquin’s younger sister had no hesitation in responding so fast and so forcefully to what her brother had just told them. At least it hid the way that she was unable to speak herself, her silence the result of a sense of shock that had made her thoughts reel.

‘He says that I have partial amnesia,’ Joaquin explained with an exaggerated patience that made it plain that he didn’t want to have to go through all the details yet again, even if his family needed to hear them. ‘It’s not just the immediate events of the accident that I can’t remember—there’s quite a bit more that’s been wiped too.’

‘How much?’ Cassie forced herself to ask it, then immediately wished she hadn’t as her voice was such a revealingly painful croak that she felt hot colour flood her cheeks in embarrassment at the sound.

‘Weeks.’ Joaquin’s tone was wry. ‘The last thing I can remember with any clarity is Mercedes’ birthday party.’

‘But that’s almost a month ago!’ his sister exclaimed.

Almost a month ago, and perhaps the last time they had been truly happy together, Cassie admitted to herself. She and Joaquin had had a wonderful time at that party, dancing together under the stars, and then they had gone back home and held a long, passionate party all of their own. Spending the rest of the night in bed, but definitely not sleeping.

It was after that that things had started to go wrong. When Cassie had started to worry about the dates on the
calendar, and the significance of their upcoming anniversary—the importance of Joaquin’s uncompromising one-year rule.

But if all that Joaquin remembered was the night of the party then it was no wonder that he had smiled at her as he’d come round. No wonder that he had begged her to stay.

He had forgotten all that had happened in between, the rows, the anxieties, the way that he had declared so openly to her face that he ‘didn’t do’ commitment. The images of the appalling night at Ramón’s apartment, when he had come hunting for her and, finding her there, had leapt to the conclusion that she and his brother were lovers, had been wiped from his brain by the blow to the head he had suffered after storming out of the building and falling on the stone steps.

So he hadn’t forgiven her at all. Hadn’t rethought the whole situation and realised his mistake and resolved to put things right. The smile that he had given her—the smile that had meant so much to her—had been meant in a way for a totally different person. And the woman he had asked to stay with him was not the one he really remembered at all, but an echo of a month ago, before everything had changed.

‘So—’ Her voice cracked hoarsely and she had to slick her tongue over her dry lips in order to moisten them, swallowing hard before she could go on. ‘So you remember nothing about the accident—about that night.’

‘Not a thing.’

Frowning darkly, Joaquin raked both his hands through his hair in a gesture that revealed the unsettled state of his thoughts much better than any words.

‘
Nada.
I don’t even know what I—we—were doing at Ramón’s. Why were we there?’

‘Why…?’

Why were we there?
Cassie’s thoughts spun in panic as
she struggled to think of some way to answer him. But what could she say that wouldn’t reveal the truth? How could she explain that she had been living with Ramón without arousing once again the savage, furious jealousy that had sent Joaquin raging out of the apartment and into the rain that night?

‘I—you…’

‘The doctors say we mustn’t tell you anything.’

It was Ramón’s voice that cut in sharply. He had been standing outside in the corridor, talking to the specialist who had been treating Joaquin, and luckily he came into the room just at this moment.

‘Nothing at all,’ he went on, after one swift, warning glance into Cassie’s troubled face. ‘They say that we mustn’t push anything or try to make you remember. That we have to leave it all to come back in its own time. Or not at all.’

‘And what if it
is
not at all?’ Joaquin growled, obviously not happy about this.

‘Then we’ll deal with that when it comes to it,’ his brother assured him breezily. ‘But they seem pretty certain that it won’t. A thump on the head like the one you suffered was bound to scramble your brains just a bit. You need to take things steady, wait for everything to settle back down again. And not get in a mood about things or you could face a setback.’

‘I’m not a baby.’ Joaquin scowled. Cassie could guess at the sort of thoughts that were going through his head. An unfailingly strong and healthy man, he had clearly been shaken by finding himself in hospital, and he obviously hated the restrictions that his accident had placed on him, even if for just a few days.

‘Give it time,’ she said, trying to soothe him. ‘It’s only been a couple of days so far. Who knows what difference a week might make?’

Who knows?
Cassie echoed to herself, not knowing whether it was something she should hope for or dread.

How was she supposed to act with Joaquin now? He might not remember all that had happened in that missing month—but she couldn’t
forget
a thing. He thought that they were still happy together, that nothing had come between them. He certainly didn’t suspect her of having an affair with his half-brother—at least not now!

But what would happen when he did remember? When he realised that that smile, that ‘Stay’, had been directed at that other Cassie, the one who no longer existed in his buried memories and heart.

She might have a reprieve now. A chance to go back to how it had once been. A chance to live once more in harmony and happiness with Joaquin, but there was no way it could last. Some time, inevitably, Joaquin’s thoughts would clear, and he would remember everything and then they would be right back where they had been on that dreadful night in the moments before he had had his accident.

‘All right,’ Joaquin conceded unwillingly. ‘If that’s what the doctors advise, then I suppose I’ll have to go along with it. Anything, so long as they let me out of this place. And they’ve said I can go home.’

‘But only if you have someone who will look after you,’ Cassie put in unthinkingly, wishing she’d bitten her tongue when she saw Joaquin’s look of surprise.

‘Well, of course I’ll have someone to look after me. I’ll have you.’

‘I—’

Cassie caught Ramón’s warning glance, and hastily adjusted what she had been about to say. ‘Of course,’ she managed uneasily, thinking of the isolation of the big house in the country, of herself and Joaquin alone there together through the long days…the nights.

‘You could both come home to us if you’d prefer,’
Mercedes put in. ‘I’m sure Papá would be delighted to have you there, and your room is empty.’

Cassie glanced automatically at Joaquin’s face, seeing the determined ‘No way!’ expression that was stamped onto his hard features. But perhaps it might not be such a bad idea. There would be plenty of other people around to distract Joaquin, Mercedes and his father to talk to…

But then she hastily rethought.

On the few occasions they had visited Joaquin’s father and sister in the past, Juan Alcolar had proved remarkably and unexpectedly tolerant about the fact that she and his son were a couple. They had always been given a room together, always the same one. And so now she knew only too well that that was the room Mercedes was referring to as ‘your room’.

In his father’s house they would automatically be expected to share a bedroom—and a bed. And that was something she didn’t feel at all happy about right now.

Happy? The thought had all the nerves in her stomach tying themselves in knots.

At the
finca
, there was at least plenty of space—lots of bedrooms. She could make up some excuse—she’d
have
to—she couldn’t tell Joaquin why she wouldn’t share his bed.

‘We’ll go home,’ she said, praying that the terrible, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach hadn’t been echoed in the sound of her voice.

Obviously not, because Joaquin’s wide, brilliant grin, missing from his face for so long, resurfaced at her words and she was bathed in its warmth. For a moment she gloried in the sensation, but then a double whammy of realisation hit her hard in the stomach, driving all the air from her body in a faint gasp of horror.

‘Is something wrong?’

Joaquin had caught the sound, sparking his curiosity.

‘N-no—it’s just that I—I remembered…’

‘Remembered what?’

Cassie’s mind went blank with panic. How could she say that she had just remembered how long it had in fact been since she had seen that smile on Joaquin’s face? Almost as far back as the night of Mercedes’ party, which was the point at which Joaquin’s memories stopped. It was after that that he had started drifting away from her, losing the warm closeness they had shared and becoming colder, more distant with each day that had passed. Coupled with that had come the realisation of how little Joaquin actually meant that smile, did he but know it. When his memory returned, then all the warmth of it would fade from his face, his handsome features setting taut into a cold animosity, his eyes taking on the gleam of polished jet, opaque and totally impenetrable.

‘I remembered…’

‘That you have some things you’ll need to collect from my place before you head home,’ Ramón put in quietly, subtly reminding her that all her clothes, everything she had taken with her when she’d left his house, were still in the guest bedroom in his apartment.

‘Oh—yes.’

Cassie flashed him a grateful look. She was no good at this sort of deception, no good at all. That was why she had had to leave the
finca
when Joaquin had made his feelings for her so plain. She could not have lived with him and not given away the state of her own emotions. It had been strained enough in the last couple of weeks; she couldn’t go through that again.

‘I have to go and pick them up.’

And do it without Joaquin finding out. How was she going to manage this?

‘We can do it on the way home,’ Joaquin stated firmly.

Which was just the sort of thing she was most dreading.

‘And go all the way back into town and then out again? It would add almost half an hour to the trip.’

‘I’ll drive Joaquin home.’

Once more Ramón came to her rescue.

‘I have my car here after all, and it’s bigger and more comfortable than yours—you’d have a much easier ride,’ he added with enviable casualness to his brother. ‘Then Cassie can go to my flat, pick up her bits and come along in her own car. Here, Cassie…’

He tossed her his house key, which she caught neatly and headed for the door before Joaquin could voice the protest that was clearly hovering on his lips.

‘I’ll see you there,’ she tossed over her shoulder, escaping thankfully from the tension that had been clawing at her ever since she had first heard the news about the lingering after-effects of the blow to Joaquin’s head.

As she hurried down the hospital corridor, the keys clutched so tightly in her hand that later she would find the impression of them embedded in her flesh, she found that her heart was thudding hard, sending the blood racing round her body in a flurry of panic that she could no longer subdue.

Just how was she going to get through the next couple of days—maybe even the next couple of weeks, if it took that long? She couldn’t lie to Joaquin for all that time, but then, at the same time, she had been forbidden to tell him the truth.

He had to remember for himself, the doctors had insisted—no good would come of trying to force things. The possible consequences of that could be risky, even dangerous. And for a week or so at least, Joaquin had to avoid any stress, any upset that might cause a relapse, or worse.

So for the time it took for the memories he had lost to return, Cassie had to live with him and pretend that nothing was wrong. She would have to act as if they had never rowed, never split up, never…

With a soft moan, she stopped dead, leaned back against the wall and covered her face with her hands, struggling
for control. She had to pretend that all was well, while all the time knowing that as soon as Joaquin discovered the truth—or what he believed to be the truth—he would see this time she spent with him as one of deliberate deception, perhaps even trying to win him round by concealing the truth.

She had no way out. She was damned if she did, damned if she didn’t. She had never really understood the phrase about being caught in a cleft stick before, but she did now. She could not go forward, and she could not go back. She could only stay where she was, marking time, and knowing that one day, with a dreadful inevitability, the truth would all come out.