The Second Mrs. Adams Read online

  “Are we related, then?”

  His mouth twisted again, this time with a wry smile. “Indeed, we are, my love. You see, Joanna, I’m your husband.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE nurses all knew him by name, but after ten days there was nothing surprising in that.

  What was surprising, David thought as his driver competently snaked the Bentley through the crowded streets of midtown Manhattan, was that he’d become something of a celebrity in the hospital.

  Morgana, his P.A., had laughed when he’d first expressed amazement and then annoyance at his star status.

  “I’m not Richard Gere, for heaven’s sake,” he’d told her irritably after he’d been stopped half a dozen times for his autograph en route to Joanna’s room. “What in hell do they want with the signature of a stodgy Wall Street banker?”

  Morgana had pointed out that he wasn’t just a Wall Street banker, he was the man both the President of the World Bank and the President of the United States turned to for financial advice, even though his politics were not known by either.

  As for stodgy… Morgana reminded him that CityLife magazine had only last month named him to its list of New York’s Ten Sexiest Men.

  David, who’d been embarrassed enough by the designation so he’d done an admirable job of all but forgetting it, had flushed.

  “Absurd of them to even have mentioned my name in that stupid article,” he’d muttered, and Morgana, honest as always, had agreed.

  The media thought otherwise. In a rare week of no news, an accident involving the beautiful young wife of New York’s Sexiest Stockbroker was a four-star event.

  The ghouls had arrived at the Emergency Room damned near as fast as he had so that when he’d jumped from his taxi he’d found himself in a sea of microphones and cameras and shouted questions, some so personal he wouldn’t have asked them of a close friend. David had clenched his jaw, ignored them all and shoved his way through the avaricious mob without pausing.

  That first encounter had taught him a lesson. Now, he came and went by limousine even though he hated the formality and pretentiousness of the oversize car he never used but for the most formal business occasions. Joanna had liked it, though. She loved the luxury of the plush passenger compartment with its built-in bar, TV and stereo.

  David’s mouth twisted. What irony, that the car he disliked and his wife loved should have become his vehicle of choice, since the accident.

  It had nothing to do with the bar or the TV. It was just that he’d quickly learned that the reporters who still hung around outside the hospital pounced on taxis like hyenas on wounded wildebeests. Arriving by limo avoided the problem. The car simply pulled up at the physicians’ entrance, David stepped out, waved to the security man as if he’d been doing it every day of his life and walked straight in. The reporters had yet to catch on, though it wouldn’t matter, after tonight. This would be his last visit to the hospital.

  By this time tomorrow, Joanna would be installed in a comfortable suite at Bright Meadows Rehabilitation Center. The place had an excellent reputation, both for helping its patients recover and for keeping them safe from unwelcome visitors. Bright Meadows was accustomed to catering to high-profile guests. No one whose name hadn’t been placed on an approved list would get past the high stone walls and there was even a helicopter pad on the grounds, if a phalanx of reporters decided to gather at the gates.

  Hollister pulled up to the private entrance as usual and David waved to the guard as he walked briskly through the door and into a waiting elevator. He was on the verge of breathing a sigh of relief when a bottle blonde with a triumphant smile on her face and a microphone clutched in her hand sprang out of the shadows and into the elevator. She jammed her finger on the Stop button and turned up the wattage on her smile.

  “Mr. Adams,” she said, “millions of interested Sun readers want to know how Mrs. Adams is doing.”

  “She’s doing very well, thank you,” David said politely.

  “Is she really?” Her voice dropped to a whisper that oozed compassion the same way a crocodile shed tears. “You can tell Sun readers the truth, David. What’s the real extent of your wife’s injuries?”

  “Would you take your finger off that button, please, miss?”

  The blonde edged nearer. “Is it true she’s in a coma?”

  “Step back, please, and let go of that button.”

  “David.” The blond leaned forward, her heavily kohled eyes, her cleavage and her microphone all aimed straight at him. “We heard that your wife’s accident occurred while she was en route to the airport for your second honeymoon in the Caribbean. Can you confirm that for our readers?”

  David’s jaw tightened. He could sure as hell wipe that look of phony sympathy from the blonde’s face, he thought grimly. All he had to do was tell her the truth, that Joanna had been on her way to the airport, all right, and then to the Caribbean—and to the swift, civilized divorce they had agreed upon.

  But the last thing he’d ever do was feed tabloid gossip. His life was private. Besides, ending the marriage was out of the question now. He and Joanna were husband and wife, by license if not by choice. He would stand by her, provide the best care possible until she was well again…

  “Mr. Adams?”

  The blonde wasn’t going to give up easily. She had rearranged her face so that her expression had gone from compassion to sincere inquiry. He thought of telling her that the last time he’d seen that look it had been on the face of a shark that had a sincere interest in one or more of his limbs while he’d been diving off the Mexican coast.

  “I only want to help you share your problems with our readers,” she said. “Sharing makes grief so much easier to bear, don’t you agree?”

  David smiled. “Well, Miss…”

  “Washbourne.” She smiled back, triumphant “Mona Washbourne, but you can call me Mona.”

  “Well, Mona, I’ll be happy to share this much.” David’s smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. He raised his arm, shot back the cuff of his dark blue suit jacket, and looked at his watch. “Get that mike out of my face and your finger off that button in the next ten seconds or you’re going to regret it.”

  “Is that a threat, Mr. Adams?”

  “Your word, Mona, not mine.”

  “Because it certainly sounded like one. And I’ve got every word, right here, on my tape rec—”

  “I never make threats, I only make promises. Anyone who’s had any dealings with me can tell you that.” His eyes met hers. “You’re down to four seconds, and still counting.”

  Whatever Mona Washbourne saw in that cold, steady gaze made her jerk her finger from the Stop button and step out of the elevator.

  “Didn’t you ever hear of freedom of the press? You can’t go around bullying reporters.”

  “Is that what you are?” David said politely. He punched the button for Joanna’s floor and the doors began to shut. “A member of the press? Damn. And here I was, thinking you were a…”

  The doors snapped closed. Just as well, he thought wearily, and leaned back against the wall. Insulting the Mona Washbournes of the world only made them more vicious, and what was the point? He was accustomed to pressure, it was part of the way he earned his living.

  OK, so the last week and a half had been rough. Personally rough. He didn’t love Joanna anymore, hell, he wasn’t even sure if he had ever loved her to begin with, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t almost gone crazy with fear when the call had come, notifying him of the accident. He wasn’t heartless. What man wouldn’t react to the news that the woman he was married to had been hurt?

  And, as it had turned out, “hurt” was a wild word to describe what had happened to Jo. David’s mouth thinned. She’d lost her memory. She didn’t remember anything. Not her name, not their marriage…

  Not him.

  The elevator doors opened. The nurse on duty looked up, frowning, an automatic reminder that it was past visiting hours on her lips, but
then her stern features softened into a girlish smile.

  “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Adams. We thought you might not be stopping by this evening.”

  “I’m afraid I got tied up in a meeting, Miss Howell.”

  “Well, certainly, sir. That’s what I told Mrs. Adams, that you were probably running late.”

  “How is my wife this evening?”

  “Very well, sir.” The nurse’s smile broadened. “She’s had her hair done. Her makeup, too. I suspect you’ll find her looking more and more like her old self.”

  “Ah.” David nodded. “Yes, well, that’s good news.”

  He told himself that it was as he headed down the hall toward Joanna’s room. She hadn’t looked at all like herself since the accident.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” she’d asked him, just last evening, and when he hadn’t answered, her hand had shot to her forehead, clamping over the livid, half-moon scar that marred her perfect skin. “It’s ugly, isn’t it?”

  David had stood there, wanting to tell her that what he’d been staring at was the sight of a Joanna he’d all but forgotten, one who lent grace and beauty even to an undistinguished white hospital gown, who wore her dark hair loose in a curling, silken cloud, whose dark-lashed violet eyes were not just free of makeup but wide and vulnerable, whose full mouth was the pink of roses.

  He hadn’t said any of that, of course, partly because it was just sentimental slop and partly because he knew she wouldn’t want to hear it. That Joanna had disappeared months after their wedding and the Joanna who’d replaced her was always careful about presenting an impeccably groomed self to him and to the world. So he’d muttered something about the scar being not at all bad and then he’d changed the subject, but he hadn’t forgotten the moment.

  It had left a funny feeling in his gut, seeing Joanna that way, as if a gust of wind had blown across a calendar and turned the pages backward. He’d mentioned it to Morgana in passing, not the clutch in his belly but how different Joanna looked and his Personal Assistant, with the clever, understanding instincts of one woman for another, had cluck-clucked.

  “The poor girl,” she’d said, “of course she looks different! Think what she’s gone through, David. She probably dreads looking at herself in the mirror. Her cosmetic case and a visit from her hairdresser will go a long way toward cheering her spirits. Shall I make the arrangements?”

  David had hesitated, though he couldn’t imagine the reason. Then he’d said yes, of course, that he’d have done it himself, if he’d thought of it, and Morgana had smiled and said that the less men knew about women’s desires to make themselves beautiful, the better.

  So Morgana had made the necessary calls, and he’d seen to it that Joanna’s own robes, nightgowns and slippers were packed by her maid and delivered to the hospital first thing this morning, and now, as he knocked and then opened the door of her room, he was not surprised to find the Joanna he knew waiting for him.

  She was standing at the window, her back to him. She was dressed in a pale blue cashmere robe, her hair drawn back from her face and secured at the nape in an elegant knot. Her posture was straight and proud—or was there a curve to her shoulders and a tremble to them, as well?

  He stepped inside the room and let the door swing shut behind him.

  “Joanna?”

  She turned at the sound of his voice and he saw that everything about her had gone back to normal. The vulnerability had left her eyes; they’d been done up in some way he didn’t pretend to understand so that they were somehow less huge and far more sophisticated. The bright color had been toned down in her cheeks and her mouth, while still full and beautiful, was no longer the color of a rose but of the artificial blossoms only found in a lipstick tube.

  The girl he had once called his Gypsy was gone. The stunning Manhattan sophisticate was back and it was stupid to feel a twinge of loss because he’d lost his Gypsy a long, long time ago.

  “David,” Joanna said. “I didn’t expect you.”

  “I was stuck in a meeting… Joanna? Have you been crying?”

  “No,” she said quickly, “no, of course not. I just—I have a bit of a headache, that’s all.” She swallowed; he could see the movement of muscle in her long, pale throat. “Thank you for the clothes you sent over.”

  “Don’t be silly. I should have thought of having your own things delivered to you days ago.”

  The tip of her tongue snaked across her lips. She looked down at her robe, then back at him.

  “You mean…I selected these things myself?”

  He nodded. “Of course. Ellen packed them straight from your closet.”

  “Ellen?”

  “Your maid.”

  “My…” She gave a little laugh, walked to the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress. “I have a maid?” David nodded. “Well, thank her for me, too, please. Oh, and thank you for arranging for me to have my hair and my makeup done.”

  “It isn’t necessary to thank me, Joanna. But you’re welcome.”

  He spoke as politely as she did, even though he had the sudden urge to tell her that he’d liked her better with her hair wild and free, with color in her cheeks that didn’t come from a makeup box and her eyes dark and sparkling with laughter.

  She was beautiful now but she’d been twice as beautiful before.

  David frowned. The pressure of the past ten days was definitely getting to him. There was no point in remembering the past when the past had never been real.

  “So,” he said briskly, “are you looking forward to getting sprung from this place tomorrow?”

  Joanna stared at him. She knew what she was supposed to say. And the prospect of getting out of the hospital had been exciting…until she’d begun to think about what awaited her outside these walls.

  By now, she knew she and David lived in a town house near Central Park but she couldn’t begin to imagine what sort of life they led. David was rich, that much was obvious, and yet she had the feeling she didn’t know what it meant to lead the life of a wealthy woman.

  Which was, of course, crazy, because she didn’t know what it meant to lead any sort of life, especially one as this stranger’s wife.

  He was so handsome, this man she couldn’t remember. So unabashedly male, and here she’d been lying around looking like something the cat had dragged in, dressed in a shapeless hospital gown with no makeup at all on her face and her hair wild as a whirlwind, and then her clothes and her hairdresser and her makeup had arrived and she’d realized that her husband preferred her to look chic and sophisticated.

  No wonder he’d looked at her as if he’d never seen her before just last evening.

  Maybe things would improve between them now. The nurses all talked about how lucky she was to be Mrs. David Adams. He was gorgeous, they giggled, so sexy…

  So polite, and so cold.

  The nurses didn’t know that, but Joanna did. Was that how he’d always treated her? As if they were strangers who’d just met, always careful to do and say the right thing? Or was it the accident that had changed things between them? Was he so removed, so proper, because he knew she couldn’t remember him or their marriage?

  Joanna wanted to ask, but how could you ask such intimate things of a man you didn’t know?

  “Joanna, what’s the matter?” She blinked and looked up at David. His green eyes were narrowed with concern as they met hers. “Have the doctors changed their minds about releasing you?”

  Joanna forced a smile to her lips. “No, no, the cell door’s still scheduled to open at ten in the morning. I was just thinking about…about how it’s going to be to go…to go…” Home, she thought. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word, but then, she didn’t have to. She wasn’t going home tomorrow, she was going to a rehab center. More white-tiled walls, more high ceilings, more brightly smiling nurses… “Where is Big Meadows, anyway?”

  “Bright Meadows,” David said, with a smile. “It’s about an hour’s drive from here. You’ll
like the place, Jo. Lots of trees, rolling hills, an Olympic-size swimming pool and there’s even an exercise room. Nothing as high-tech as your club, I don’t think, but even so—”

  “My club?”

  Damn, David thought, damn! The doctors had warned him against jogging her memory until she was ready, until she began asking questions on her own.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Do I belong to an exercise club?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “You mean, one of those places where you dress up in a silly Spandex suit so you can climb on a treadmill to work up a sweat?”

  David grinned. It was his unspoken description of the Power Place, to a tee.

  “I think the Power Place would be offended to hear itself described in quite that way but I can’t argue with it, either.”

  Joanna laughed. “I can’t even imagine doing that. I had the TV on this morning and there was this roomful of people jumping up and down…they looked so silly, and now you’re telling me that I do the same thing?”

  “The Power Place,” David said solemnly, “would definitely not like to hear you say that.”

  “Why don’t I run outdoors? Or walk? Didn’t you say I—we—live near Central Park?”

  His smile tilted. It was as if she was talking about another person instead of herself.

  “Yes. We live less than a block away. And I don’t know why you didn’t run there. I do, every morning.”

  “Without me?” she said.

  “Yes. Without you.”

  “Didn’t we ever run together?”

  He stared at her. They had; he’d almost forgotten. She’d run right along with him the first few weeks after their marriage. They’d even gone running one warm, drizzly morning and had the path almost all to themselves. They’d been jogging along in silence when she’d suddenly yelled out a challenge and sped away from him. He’d let her think she was going to beat him for thirty or forty yards and then he’d put on some speed, come up behind her, snatched her into his arms and tumbled them both off the path and into the grass. He’d kissed her until she’d stopped laughing and gone soft with desire in his arms, and then they’d flagged a cab to take them the short block back home…