"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.
"But the worst was when I came here to the apartment to take you back home and I realized you had run away. I called everyone I could think of, including Ted. When he said he hadn't seen you or heard from you, we decided we'd better start searching." Roarke shuddered. "When I think of you wandering around this city all night, not knowing where you were…"
Sara wrapped her body protectively around him again. "I ran away because I couldn't face you, Roarke. I loved you so much and Suzanne had led me to believe you two were living together. It just reinforced my belief that you thought of me as your unwanted burden. I couldn't stay here and see the two of you together, see your love for each other. I had to get away. I didn't stop to think about where I was going or what I was going to do. I couldn't remember myself as the person you seemed to despise so much and I couldn't understand how I could be what I am now, with the feelings I have, and also be the person you remembered so bitterly. Every time a piece of the past was revealed, I couldn't believe I was so shallow and mean. The only thing I knew was that I loved you and I couldn't stand to live with your anger or your pity any longer." Sara bowed her head as the memory of that frightening night alone in the city flashed through her mind.
Roarke kissed the top of her head and put two fingers under her chin, lifting it so her eyes would meet his. "We've done a lot of foolish things, my love. We've hurt each other and, in the end, nearly destroyed each other. Now we have our new start, Sara. The new beginning we've both been praying for."
"Yes, we do," Sara smiled into his eyes.
"I need you, I want you. I don't want to exist without you," he said huskily, taking her in his arms.
"And I don't want to live without you." Sara snuggled against him. "I'm glad it's over, it's finally over. Our past, present, and future have at last all fallen into place." She raised her lips to meet his as his arms closed around her, enveloping her in his warmth. Slowly, sensuously, their bodies moved together, building a passion that had existed in their past and bound them together forever.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
Unnamed
Intimate Strangers Page 18