The Italian's Forgotten Baby

The Italian's Forgotten Baby
Raye Morgan

Architect Marco Di Santo lost two weeks of his life and he wants them back. After an accident on holiday left him with amnesia, he’s returned to the beautiful island of Ranai to find his memories. Socialite-in-hiding Shayna Pierce spent those two weeks falling in love with Marco. Now, taking him to the places they visited before, reliving their romance, breaks her heart – because Marco can’t remember. And nothing can prepare him for her baby bombshell…

“I don’t have any idea who you are. I feel like I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

For a second or two Shayna felt sick. The room seemed to sway. She closed her eyes and steadied herself, then looked him in the eye again, searching hard. The man she’d spent all that time with just a few weeks ago had to be in there somewhere, but she couldn’t find any sign of him at the moment.

“Is this some kind of game, Marco?”

“No. It’s not.” He shook his head, holding her gaze. “I’m serious as a midnight clock.”

She pulled her arms in close around her. It was a steamy, warm tropical day, but she was shivering. Something in his words, something in his attitude, had chilled her to the core.

“I do not know who you are. I can’t remember a thing.”

Dear Reader

Living on a South Pacific island is different. Those of you who do it know this very well. You live with lush trade winds, elegantly swaying palm trees in the silver moonlight, the thunder of surf on the reef, dancing sunlight glinting on the ocean in the distance. It’s all the background music of your life. I know—I grew up on an island.

Of course there’s also the feeling of isolation, the heat and humidity, the mildew, the bugs and the coconut crabs and the huge snails—but never mind all that. We’ll leave that part out and concentrate on the romantic side of island living.

There’s also a nice earthy innocence to island life. That’s what Shayna Pierce finds when she comes to Ranai to escape the media firestorm lifestyle she’s been living in New York. She finds what she’s searching for among the down-to-earth islanders, but she also finds love when Marco DiSanto appears in her lagoon. Will his presence ruin the idyllic life she’s made for herself? Or will she find her own voice and make a stand for her choices?

So, are you ready to take a little vacation? Hop aboard. We’re heading for an island where anything can happen!

Regards!

Raye Morgan

Raye Morgan has been a nursery school teacher, a travel agent, a clerk and a business editor, but her best job ever has been writing romances—and fostering romance in her own family at the same time. Current score: two boys married; two more to go. Raye has published over seventy romances, and claims to have many more waiting in the wings. She lives in Southern California, with her husband and whichever son happens to be staying at home at the moment.

The Italian’s Forgotten Baby

By

Raye Morgan

MILLS & BOON®

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/)

This book is dedicated to Jenn and her Vespa.

CHAPTER ONE

MARCO DISANTO lowered his long, elegantly lean body into the rickety bamboo chair and rested one elbow casually on the little round sidewalk café table. The heavy heat was offset a bit by the afternoon trade winds. Still, it was a good bet he was the only man on the island crazy enough to be wearing an Italian business suit in this climate.

Was he here on business, or was this a search for lost love? Maybe it was time he made up his mind and acted accordingly. With his free hand, he pulled a crumpled photo out of his pocket and flattened it on the surface of the table. Bracing himself, he glanced at it again.

No matter how often he looked at the picture, the shock of seeing those mesmerizing blue eyes gazing back at him sent a quiver of excitement through him. Eyes like that didn’t belong in real life. He was pretty sure they only existed on the covers of science fiction books or on fantasy movie posters.

But the ticket agent at the Ranai airport had recognized her right away when he’d shown him the photo.

“Oh sure. That’s Shayna. You can probably find her at Kimo’s Café. She works there off and on.”

So here he was, wondering why nothing looked familiar. Out of the corner of his vision, his attention was caught by crisp white shorts encasing a firmly rounded female bottom and set off by long and lovely tanned legs. He didn’t want to make eye contact—not yet—but he turned enough to see a bit more, including a loose, gauzy top that fell provocatively off one lovely shoulder, giving a teasing glimpse of full breasts. Waves of blond curls cascaded almost to her shoulders and framed a pretty face that was alive with laughter. He drew his breath in sharply, muttered something slightly obscene in Italian and looked down at the picture.

Yes, he had the right woman. But he’d never seen her before in his life. Not in the flesh, at any rate.

Who the hell could she be? The man at the airport had called her Shayna, so he supposed that must be her name. Other than that, he knew nothing about her.

He slid the picture into the pocket of his suit coat and sat back at the remote table on the patio of the fashionably shabby waterside café. He would wait. She would have to get to him eventually.

Funny that he couldn’t remember her. Funny that he couldn’t remember anything from the recent two weeks he’d spent here, on vacation in the Traechelle Islands. He’d tried. It just wouldn’t come. Something about the accident—or maybe something about what had happened while he was here—had caused his brain to block it out. The psychiatrist who’d been assigned to him during his recovery had a name for this kind of thing: selective amnesia.

“It will probably begin coming back to you bit by bit,” he’d said, frowning at Marco as though he were a specimen in an experiment. “Interesting case. I hope you’ll keep me apprised as to your progress.”

That was doubtful. If modern science had no answer for him, he would have to deal with this on his own. In the meantime, it was damn annoying. Those two weeks loomed like a black hole in his life. He found it very difficult to try to move on when he had this empty place that needed filling. He knew he’d come to this island resort, but he didn’t know what he’d done while he was here—or whom he’d done it with.

An added problem—he was missing some very important designs he’d been working on. Had he left them here? He needed to know, and he needed to find them, quickly. And so he’d come back to see if he could reconstruct just exactly what had happened to his missing two weeks.

She came out of the café carrying a tray bristling with tropical drinks, all pastel colors and tiny exotic umbrellas. He watched as she set it down on a table crowded with tourists and began to pass the drinks out. Someone said something to her and she laughed, throwing her head back so that her thick blond curls caught the breeze and flew around her face. He could hear her laughter, hear her voice, though she was too far away for him to understand just what she was saying. He stared at her, hard, even pulling off his dark aviator’s glasses for a moment to get a better look. Surely this should strike a chord with him if anything would.

But no. There was nothing.

He pulled the photo out again and looked at it. Yes, it was definitely the same woman. There she was, laughing the same way, and there he was, his arm around her shoulders in a manner that spoke of intimacy. One look said it loud and clear—at the time the picture had been taken, the two of them had been lovers. Just knowing that sent a hot current of interest through his pertinent regions. How could he have wiped his memory clean of something like that?

She picked up the empty tray, throwing a comment back to the table which made those around it erupt with laughter, and he braced himself for the moment her gaze would meet his. What would she do? Would she recognize him? Would she smile and come quickly toward him, reaching out for a hug, a kiss? Would she open up the floodgates to his lost two weeks?

But she turned to another table and began to take their order. He wasn’t going to find out yet. He relaxed. He had another few moments to watch her.

And she was definitely good to look at. She moved with style and grace, and a certain languor that evoked sensuality. She seemed to belong to these islands, like a natural part of the landscape of paradise. Just watching her move made his male instincts sizzle.

But there was no recognition triggered. None at all.

He’d thought just coming back might remove the roadblocks and trigger his memories. So far, that hadn’t happened. Once he’d found the picture, he’d been certain, that if he could find the woman again, that would do it. There was no getting around the fact that this woman was not the sort a man would easily forget.

He watched her weave her way among the tables in the outdoor café. She was coming closer. In another moment, she would see him. The moment of truth.

There was a smile on her lips as she turned. It froze as she caught sight of him. Those blue eyes were even more hypnotic in person, but right now they were filled with shock and then went cold as ice. Turning on her heel, she fled.

It took him another beat to realize she really was running from him. He hadn’t expected that. Rising, he started after her, but a table full of young people had just begun to leave and they filled the aisle, talking and laughing back and forth and blocking his path. By the time he’d made it around the corner she’d taken, he’d lost her. He looked up and down the rutted street, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“Damn,” he swore softly, frowning. Now what?

Shayna Pierce stopped herself short, gulping in air, and looked at her little Vespa. Her impulse had been to hop on and head for the hills. The only trouble was, there were no real hills—not that kind, anyway. What the heck was she doing? It was a small island. She couldn’t hide from him if she tried.

She could always wait for dark and take her motor boat out into the ocean, heading for the even smaller island of Coco where she’d been hanging out for the last month or so, just in case. But in the meantime, what was she going to do? Stay concealed in this dusty lean-to? Hardly.

She sighed, wheeling out her little Vespa. She was pretty sure he would be in the road, looking for her. She was surprised he hadn’t followed her right into the shed. He knew where she parked it when she worked at Kimo’s Café. Stopping, she took a deep breath before stepping out into the sunlight again.

Why was he back? Her emotions buzzed like a swarm of angry bees, making her dizzy. She had to admit just seeing him made her heart stutter and her stomach feel as if she’d just started off on a roller-coaster ride. What could you do when your feelings turned traitor like that?

Fight them. That was all that was left to do. But running wasn’t going to change all that. She had to face him and have it out. There was no other way, now that he was here. With a soft groan of regret, she pushed the double doors open and wheeled her Vespa out into the road.

There he was, facing out of town, hand shading his eyes, looking in the wrong direction. She kick-started the engine on her scooter and he whipped around, staring at her. With as haughty a look as she could manage, she settled into the seat and drove forward, pulling up next to him.

“Hop on,” she said. “We need to talk.”

Pulling off his sunglasses, he looked directly into her eyes. He seemed to be searching for something he didn’t find. There was no warmth in his gaze, no evidence of shared memories, of past intimacy. Her heart sank. He really did despise her now, didn’t he? Probably had from the beginning. Well, in many ways, the feeling was mutual.

Oh, brother—whom was she trying to kid? Just looking at him made her heart thump like a bass drum and the rest of her innards go all warm and gooey inside. He was such a beautiful man with his Roman profile, his huge dark eyes shaded by eyelashes thicker than any male should be allowed to have. And then there was that long, gorgeous body and those wonderful hands…

No! She looked away. She had to stop before she fell off the Vespa in an old-fashioned fainting spell.

“Come on,” she said impatiently. “We’ll go to my place. We can talk there.” She threw him a quick glare, just to keep her spirits up. “Unless you’re too busy,” she added, ready to be defensive if he gave her reason to be.

He didn’t say a word. Instead, he swung his leg over the seat behind her, grabbed the edge for balance, and held on as she started off.