Unauthorised Passion/Intimate Knowledge

by Amanda Stevens

  And then when she’d eventually dragged him to her parents’ house for Friday-night dinner, a Moon tradition, he’d so impressed her with his ability to hold his own with her family. Soft-spoken and unfailingly polite, he refused to be intimidated by her father’s cool appraisal or her mother’s incessant grilling. Nor had he been susceptible to Helen’s beauty or Cassandra’s charm or even Ariadne’s eccentricity.

  He had eyes only for Penelope, plain old vanilla Penelope, and if possible, she’d fallen even more deeply in love with him that night.

  He had a way of looking at her across the table as if she were the only woman in the room. Penelope experienced that same shivery feeling now as she remembered other things about that night.

  They’d left right after dinner and gone straight back to her apartment, where they made love for the first time. It wasn’t so much that Penelope had been swept away by passion as she’d been overcome by Simon’s tenderness. His attentiveness.

  And afterward, when he held her in his arms so protectively, it didn’t really matter that she hadn’t—

  “Ms. Moon?”

  She glanced up to find Yvette Dickerson, Simon’s nurse, glaring at her from the doorway. Penelope tried to hide her distaste, but she didn’t like the woman.

  For one thing, Yvette seemed overly possessive of Simon, and for another, she was extremely intimidating. Tall, lean and graceful, she looked more like a model than a nurse. Her face was all angles and cheekbones, her lips full, her eyebrows beautifully shaped.

  She arched one of those gorgeous eyebrows now as she gave Penelope a cool dismissal. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid visiting hours are over. It’s time for Mr. Decker’s therapy.”

  “So soon?” Penelope protested. “I haven’t even had an hour with him.”

  The woman’s smile was infuriatingly condescending. “Now, now, you don’t want to impede Mr. Decker’s recovery, do you?”

  “Of course not. But I drove all the way up here—”

  Yvette glanced at her watch, obviously bored by the whole conversation. “I’ll step outside while you say goodbye. But please don’t linger. We can hardly be expected to disrupt our entire schedule just to accommodate yours, now can we?”

  The door closed with a click, and Penelope resisted the urge to do something childish, like stick out her tongue.

  Instead she bent over Simon’s bed and touched his face. His skin was so warm. So…alive. She trailed her hand down his arm. His muscles were still rock hard. Surprising for someone in his condition. She supposed that was a good reason to let him get on with his therapy.

  She bent and pressed her cheek to his. “Are you dreaming?” she murmured against his ear.

  Placing her hand on his chest, she felt the beat of his heart. It was strong and steady. Why couldn’t he wake up?

  “Do you know what I dream about, Simon? I have this recurring dream, actually. It’s about…us.” She searched his face for a moment, then leaned in again and placed her mouth against his ear. “I’m at my desk, busy as always, and I look up to find you standing in my office doorway. You seem different somehow. More assertive and maybe even a little dangerous. And the way you look at me makes my heart race….”

  Penelope paused to take a shaky breath. “You walk slowly toward me, removing your glasses and your jacket and tossing them aside. Then you loosen your tie. But your gaze never leaves mine, and I can’t look away, either. It’s as if you’ve mesmerized me.

  “And then…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You kneel in front of my chair and slide your hands up my skirt…and you…”

  Startled, Penelope drew back. Was it her imagination, or had Simon’s heartbeat accelerated?

  She pressed her hand against his chest. The rhythm was still strong. Still steady. No change. It must have been her imagination.

  A knock sounded on the door, and Penelope knew it was Yvette reminding her that her time was up.

  “I’ll see you soon,” Penelope murmured, and then stepping back, she bent to retrieve her purse.

  As she glanced down, she saw a pair of glasses lying just underneath the bed. The frames were dark and thick, exactly like the pair Simon had worn before his accident, but Penelope had assumed those had been broken in the crash.

  And anyway, why would a man in a coma need his glasses?

  Penelope picked them up and carefully placed them on the table beside his bed. Then moving toward the door, she turned to have one last look, one final image that would have to sustain her until her next visit. Fighting back tears, she stepped into the hall.

  Yvette stood just outside the door, arms folded, her expression faintly resentful. “All done?”

  Penelope ignored the question. “I found a pair of glasses in Simon’s room. Do you know who they belong to?”

  Yvette shrugged. “Someone probably left them by mistake. Why?”

  Penelope hesitated. “They look exactly like the ones Simon wore before his accident.”

  “So what? A lot of people have that style.”

  Penelope frowned. “How do you know? You never saw him in his glasses.”

  Yvette looked momentarily flustered, then she said in an annoyed tone, “Why are you making such a mystery out of a pair of glasses? They probably belong to Mr. Decker’s father. He comes in several times a week to read to his son. Like I said, he may have left them by mistake.”

  It was a perfectly legitimate assumption, and Penelope had no reason to doubt Yvette Dickerson’s sincerity except for the fact that she didn’t like the woman. But in this case, the nurse was probably right. Penelope was making too much of a pair of forgotten eyeglasses.

  But she was still preoccupied with those glasses a few minutes later when she walked through the lobby. She nodded to the woman behind the front desk, and the receptionist returned her smile and waved absently as Penelope headed for the exit.

  There was nothing the least bit suspicious about the woman’s demeanor or her actions, but for some reason, Penelope glanced back just as she pushed open the door. The receptionist’s eyes were still on her, but the smile had vanished and she was speaking rather urgently to someone on the phone.

  All the way across the parking lot, Penelope tried to shrug off her disquiet, but she kept looking over her shoulder. She had the strangest feeling that something wasn’t right.

  Finally, knowing she would never have a moment’s peace until she got to the bottom of her anxiety, she retraced her steps across the parking lot and positioned herself outside the entrance where she could see into the lobby but couldn’t be spotted. She waited until the receptionist left her station, and then Penelope opened the door and slipped inside.

  Stealing past the front desk, she hurried down the long corridor to Simon’s room. Glancing up and down the hallway, she opened the door and stepped inside.

  And gasped.

  Simon was gone.

  Chapter Four

  “It was all very strange,” Penelope told her neighbor, Tay Domingo, later that same day as they sat out on her apartment balcony, sipping margaritas and enjoying the warm September twilight.

  A breeze rippled through the palm trees, and the scent of jasmine, heavy and sweet, drifted up from the courtyard. A horn sounded somewhere nearby, and a dog barked once, then went silent. A shiver of unease slipped up Penelope’s backbone, although she had no idea why.

  Or maybe she did.

  The visit with Simon had left her nervous and edgy. All the way home, she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something was wrong, even after everyone at Fairhaven had assured her that Simon had simply been taken to the physical-therapy unit.

  Freddy was curled in her lap, and he must have sensed her restlessness because he turned and gave her an irritated glare before digging his claws into her legs.

  “Ouch!”

  “Don’t let him get away with that,” Tay scolded as she leaned over to shoo the temperamental cat from Penelope’s lap. “Bad kitty. Go find a rat to terrorize.”

>   Freddy gave them both a baleful glance before he leaped from the balcony onto the trellis, then scampered down to the courtyard.

  “You’ll pay for that later,” Penelope murmured.

  Tay grimaced. “Don’t I know it? That cat’s so damn prickly these days I’m almost afraid to close my eyes when he’s in the same room. Maybe he needs a companion or something. But then, don’t we all?” She twirled a plumeria blossom beneath her nose.

  Tay, a thirty-something massage therapist, had recently opened her own day spa in the West University area. The overpriced beauty salons were cropping up in strip centers all over the city, but Tay insisted the Mayan Temple offered something unique—her own line of beauty products created from formulas that had been handed down for generations in her family. And Tay’s fabulous complexion, not to mention her smoldering sensuality, was certainly a great testimonial.

  “Now where were we?” she said lazily. “Oh, yes. Your visit with Simon. I still don’t understand what you found so strange about it. The nurse said they were taking him to physical therapy, right? So what’s the problem?”

  “The nurse said it was time for his physical therapy,” Penelope clarified. She flicked a speck of salt from the rim of her glass. “There’s a big difference. I always assumed that the physical therapist came to Simon’s room to work with him, or at the most, they wheeled his bed to the physical-therapy unit. But to actually move him…that’s no easy feat. I just don’t see how they managed it. Not in such a short amount of time.”

  “Well, they are experts.” Tay shot Penelope a puzzled look. “What exactly are you trying to say here, Pen? You think Simon got up and walked to physical therapy?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then what?”

  Penelope bit her lip. “I know it sounds crazy, but I just have a feeling that something isn’t right about that place, especially after I found those glasses.”

  “Which the nurse said probably belonged to Simon’s father. And even if they are Simon’s, so what? His father could have brought them to the hospital so that Simon would have them when he wakes up. I think that’s rather sweet.”

  Penelope hadn’t even considered that possibility.

  “You know what’s really going on here, don’t you?” Tay propped her feet on the balcony railing as she ran her hand through her long, black hair, then shook out the glossy tresses. It was an unconsciously sexy gesture that Penelope had seen her sisters perform a thousand times but had never quite mastered herself.

  She pushed her own choppy blond bob behind her ears. “No, what?”

  “You’re feeling guilty because you don’t get to see him often enough. Maybe you’re even a little jealous of all the time Nurse What’s-her-name spends with him. It’s like she’s usurping your position or something. In your mind, you should be the one taking care of him. And if that woman’s half as attractive and pushy as you say she is, then it’s only natural you’d feel some hostility toward her. Your uneasiness is just a manifestation of your guilt and your resentment at being forced to playing second fiddle in Simon’s life.”

  Tay’s analysis hit a little too close to home, and Penelope shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She couldn’t deny that Yvette Dickerson was part of the problem. There was something about the woman that rubbed Penelope the wrong way. Maybe it was because she’d been surrounded by beautiful women all her life and she knew firsthand how manipulative and petty they could sometimes be. How deeply their sense of entitlement sometimes ran.

  What if Yvette had set her sights on Simon and was deliberately trying to arouse Penelope’s suspicions? If she let this stuff get to her, she’d be playing right into the woman’s hands.

  Penelope sighed. “I hate to admit it, but I think you’re right. I do resent the time Yvette spends with Simon, and a part of me can’t help wondering if she’s developed feelings for him. And I wouldn’t blame her if she had. You should see him, Tay. He looks incredible. His color is good and his muscle tone is remarkable. It’s as if he’s just lying there asleep.”

  Her friend shrugged. “That’s not all that surprising, I suppose. I read an article recently about the new procedures they perform nowadays on patients like Simon. They even have a machine that stimulates blood flow and muscle activity with electrical pulsations. It also helps prevent the joints from stiffening so that when the patient comes out of the coma, they can be mobile in a shorter amount of time. Maybe they’re using something like that on Simon.”

  “Maybe,” Penelope mumbled, but she was momentarily taken aback by how little she actually knew about Simon’s recovery and treatment. As next of kin, Allen Decker called all the shots, and he hadn’t seen fit to keep Penelope in the loop. She still didn’t understand his animosity toward her. Did he blame her for Simon’s accident?

  Tay swung her legs off the balcony railing and stood. “Not to change the subject or anything, but let’s go eat. I’m starved, and if we wait much longer, everything will be closed.”

  Penelope nodded, although she didn’t feel the least bit hungry. “Where do you want to go?”

  “I don’t care. Be thinking about what you’re in the mood for while I go freshen up. I’ll meet you downstairs in five minutes.”

  “Should we call Freddy?”

  “Nah.” Tay waved absently as she headed through the French doors. “He’ll come back when he’s hungry.”

  But Penelope didn’t like the idea of leaving the persnickety cat to fend for himself. She stood at the railing and called down to him.

  He didn’t respond, but for a moment, Penelope could have sworn…

  Oh, come on, she chided herself. You’re letting your imagination get the better of you. There’s no one down there.

  But she suddenly had the strongest sensation that someone was watching her.

  Clinging to the rail, she peered into the darkness, remembering the night of Simon’s accident, when she’d stood on that very balcony calling down to Freddy.

  Someone had been in the courtyard that night, too, and Penelope had been certain that it was Simon. It couldn’t have been, of course, because the accident had occurred hours earlier. She hadn’t known it then, but Simon had been in the hospital fighting for his life at that moment.

  So if not Simon, who had been in the courtyard that night?

  And why had he—or she—come back?

  Chapter Five

  “What happened to you?” Penelope exclaimed the next day when Avery Bennett hobbled into her office on crutches. She jumped up and hurried around her desk to clear a chair for him.

  Her cramped work space was packed to the ceiling with books, magazines and research papers that she kept promising herself she’d sort through and file one day soon.

  But in spite of the clutter, Penelope loved everything about her third-floor office, from the smell of aged books to the old-world charm of the antique furnishings. Except for the laptop on her desk, the whole room might have been lifted part and parcel from the turn of the last century, right down to the creaking wood floor and the unsightly radiator.

  Penelope especially loved the long, narrow windows that overlooked the rear gardens and the eight-foot boxwood hedge maze that—thanks to Avery—had once again become a featured attraction at the Morehart.

  “What happened?” she asked again as she helped him ease into the chair across from her desk.

  “Let’s just say a pitcher of martinis and the stairs at my new condo are not a wise combination.” He stretched out his injured leg while Penelope propped his crutches nearby.

  She winced in sympathy as she returned to her seat. “Are you in pain?”

  “Not unless I forget to take my little white pills,” he said cheerfully.

  Evidently, those little white pills had done more than alleviate his pain. Avery was usually a worrier, but today he didn’t seem to have a care in the world.

  A handsome, fortyish bachelor, he possessed the kind of aristocratic features that sometimes gave the impression of a ma
n who’d led a pampered existence; but appearances, Penelope had soon discovered, could be deceiving. At least in Avery’s case. In spite of his penchant for high fashion and high drama, he was a dedicated scholar who knew his stuff, and the Morehart had flourished under his guidance.

  Before he came on board, the pre-Columbian exhibits, which dominated the ground floor, had been a rather lackluster mishmash of ceramics, flaked stone artifacts, and stucco reliefs, many of them a very poor quality. Avery had somehow convinced the trustees to build on the museum’s already impressive collection of dance and ceremonial masks by selling off some of the other relics in order to subsidize new acquisitions. And when that hadn’t generated enough revenue, he’d initiated aggressive fund-raising events and PR campaigns that were already starting to put the tiny museum on the map.

  It had also been Avery who had lured Penelope from her comfortable, though somewhat static, position at the prestigious Museum of Natural Sciences, a decision she hadn’t once regretted.

  “So why aren’t you home?” she scolded. “Shouldn’t you have that foot elevated or something?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. Just a sprain, I’m told. It’ll be as good as new in a few weeks, but in the meantime, I’m not fit to travel.”

  “Oh dear, and you have that meeting with Manuel Vargas tomorrow.” Penelope chewed the end of a pencil. “We’ll have to cancel, I suppose. Unless…” She trailed off, tapping the eraser against her desktop. “Do you think he’d be willing to come here to complete the arrangements?”

  Avery shook his head. “Not a chance. The man doesn’t fly. Which leaves us with only one alternative, I’m afraid.”

  “And that is?”

  “You’ll have to go in my place.”

  Penelope glanced up in alarm. “Bad idea, Avery. My Spanish isn’t all that great, and you know I’m lousy at negotiations. What if I say the wrong thing?”

  He waved off her concern. “You won’t. The deal is all but sealed, and the language barrier won’t be a problem. Vargas’s English is flawless. All you have to do is deliver the papers he requested, flatter him a little, and the masks are as good as ours.”