“Is that my name? Drágám?”
“No, that’s a nickname. An endearment, like ‘sweetheart’ or ‘darling.’ Very casual here in Hungary,” he added when her eyes got worried again. “Your name is Natalie. Natalie Elizabeth Clark.”
“Natalie.” She rolled it around in her head, on her tongue. “Not a name I would pick for myself,” she said with a sniffle, “but I guess it’ll do.”
The brown-and-white hound poked at her knee then, as if demanding reassurance that all was well. Natalie eased out of Dom’s arms and knuckled the dog’s broad, intelligent forehead.
“And who’s this guy?”
“I call him kutya. It means ‘dog’ in Hungarian.”
Her eyes lifted to his, still watery but accusing. “You just call him ‘dog’?”
“He followed me home one night and decided to take up residence. I thought it would be a temporary arrangement, so we never got around to a baptismal ceremony.”
“So he’s a stray,” she murmured, her voice thickening. “Like me.”
Dom knew he’d better act fast to head off another storm of tears. “Stray or not,” he said briskly, “he needs to go out. Why don’t you shower and finish your coffee while I take him for his morning run? I’ll pick up some apple pancakes for breakfast while I’m out, yes? Then we’ll talk about what to do next.”
When she hesitated, her mouth trembling, he curled a knuckle under her chin and tipped her face to his. “We’ll work this out, Natalie. Let’s just take it one step at a time.”
She bit her lip and managed a small nod.
“Your clothes are in the bathroom,” Dom told her. “I rinsed them out last night, but they’re probably still damp.” He nodded to the double-doored wardrobe positioned close to the bath. “Help yourself to whatever you can find to fit you.”
She nodded again and hitched the sheet higher to keep from tripping over it as she padded to the bathroom. Dom waited until he heard the shower kick on before dropping into a chair to pull on socks and his well-worn running shoes.
He hoped to hell he wasn’t making a mistake leaving her alone. Short of locking her in, though, he didn’t see how he could confine her here against her will. Besides which, they needed to eat and Dog needed to go out. A point the hound drove home by retrieving his leash from its hook by the door and waiting with an expression of acute impatience.
* * *
Natalie. Natalie Elizabeth Clark.
Why didn’t it feel right? Sound right?
She wrapped her freshly shampooed hair in a towel and stared at the steamed-up bathroom mirror. The image it reflected was as foggy as her mind.
She’d stood under the shower’s hot, driving needles and tried to figure out what in the world she was doing in Budapest. It couldn’t be her home. She didn’t know a word of Hungarian. Correction. She knew two. Kutya and… What had he called her? Dragon or something.
Dominic. His name was Dominic. It fit him, she thought with a grimace, much better than Natalie did her. Those muscled shoulders, the strong arms, the chest she’d sobbed against, all hinted at power and virility and, yes, dominance.
Especially in bed. The thought slipped in, got caught in her mind. He’d said they weren’t lovers. Implied she’d slept alone. Yet heat danced in her belly at the thought of lying beneath him and feeling his hands on her breasts, his mouth on her…
Oh, God! The panic came screaming back. She breathed in. Out. In. Then set her jaw and glared at the face in the mirror.
“No more crying! It didn’t help before! It won’t help now.”
She snatched up a dry washcloth and had started to scrub the fogged glass when she caught the echo of her words. Her fist closed around the cloth, and her chest squeezed.
“Crying didn’t help before what?”
Like the steam still drifting from the shower stall, the mists in her mind seemed to curl. Shift. Become less opaque. Something was there, just behind the thin gray curtain. She could almost see it. Almost smell it. She spun around and hacked out a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh.
She could smell it, all right. The musty odor emanated from the wrinkled items hanging from hooks on the door. The steam from the hot shower must have released the river stink.
Her nose wrinkling, she fingered the shapeless jacket, the unadorned blouse, the mess that must once have been a skirt. Good grief! Were these really her clothes? They looked like they’d come from a Goodwill grab bag. The bra and panties she’d discarded before getting in the shower were even worse.
He—Dominic—said he’d rinsed her things out. He should have tossed them in a garbage sack and hauled them to a dumpster.
“Well,” she said with a shrug, “he told me to help myself.”
The helping included using his comb to work the tangles from her wet hair and squirting a length of his toothpaste onto her forefinger to scrub her teeth. It also included poking her head through the bathroom door to make sure he was still gone before she raided his closet.
It was a European-style wardrobe, with mirror double doors and beautiful carving. The modern evolution of the special room in a castle where nobles stored their robes in carved wooden chests. Called an armoire in French, a shrunk in German, this particular wardrobe wasn’t as elaborate as some she’d seen but…
Wait! How did she know about castles and nobles and shrunks? What other, more elaborate armoires had she seen? She stared at the hunting scene above the doors, feeling as though she was straining every brain cell she possessed through a sieve, and came up empty.
“Dammit!”
Angry and more than a little scared, she yanked open the left door. Suits and dress shirts hung haphazardly from the rod, while an assortment of jeans, T-shirts and sporting gear spilled from the shelves below. She plucked out a soccer shirt, this one with royal-blue and white stripes but with the same green-and-gold emblem on the right sleeve. The cool, slick material slithered over her hips. The hem hung almost to her knees.
Curiosity prompted her to open the right door. This side was all drawers. The top drawer contained unmatched socks, tangled belts, loose change and a flashlight.
The middle drawer was locked. Securely locked, with a gleaming steel mechanism that didn’t give a hair when she tested it.
She slid the third drawer out and eyed the jumble of jock straps, Speedos and boxers. She thought about appropriating a Speedo but couldn’t quite bring herself to climb into his underwear.
“Not the neatest guy in the world, are you?” she commented to the absent Dominic.
She started to close the drawer, intending to go back to the bathroom and give her panties a good scrubbing, when she caught a glimpse of delicate black lace amid boxers.
Oh, Lord! Was he into kink? Cross-dressing? Transgender sex play? Did that locked drawer contain whips and handcuffs and ball gags?
She gulped, remembering her earlier thought about strength and power and dominance, and used the tip of a finger to extract a pair of lace-trimmed silk hipsters. A new and very expensive pair of hipsters judging by the embossed tag still dangling from the band. Natalie’s eyes widened when she saw the hand-lettered price.
Good grief! Three hundred pounds? Could that be right?
When she recovered from sticker shock, she found it interesting that the price was displayed in British pounds and not in Hungarian…Hungarian whatever. Also interesting, the light-as-air scrap of silk had evidently been crafted by an “atelier” who described her collection as feminine and ethereal, each piece a limited edition made to measure for the client. The matching garter belt and triangle bra, the tag advised, would put the cost for the complete ensemble at just over a thousand pounds.
Well, she thought with a low whistle, if he was into kink, he certainly did it up right. She was about to stuff the panties back in the drawer when she noticed handwriting on the back of the tag.
I stuck these in your suitcase so you’ll know what I won’t be wearing next time you’re in London.
Kiss, kiss, Ara
bella.
Oh, yuck! Her lip curling, she started to stuff the hipsters back in the drawer. Common sense and a bare butt made her hesitate several seconds too long. She still had the panties in hand when the front door opened and the hound burst in. Sweat darkened the honey-brown patches on the dog’s coat. Similar damp splotches stained Dominic’s soccer shirt.
“Find everything you need?” he asked as he dropped a leash and a white paper sack on the kitchen counter.
“Almost everything.” She lifted her hand. The scrap of silk and lace dangled from her forefinger. “Do you think Arabella will mind if I borrow her knickers?”
“Who?”
“Arabella. London. Kiss, kiss.”
“Oh. Right. That Arabella.” He eyed the gossamer silk with a waggle of his brow. “Very nice. Where’d you find them?”
“In with your socks,” she drawled. “There’s a note on the back of the tag.”
He flipped the tag over and skimmed the handwriting. She could smell the sharp tang of his sweat, see the bristles darkening his cheeks and chin. See, too, the smile that played at the corners of his mouth. He managed to keep it from sliding into a full grin as he handed back the panties.
“I’m sure Arabella wouldn’t mind you borrowing them,” he said solemnly.
* * *
But he would. The realization hit Dom even before she whirled and the hem of his soccer shirt flared just high enough to give him a glimpse of her nicely curved butt.
“That might have been a mistake,” he told the hound when the bathroom door shut. “Now I’m going to be imagining her in black silk all day.”
The Agár cocked his head. The brown ear came up, the white ear folded over, and he looked as though he was giving the matter serious consideration.
“She’s fragile,” Dom reminded the dog sternly. “Confused and frightened and probably still hurting from her dive into the Danube. So you refrain from slobbering all over her front and I’ll keep my mind off her rear.”
Easier said than done he discovered when she reemerged. She wore a cool expression, the blue crew shirt and, as Dom could all-too-easily visualize, a band of black silk around her slender hips.
And here he’d thought her nondescript back in New York. She certainly looked different with her face flushed and rosy from the shower and her damp hair showing streaks of rich, dark chestnut. The oversize glasses had dominated her face in New York, distracting from those cinnamon-brown eyes and the short, straight nose. And, he remembered, her full lips had been set in such thin, disapproving lines for most of their brief acquaintance. They were close to that now but still looked very kissable.
Not that he should be thinking about her eyes or her lips or the length of bare leg visible below the hem of his shirt. She’s vulnerable, he had to remember. Confused.
“I bought some apple pancakes from my favorite street seller,” he told her, indicating the white sack on the counter. “They’re good cold, if you’re hungry now, but better when crisped a bit in the oven. Help yourself while I take my turn in the shower.”
“I’ll warm them up.”
Rounding the glass counter, she stooped to study the knobs on the stovetop. The soccer shirt rode up again. Barely an inch. Two at the most. All it showed were the backs of her thighs, but Dom had to swallow a groan as he grabbed a pair of jeans and a clean shirt and hit the bathroom.
* * *
He didn’t take long. A hot, stinging shower and a quick shampoo. He scraped a palm over his three or four days’ worth of bristles, but a shave lost out to the seductive scent of warm apples.
She was perched on one of the counter stools, laughing at the shivering bundle of ecstasy hunkered between her bare legs. “No, you idiot! Don’t give me that silly grin. I’m not feeding you another bite.”
She glanced up, her face still alight, and spotted Dom. The laughter faded instantly. He felt the loss like a hard right jab to the solar plexus.
Jézus, Mária és József! Did she dislike all men, or just him? He couldn’t tell but sure as hell intended to find out.
The woman represented so many mysteries. There was the disdain she’d treated him to in New York. That ridiculous codicil. The memory loss. The yet-to-be-explained reason she was here in his loft, swathed in his soccer shirt. Dom couldn’t remember when a woman had challenged him in so many ways. He was about to tell her so when the cell phone he’d left on the counter buzzed.
“It’s Sarah,” he said after a quick glance at the face that came up on the screen. “My cousin and your boss. Do you want to talk to her?”
“I…uh… All right.”
He accepted the FaceTime call and gave his anxious cousin the promised update. “Natalie’s still here with me. Physically she seems okay but no progress yet on recovering her memory. Here, I’ll put her on.”
He positioned the phone so the screen captured Natalie still seated on the high stool. Both he and Sarah could see the desperate hope and crushing disappointment that chased across the researcher’s features as she stared at the face on the screen.
“Oh, Nat,” Sarah said with a tremulous smile, “I’m so, so sorry to hear you’ve been hurt.”
Her hand crept to her nape. “Thank you.”
“Dev and I will fly to Budapest today and take you home.”
Uncertainty flooded her eyes. “Dev?”
Sarah swallowed. “Devon Hunter. My husband.”
The name didn’t appear to register, which caused Natalie such obvious dismay that Dom intervened. Leaning close, he spoke into the camera.
“Why don’t you and Dev hold off for a while, Sarah? We haven’t spoken to the police yet this morning. They were going to trace Natalie’s movements in Hungary and might have some information for us. Also, they might have found her purse or briefcase. If not, we’ll need to go to the American Embassy and get a replacement passport before she can leave the country. That could take a few days.”
“But…”
Sarah struggled to mask her concern. Dom guessed she felt personally responsible for her assistant being hurt and stranded in a foreign country.
“Are you good with remaining in Hungary a little while yet, Nat?”
“I…” She looked from the screen to Dom to the hound, who now sat with his head plopped on her knee. “Yes.”
“Would you feel better staying at a hotel? I can make a reservation in your name today.”
Once again Dom felt compelled to intercede. Natalie was in no condition to be left on her own. Assuming, of course, her memory loss was real. He had no reason to believe otherwise but the cop in him went too deep to take anyone or anything at face value.
“Let’s leave that for now, too,” he told Sarah. “As I said, we need to talk to the police and start the paperwork for a replacement passport if necessary. While we’re working things at this end, you could make some inquiries back in the States. Talk to the duchess and Zia and Gina. Maybe the editor you’re working with on your book. Find out if anyone’s called inquiring about Natalie or her research. It might help jog her memory if we can discover what brought her to Budapest from Vienna.”
“Of course. I’ll do that today.” She hesitated, clearly distressed for her assistant. “You’ll need money, Natalie. I’ll arrange a draft… No, we’d better make it cash since you don’t have any ID. I’ll have it delivered to Dom’s address this afternoon. Just an advance on your salary,” she added quickly when Natalie looked as though she’d been offered charity.
Dom considered telling his cousin that the money could wait, too. He was more than capable of covering his unexpected guest’s expenses. More to the point, it might be better to keep her dependent on him until they sorted out her situation. On reflection, though, he decided the leash was short enough.
The brief conversation left Natalie silent for several long moments. She scratched the hound’s head, obviously dismayed over not recognizing the woman she worked for and with. Dom moved quickly to head off another possible panic attack.
/> “Okay, here’s today’s agenda,” he said with brisk cheerfulness. “First, we finish breakfast. Second, we hit the shops to buy you some shoes and whatever else you need. Third, we visit police headquarters to find out what, if anything, they’ve learned. We also get a copy of their incident report and contact the embassy to begin the paperwork for a replacement passport. Finally, and most important, we arrange a follow-up with the doctor you saw yesterday. Or better yet, with a specialist who has some expertise dealing with amnesia cases.”
“Sounds good to me,” she said, relief at having a concrete plan of action edging aside the dismay. “But do you really think we can swing an appointment with a specialist anytime soon? Or even find one with expertise in amnesia?”
“I’ve got a friend I can call.”
He didn’t tell her that his “friend” was the internationally renowned forensic pathologist who’d autopsied the victims of a particularly savage drug cartel last year. Dom had witnessed each autopsy, groaning at the doc’s morbid sense of humor as he collected the evidence Interpol needed to take down key members of the cartel.
He made the call while Natalie conducted another raid on his wardrobe. By the time she’d dug out a pair of Dom’s flip-flops and running shorts with a drawstring waist, one of Budapest’s foremost neurologists had agreed to squeeze her in at 11:20 a.m.
Five
The short-notice appointment with the neurologist necessitated a quick change in the day’s agenda. Almost before Natalie had downed her last bite of apple pancake, Dom hustled her to the door of the loft and down five flights of stairs to the underground garage.
It’d been dark when she’d arrived the previous evening, so she’d caught only glimpses of the castle dominating the hill on the Buda of the river. The bright light of morning showed the royal palace in its full glory.
“Oh, look!” Her glance snagged on the bronze warrior atop a muscled warhorse that guarded the entrance to the castle complex. “That’s Prince Eugene of Savoy, isn’t it?”
Dominic slanted her a quick look. “You know about Priz Eugen?”
Her Unforgettable Royal Lover Page 5