Chapter 18

With a succinct expletive, he slid his hands beneath her very gently and tugged her on to his lap, hauling off the light bedspread and wrapping it round her. She sniffed and sucked in oxygen, curving instinctively in the heat of him. 'I'm so h-happy,' she told him.

'You have a very individual way of being happy, but then,' a caressing hand smoothed through her silky, tumbled hair, 'you have an individual way of doing most things. We'll get married in Italy. And now that we've decided to do it, we don't want to waste time, do we?'

She rested her head against his chest as he lounged back into a more comfortable position to accommodate her. He was being so gentle and once she had honestly believed that he didn't know how to be. Had her fall given him that much of a shock? Certainly something had provoked an astonishing alteration in Luc's attitude to her…or had she really never understood Luc at all? Did it matter if she couldn't understand him? She decided it didn't.

Luc was planning the wedding. The royal 'we' did not mislead her. She could have listened to him talk all night, but the kind of exhaustion that was a dead weight on her senses was slowly but surely dragging her towards sleep.

The sapphire-blue suit was unfamiliar but it had 'bought to please Luc' stamped in its designer-chic lines. The shoes? Catherine grimaced at the low heels which added little to her diminutive height. She must have been in a tearing hurry when she chose them. They weren't her style at all, but they were a perfect match for the suit. Since co-ordinating her wardrobe had never been one of her talents, she was surprised by the discovery. Luc must have ransacked her luggage to pull off such a feat.

He had been gone when she'd woken, securely back within her bed. Her clothes had arrived after breakfast. Although the effort involved had left her weak, she had been eager to get dressed. A nurse had lightly scolded her for not asking for assistance, adding that Mr Ladwin, the resident consultant, would be in to see her shortly. Catherine couldn't help hoping that Luc arrived first. The prospect of a barrage of probing questions which she wouldn't be able to answer unnerved her.

So, a few weeks had sort of got lost, she told herself bracingly. A few weeks didn't qualify as a real loss of memory, did it? Subduing the panicky sensation threatening, she sat down in the armchair. Of course it would come back and, as Luc had pointed out, it wasn't as though she had forgotten anything important.

Even so, the silliest little things kept on stirring her up. When had she had her hair cut to just below her shoulders? And it was a mess, a real mess! Heaven knew when she had last had a trim. Then there were her hands. She might have been scrubbing floors with them! And there was this funny little dent on her wedding finger, almost as if she had been wearing a ring, and she never put a ring on that finger…

She didn't even recognise the contents of her handbag. She had hoped that something within its capacious depths might jog her memory. She had hoped in vain. Even the purse had been unfamiliar, containing plenty of cash in both dollars and sterling but no credit cards and no photos of Luc. Even the cosmetics she presumably used every day hadn't struck a chord. And where was her passport?

Luc's proposal last night already had a dream-like quality. Luc hadn't been quite Luc as she remembered him. That was the most bewildering aspect of all.

When she had broken an ankle in Switzerland last year, Luc had been furious. He said she was the only person he knew who could contrive to break a limb in the Alps without ever going near a pair of skis. He had stood over her in the casualty unit, uttering biting recriminations about the precarious height of the heels she favoured. The doctor had thought he was a monster of cruelty, but Catherine had known better.

Her pain had disturbed him and he had reacted with native aggression to that disturbance in his usually well-disciplined emotions. Telling her that he'd break her neck if he ever saw her in four-inch stilettos again had been the uncensored equivalent of a major dose of sympathetic concern.

But last night, Luc hadn't been angry…Luc had asked her to marry him. And how could that seem real to her? Her wretched memory had apparently chosen to block out a staggeringly distinct change in her relationship with Luc. Her very presence in London with him when he always jetted about the world alone fully illustrated that change in attitude. But what exactly had brought about that change?

She could not avoid a pained recall of the women Luc had appeared with in newsprint in recent months. Beautiful, pedigreed ladies, who took their place in high society without the slightest doubt of their right to be there. Socialites and heiresses and the daughters of the rich and influential. Those were the sort of women Luc was seen in public with—at charity benefits, movie premi;ageres, Presidential dinners.

'I don't sleep with them,' Luc had dismissed her accusations, but still it had hurt. She had looked into the mirror that day and seen her own inadequacy reflected, and she had never felt the same about herself since. It was agonising to be judged and found wanting without ever being aware that there had been a trial.

The door opened abruptly. Luc entered with the consultant in tow. Sunk within the capacious armchair, tears shimmering on her feathery lashes, she looked tiny and forlorn and defenceless in spite of her expensive trappings.

Luc crossed the room in one stride and hunkered down lithely at her feet, one brown hand pushing up her chin. 'Why are you crying?' he demanded. 'Has someone upset you?'

If someone had, they would have been in for a rough passage. Luc was all Italian male in that instant. Protective, possessive, ready to do immediate battle on her behalf. Beneath the cool fa;alade of sophistication, Luc was an aggressively masculine male with very unliberated views on sexual equality. His golden eyes were licking flames on her in over-bright scrutiny. 'If someone has, I want to know about it.'

'I seriously doubt that any of our staff would be guilty of such behaviour.' Mr Ladwin bristled at the very suggestion.

Luc dropped a pristine handkerchief on her lap and vaulted upright. 'Catherine's very sensitive,' he said flatly.

Catherine was also getting very embarrassed. Hastily wiping at her damp cheeks, she said, 'The staff have been wonderful, Luc. I'm just a little weepy, that's all.'

'As I have been trying to explain to you for the past half-hour, Mr Santini,' the consultant murmured, 'amnesia is a distressing condition.'

'And, as you also explained, it lies outside your field.'

Catherine studied the two men uneasily. The undertones were decidedly antagonistic. Ice had dripped from every syllable of Luc's response.

Mr Ladwin looked at her. 'You must feel very confused, Miss Parrish. Wouldn't you prefer to remain here for the present and see a colleague of mine?'

The threat of anything coming between her and the wedding Luc had described so vividly filled Catherine with rampant dismay. 'I want to leave with Luc,' she stressed tautly.

'Are you satisfied?' Luc enquired of the other man.

'It would seem that I have to be.' Scanning the glow that lit Catherine's face when she looked at Luc Santini, the older man found himself wondering with faint envy what it felt like to be loved like that.

Mr Ladwin shook hands and departed. Luc smiled at her. 'The car's outside.'