Wedding Party Collection: Don't Tell The Bride. Kelly HunterЧитать онлайн книгу.
recent operations and intensive and ongoing physiotherapy.’
He knew her blood type and he knew her name.
Lena Sinclair.
She knew her name was Lena. Bits and pieces of her memory were starting to come back. The scarves hanging in the marketplace. The impression that someone, or several someones, had been following her. Her name was Lena, Lena Sinclair, and the big guy, who she couldn’t quite remember...
He was her husband.
His name was Adrian. She’d read it on his credit cards and on the hospital forms. Adrian Sinclair. Husband. And he seemed so familiar, hauntingly familiar, and he made her feel safe, and he’d hovered while the doctors had seen to her, and if she couldn’t quite remember much about him at the moment, well, there were a lot of things she couldn’t quite remember at the moment.
He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.
‘My name’s Lena, Lena Sinclair,’ she told the doctors. ‘I’m Australian and I was shopping in the Grand Bazaar when thieves knocked me to the ground and took off with my wallet.’
There’d been mutterings then, about the crime rate in the city. The police had been notified. Cards would be cancelled. Her husband would take care of it. ‘Lena, relax,’ he’d told her firmly. ‘First things first. Just get the MRI done.’
Lena. Lena Sinclair.
She could remember pretty much everything that had happened since waking up in the bazaar. As for her life before then... She was Australian and she’d grown up on the beach with two brothers and a sister whose names she couldn’t quite recall.
‘Concussion,’ the doctor told her. ‘Minor head trauma.’
A cracking headache, nausea and, heavens, why did the lights have to be so bright?
‘Temporary confusion and memory loss are both symptoms of concussion,’ the doctor told her when Lena confessed to scrambled memories and a whole lot of fog. ‘The painkillers I’ve given you won’t have helped. You remember who you are?’
‘Lena. Lena Sinclair.’
‘You remember your family and your past?’
‘Sort of.’
‘It’s common not to remember the events leading up to the knock on the head.’
Good to know she was common.
‘Do you remember your husband?’
‘Yes,’ she said. She remembered that he made her feel safe. She remembered his hands.
‘You need to rest your body and your brain,’ the doctor told her. ‘I’ve given you pain medication and something to minimise the swelling. I’m releasing you into the care of your husband, and if he hovers or wakes you several times through the night, it’s because I’ve told him to. If you start to feel anxious, let him know. Should your headache or nausea worsen, should you become disoriented, should your co-ordination worsen...you let him know and he’ll bring you back here.’
‘Okay.’
‘You already have co-ordination issues due to your previous injuries. I’m not talking about those. I’m talking about new limitations, just so we’re clear.’
‘Clear,’ she said faintly. She just wanted to get out of the hospital.
She hated hospitals.
And then they were out of the hospital and the street was unfamiliar and the smell of the city invaded her nostrils and she immediately wanted away from there too.
A taxi stood waiting for them. Her husband must have arranged it because the driver seemed to know him. ‘Your lady wife must stay close to you,’ he kept telling her stony-faced husband. ‘It’s not always safe here. Where did you and your lady wife go?’
‘Just take us back to the hotel.’ He could sound menacing when he wanted to, this husband she couldn’t quite recall. He could make talkative taxi drivers shut the hell up and drive.
The hotel was a pleasant, mid-range affair, with a buffet restaurant that her husband glanced at as they headed across the foyer towards the lifts.
‘Are you hungry?’ she asked him.
‘I could eat.’
He’d been at her side all day. In waiting rooms and examination rooms. He’d been her voice when she couldn’t remember what she’d done to her leg. There’d been no time for him to slip out and grab some food.
‘We could eat at the buffet,’ she said, and made it sound like a question.
‘I was thinking room service.’
Which could take some time to arrive. ‘Or we could eat now.’
‘You’re hungry?’
‘No, but you are. You fill up. I’ll pick and choose. Everyone’s a winner.’
‘I’d rather get you back to the room.’
‘The head is woolly but I’m feeling no pain,’ she assured him. ‘The painkillers are good and the food is right there. How about I let you know the minute I’ve had enough?’
He didn’t look convinced.
‘Okay, how about you watch me intently all through dinner and you let me know when I’ve had enough?’
‘You look like you’ve had enough already.’ Blunt, this husband of hers.
‘I think I can stretch it another twenty minutes. Or we could stand here arguing.’
He smiled at that, really smiled, and Lena watched, mesmerised, for it was a wicked, charming smile full of warmth and wide approval.
‘It is you,’ he murmured, and steered her towards the restaurant entrance. He gave the maître d’ their room number and saw her seated, but he didn’t sit.
‘I’m going to go change our booking. Get us another couple of days here. You be okay here while I do that?’
‘I’ll be fine.’
She watched him go. Broad shoulders, slim hips, long legs and all gorgeous.
And then he disappeared from sight and it took all her effort to quell the panic that arrived with his disappearance. Breathe, Lena. Everything was fine. She was fine.
They were staying here, they had a room here, and if she needed to get to it all she had to do was ask the front desk for a number and a key. Her memory would be back soon and her husband wasn’t going anywhere. He’d be back soon too.
A waiter asked if she wanted anything to drink with dinner and she ordered fizzy water for them both. She had a feeling her husband drank beer, but she didn’t know if he would want one with their meal. The waiter assured her that he would return once her husband did.
Five minutes later her husband returned.
‘Done?’ she queried.
‘Done.’
‘Where were we supposed to go after this?’
‘You don’t remember?’
‘No.’ No need to alarm him with how much she didn’t remember. Yet. ‘I’m a little fuzzy on the details.’
‘We were going to Bodrum to find Jared.’
‘Oh.’ Was now a good time to tell him that she had no idea who Jared was? ‘Right.’
Her husband, Adrian, was looking at her funny. And that name...her husband’s name...didn’t sit altogether right with her either. ‘Do I call you something other than Adrian?’
‘Trig,’ he said gruffly. ‘You call me Trig.’
‘Okay.’ She started to