Page 34 of His Sinful Touch

“My sister Olivia used to expose spiritualist charlatans. She’s the one who opened the agency years ago. She caught them at their tricks and debunked them. But then, one time when she was in the midst of one of her investigations, she herself saw a ghost. Not one, but two. Saw what had happened to them—in the Middle Ages, mind you—and, to top it off, had a struggle with some evil power that had lingered there.”

“Is your sister given to delusions?”

“No! Not at all. Normally she’s the most skeptical of persons. I think she really did see them. Then my sister Kyria came into possession of a huge black diamond that had supposedly belonged to some ancient goddess. She had strange dreams about someone who died long ago in a temple, a worshipper of that goddess. She saw things, knew things that there was no reason for her to know. My brother Reed had dreams that his future wife, Anna, was in danger. Anna herself has visions of the future. My brother Theo saw his future wife in a dream ten years before they met. Not only that, she gave him a medallion, an actual physical object, in that vision. The thing is, I believe them. I know it all happened. Which I suppose means I’m as mad as everyone else in my family.” He stopped, letting out a deep sigh.

Sabrina looked at him for a long moment, then said, “Or perhaps it means that all those things happened.”

“You mean, you believe me?”

“Were you lying to me?”

“No!”

“Then I believe you.” Sabrina had to smile at the astonished look on his face. “Alex.” She stepped forward, taking his hand. “I remember nothing of my life. My world is a blank slate. I have no evidence that such events can’t occur. You, on the other hand, have evidence that they do. I trust you.”

“I can scarcely believe it.” He smiled faintly and moved closer, taking her other hand as well, his fingers interlacing with hers. “I feared you would run from me screaming.”

The look in his eyes warmed her all through. “No more than you ran screaming from the woman who came into your office, dressed up as a man, and told you she had no idea who she was.” He smiled at her words, and she went on, “Many people would have labeled me mad, but you did not. What you’ve told me is astonishing. Amazing. But it’s not insane.”

He leaned down and pressed his lips softly against hers. “You are astonishing. Amazing.”

“Now I will not feel so odd when I tell you that, even though we’ve never met and I can’t remember anyone, when I first saw you standing there in the hallway, I thought I knew you.”

His hands tightened on hers. “Knew me?”

“Yes. As if you were a friend, a... I don’t know, someone I knew and trusted. Until I saw it was obvious that you had no idea who I was.”

“I felt it, too.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “I knew we hadn’t met. I could never have forgotten your face. But I felt somehow that we are connected. Before you came into the building, I...sensed you.”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

“I don’t, either, really. But I knew someone near the office was in trouble, frightened. The next instant, you walked in the front door, and I was certain it was you whom I had sensed.”

“Has that happened to you before?”

“No. Never. I have always had a certain link, I guess you’d call it, with my twin brother.”

“I had heard that twins do.”

“I don’t know what he’s thinking or feeling or doing, but I know if he’s nearby, and I know if he’s in trouble. It was like that...only different.”

Sabrina chuckled. “Well, that’s clear.” The thought that he had never had this connection with anyone else—with another woman—probably should not warm her, but it did. She looked intently into his eyes. “Tonight, when we... Did you...”

“Sense what you felt?” Heat flared in his eyes. “Yes. Did you?”

“Yes.” Sabrina nodded, uncomfortably aware of how much she had felt—her own desire burgeoning in her, fed, it seemed, by the passion flooding from him. She looked away, unable to keep his gaze. “Alex...I fear that what we feel is dangerous.”

“I know.” He sighed, released her hands and turned away. “For all the reasons I said earlier in the house, we should not act on what we feel.”

Sabrina fell in beside him, and they walked on. She didn’t want to think about what they should not do—or what they felt. “So how exactly did you find that house? Did you see it lurking about in my mind?”

“No. I can’t read anyone’s mind, for which I am eternally grateful. I got it from holding the things that you had with you.”

“You mean, when you touched that ring or...or something, you knew the address?”