They slid down his nose…and a cell phone rang.

He sundered their communion in a jerk, stared down at her, his eyes echoing the sea’s tumult. It was shuddering, disoriented moments before her brain rebooted after the shock of interruption, of separation from him. That was her cell phone’s tone.

It was in her jacket. Rodrigo had given it her, and only he had called her on it so far. Who could be calling her?

“Are you expecting a call?” His rasp scraped her nerves.

“I didn’t even know anyone had this number.”

“It’s probably a wrong number.”

“Yeah, probably. Just a sec.” She fumbled the phone out, hit Answer. A woman’s tear-choked voice filled her head.

“Agnes? What’s wrong?” Instant anxiety gripped Rodrigo, spilled into urgency that had his hand at the phone, demanding to bear bad news himself. She blurted out the question that she hoped would defuse his agitation, “Are you and Steven okay?”

“Yes, yes…it’s not that.”

Cybele covered the mouthpiece, rapped her urgent assurance to Rodrigo. “They’re both fine. This is something else.”

His alarm drained, but tension didn’t. He eased a fraction away, let her take the call, watching for any sign that necessitated his intervention, his taking over the situation.

Agnes went on. “I hate to ask you this, Cybele, but if you’ve remembered your life with Mel, you might know how this happened.”

Foreboding closed in on her. “How what happened?”

“M-many people have contacted us claiming that Mel owes them extensive amounts of money. And the hospital where you used to work together says the funding he offered in return for being the head of the new general surgery department was withdrawn and the projects that were under way have incurred overdrafts in the millions. Everyone is suing us-and you-as his next of kin and inheritors.”

Ten

“So you don’t have any memory of those debts.”

Cybele shook her head, feeling crushed by doubts and fears.

It didn’t sound as if Rodrigo believed her. She had a feeling Agnes hadn’t, either. Did they think Mel had incurred all those debts because of her? Worse, had he? If he had, how? Why?

Was that what Agnes had almost brought up during Mel’s funeral? She’d thought Mel, in his inability to express his emotions for her any other way, had showered her with extravagant stuff? Not that she could think what could be that extravagant.

If that hadn’t been the case, she could think of only one other way. She’d made demands of him, extensive, unreasonable ones, and he’d gone to insane lengths to meet them. But what could have forced him to do so? Threats to leave him? If that were true, then she hadn’t been only a heartless monster, but a manipulative, mercenary one, too.

She had to know. She couldn’t take another breath if she didn’t. “Do you know anything about them?”

Rodrigo’s frown deepened as he shook his head slowly. But his eyes were thoughtful. With suspicions? Deductions? Realizations?

“You know something. Please, tell me. I have to know.”

He looked down at her for a bone-shaking moment, moonlight coasting over his beauty, throwing its dominant slashes and hollows into a conflict of light and darkness, of confusion and certainty.

Then he shook his head again, as if he’d made up his mind. To her dismay, he ignored her plea. “What I want to know is what has taken those creditors so long to come forward.”

“They actually did as soon as Mel’s death was confirmed.”

“Then what has taken Agnes and Steven so long to relate this, and why have they come to you with this, and not me?”

She gave him his foster mother’s explanations. “They wanted to make sure of the claims first, and then they didn’t want to bother you. They thought they could take care of it themselves. They called me in case I knew something only a wife would know, that would help them resolve this mess. And because I’m involved in the lawsuits.”

“Well, they were wrong, on all counts.” She almost cried out at the incensed edge that entered his voice and expression. The words to beg him not to take it up with them, that they had enough to deal with, had almost shot from her lips when he exhaled forcibly. “Not that they need to know that. They’ve been through enough, and they were as usual misguidedly trying not to impose on me. I think those two still don’t believe me when I say they are my parents. But anyway, none of you have anything to worry about. I’ll take care of everything.”

She gaped at him. Was he real? Could she love him more?

All she could say was, “Thank you.”

He squeezed his eyes on a grimace. “Don’t.”

“I will thank you, so live with it.” He glowered at her. She went on, “And since I’m on a roll, throwing my problems in your lap, I need your opinion on another one. My arm.”

His eyes narrowed. “What about it?”

“My fractures have healed, but the nerve damage isn’t clearing. Eight weeks ago, you said I wouldn’t be able to operate for months. Were you being overly optimistic? Will I ever regain the precision I used to have and need as a surgeon?”

“It’s still early, Cybele.”

“Please, Rodrigo, just give it to me straight. And before you say anything conciliatory, remember that I’ll see through it.”

“I would never condescend to you like that.”

“Even to protect me from bad news?”

“Even then.”

She believed him. He would never lie to her. He would never lie, period. So she pressed on. Needing the truth. About this, if she couldn’t have it about anything else.

“Then tell me. I’m a left-handed surgeon who knows nothing else but to be one, and I need to know if in a few weeks I’ll be looking to start a new career path. As you pointed out before, the arm attached to my hand had extensive nerve damage…”

“And I performed a meticulous peripheral nerve repair.”

“Still, I have numbness and weakness, tremors-”

“It’s still too early to predict a final prognosis. We’ll start your active motion physiotherapy rehabilitation program the moment we have proof of perfect bone healing.”

“We have that now.”

“No, we don’t. You’re young and healthy and your bones look healed now, but I need them rock solid before I remove the cast. That won’t be a day before twelve weeks after the surgery. Then we’ll start your physiotherapy. We’ll focus first on controlling the pain and swelling that accompanies splint removal and restoration of motion. Then we’ll move to exercises to strengthen and stabilize the muscles around the wrist joint then to exercises to improve fine motor control and dexterity.”

“What if none of it works? What if I regain enough motor control and dexterity to be self-sufficient but not a surgeon?”

“If that happens, you still have nothing to worry about. If worse comes to worst, I’ll see to it that you change direction smoothly to whatever field of medicine will provide you with as much fulfillment. But I’m not giving up on your regaining full use of your arm and hand. I’m stopping at nothing until we get you back to normal. And don’t even think about how long it will take, or what you’ll do or where you’ll be until it happens. You have all the time in the world to retrain your hand, to regain every last bit of power and control. You have a home here for as long as you wish and accept to stay. You have me, Cybele. I’m here for you, anytime, all the time, whatever happens.”

And she couldn’t hold back anymore.

She surged into him, tried to burrow inside him, her working arm shaking with the ferociousness of her hug. And she wept. She loved him so much, was so thankful he existed, it was agony.

He stilled, let her hug him and hold onto him and drench him in her tears. Then he wrapped her in his arms, caressed her from head to back, his lips by her ear, murmuring gentle and soothing words. Her heart expanded so quickly with a flood of love, it almost ruptured. Her tears gushed faster, her quakes nearly rattling flesh from bone.

He at last growled something as though agonized, snatched her from gravity’s grasp into his, lifted her until she felt she’d float out to sea if he relinquished his hold.

He didn’t, crushed her in his arms, squeezed her to his flesh until he forced every shudder and tear out of her.

Long after he’d dissipated her storm, he swayed with her, as if slow dancing the Sardana again, pressing her head into his shoulder, his other arm bearing her weight effortlessly as he raggedly swore to her in a loop of English and Catalan that he was there for her, that she’d never be without him. His movements morphed from soothing to inflaming to excruciating. But it was his promises that wrenched at the tethers of her heart.

For she knew he would honor every promise. He would remain in her life and that of her baby’s. As the protector, the benefactor, the dutiful, doting uncle. And every time she saw him or heard from him it would pour fresh desperation on the desolation of loving him and never being able to have him.

She had to get away. Today. Now. Her mind was disintegrating, and she couldn’t risk causing herself a deeper injury. Her baby needed her healthy and whole.

“Cybele…” He shifted his grip on her, and his hardness dug into her thigh.

She groped for air, arousal thundering through her. Voices inside her yelled that this was just a male reaction to having a female writhing in his arms, that it meant nothing.

She couldn’t listen. It didn’t matter. He was aroused. This could be her only chance to be with him. And she had to take it. She needed the memory, the knowledge that she’d shared her body with him to see her through the barrenness of a life without him.