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“No.”
“Then why—?” They were coming into earshot with the other couple.
Sasha’s stomach tensed around a hot ember of anger as she looked for some avenue of escape while keeping a blank expression frozen to her face.
She couldn’t risk Molly guessing that she still had her memory. The whole house of cards would come down. She tried to appear bored by this whole event, but she couldn’t help studying her friend, searching for signs their baby was still safe inside her.
Molly’s gown had an empire waist so any bump under that drape of silk was well disguised. Her ample breasts were likely all that people noticed, especially since they were adorned with the yellow sapphires of a dramatic necklace.
“Rafael. It’s good to see you on your feet. Foot,” Gio corrected wryly as he offered his hand. He wore a tuxedo with a black jacket and looked positively dashing. Really, it was no surprise that Molly would engage herself to him, not when he was that handsome and she’d already been nursing a crush.
“It’s not slowing me down too much.” Rafael dismissed his comment as he tucked his crutch beneath his armpit and shook Gio’s hand. “And this must be your fiancée, Molly?”
“We’ve met. I was on your yacht last year, working for Gio. You may not remember.” Molly sent questioning looks between the two of them, likely baffled by their silence since the crash.
“I don’t remember anything,” Sasha lied blatantly. “I have a concussion from the crash and lost all my memory.” The farce of the moment was so acute, she could hardly keep her hysterical laughter from exploding out of her straining throat.
Molly gasped and expressed concern, but continued pretending she didn’t know either of them, including all of Sasha’s biggest and worst secrets. Rafael was acting as though Molly was someone he’d met once, not letting on that she was carrying their baby.
Sasha clung to her fake amnesia, but blurted, “These lights are giving me a headache. Rafael insisted on parading me around like I’m a circus attraction, but I’d like to leave.”
Which was exactly what she did.
Rafael had learned his lesson. He waited until they were home before he said, “That was rude.”
By then, Alexandra had taken a pain pill in the car and had put her sunglasses back on, but didn’t seem to be wilting into a migraine.
“I was rude? You ambushed me!” She kicked off her heels and stalked down the hall to her room.
Yes, but, “I hoped that seeing her would shake something loose.”
“Like my temper?” She swung her hair to the front of her shoulder and turned, pointing at her spine exactly the way she’d done a thousand times when they had undressed after an evening out. “I thought her surrogacy was supposed to be a secret. You said she signed an NDA. What was I supposed to say to her there? Hi, how’s our baby cooking?”
“The secrecy is to keep your parents from finding out. If something had slipped out this evening, I don’t think it would have got back to them.” He lowered her zip.
As soon as the gown loosened, she caught it against her breasts and swung around to confront him. “I can’t trust you at all, can I?”
“You can trust me with your life, Alexandra. You already have.”
She choked out a noise of disbelief and walked away, shedding the gown onto the floor and closing herself into the bathroom.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, accepting that it had been a bad move to not tell her, but he really had hoped it would jar her memory into coming back.
When she came out fifteen minutes later, her face was clean and she wore a white robe. She checked as she saw him.
“I should have warned you,” he acknowledged. “But that’s how I learned to play when I want something.”
“Dirty?”
“Yes,” he said without apology. “I want you, Alexandra. I want my wife back.”
She studied him for a long time, mouth pouted in sorrow. Then sighed.
“I will never again be the woman you married. I need you to accept that, Rafael. If that’s what you’re holding out for, we should call it quits right now.” Her somber, rational tone sent a preternatural shiver down his spine. A sort of panic.
“All right. It wasn’t just your memory I was testing,” he admitted. “I wanted to see your reaction to her.” He wanted to pace, but his freaking leg was broken. He had to make do with sitting on the end of the bed and removing the jacket that was causing him to overheat. “It’s childish, but I wanted to see if you had the same instant connection to her.”
“What do you mean?” Only one lamp burned, but she picked up her sunglasses and put them on.
