Kay nodded and waved off the nurse.
Alyssa bent forward, her lips colder than ice as they brushed the forehead of the man in the bed. She noticed a drip of liquid on his forehead. Water? Another splash. No—tears, she realised. Her tears.
Closing her eyes she prayed. For Roland. For herself. For a miracle. For all the years they’d missed. Then she kissed him and murmured, “Au revoir.”
Blinded by tears, she turned for the door, the room a blur.
Joshua hurried toward the hospital elevator, Heath and his younger sister, Megan, flanking him on either side. The panel above the elevator doors showed that a car was already descending and Joshua found himself drumming his fingers as they waited for the doors to open. Hurry. Hurry.
The doors opened. A nurse exited. Then Joshua saw Alyssa coming out. “How did you get here?”
“In a cab.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He turned to his brother and sister. “You go ahead, I’ll see you upstairs.”
While he waited for the elevator to depart, he inspected Alyssa’s features, taking in the hollows under her eyes, the lack of makeup and the way her glorious hair had been pulled back from her face, as though she’d gotten ready in a hurry. In the tatty sweats she looked nothing like the sophisticated woman he’d met … was it only last night?
“What are you doing here?”
Her eyes flicked away from his. “I came to find out if there was any news about Roland’s condition.”
Joshua’s mouth tightened; he suspected she was dissembling. The suspicion of earlier was back in full force. “Why are you so upset? What’s Roland to you?”
She shook her head and didn’t answer.
Joshua couldn’t help thinking about Amy, brokenhearted and sedated for shock. “Heath had to give Amy a sleeping tablet. He’s left her at his home, with his housekeeper watching over her. How could you, Alyssa?”
Alyssa let her hands drop and stared at him blankly.
“She and Roland are getting married in two months. Now it’s all gone to hell because you couldn’t stay away from Roland.”
“What?” Her eyes were stretched wide.
Joshua frowned at the shock in her eyes. He’d surprised himself with the outburst. Normally nothing fazed him. He was the boss—people came to him for guidance and advice. Yet right now he felt like raging at her. For sure he was losing it.
And she was the catalyst.
He pushed a hand through his hair. “Why did you have to come to the ball last night and cause trouble? Was it worth it? Was it worth telling Amy about your relationship with Roland?”
“I didn’t tell Amy a thing.”
Joshua relaxed slightly. So Amy didn’t know that Roland and Alyssa were lovers. But surely Amy must have suspected Roland was embroiled in a heated affair with a woman because Joshua certainly had. All the signs had been there. The constant visits to Auckland, the cell calls that his brother took privately while talking in a low, intimate voice. By not denying her clandestine relationship with Roland, Alyssa had confirmed the suspicions he’d had about his brother for months.
“You must know that if Amy found out about you, it would devastate her. Not to say what it would do to my parents to discover that Roland had been two-timing Amy, their goddaughter. Right now they need to think about all the good things he’s achieved.”
Alyssa’s eyes widened. “You think—” She broke off.
Joshua waited for her to refute that she’d been attempting to seduce Roland away from Amy. Deep down, he wanted that denial. Even though he knew it would be a lie. Instead she stood shifting from foot to foot, her eyes reflecting her inner turmoil.
Raking his hands through his already ruffled hair, he sighed. “It would be better if you left now and returned to Auckland.”
“I haven’t got your jacket here—it’s back in my hotel room.”
He shrugged. “I don’t care about the jacket. I want you gone.”
She said flatly, “I’m not going until—” her throat moved as she swallowed “—until it’s all over. But Amy needn’t worry, I won’t be staying a second more than I have to. I know when I’m not wanted.”
Not wanted? Joshua suppressed the urge to groan. He wanted the woman standing in front of him more than he’d ever desired a woman in his life. But no good could come out of it. Not only had she assassinated his character in print, she’d been his brother’s lover.
And he had no intention of following in Roland’s well-worn footsteps.
Four
Alyssa felt terrible.
Joshua thought she and Roland had been lovers. Worse, he believed she’d come to Saxon’s Folly to steal Roland away from his fiancée. She bit her lip to stop herself blurting out the truth. How could she refute what he believed without revealing the truth about her relationship to Roland?
Yesterday, just before midnight, his parents had demanded that she leave; now Joshua was ordering her to go, too. A sense of hurt settled around her. The sooner she got away from here, the sooner she could retreat to the solitary comfort of her Auckland apartment and lick her wounds in private.
But for now she had to shrug off the hurt. This morning she would hold vigil for as long as necessary. Because this wasn’t about her. It was about her brother.
“Nothing to say?”
The words jerked her attention back to Joshua. He was watching her through dark, suspicious eyes.
“You should go upstairs,” she said quietly. “You don’t want to miss what might be your only chance to say goodbye to Roland because you wasted time arguing with me.” The thought of her brother lying there with little chance of regaining consciousness was unbearable … heartbreaking … and she sniffed back the fresh wave of tears.
“Do you love him very much?” Joshua’s voice held a strange tone.
“Yes, I love him a great deal.” Alyssa didn’t look at him in case he read the depth of the loss and confusion in her eyes. Instead she stared at her feet and noticed that the laces of her left sneaker had come undone. What was a lace? So unimportant in the greater scheme of things.
“He never mentioned you.”
She sighed. How tricky this had all become. Clearly Roland hadn’t wanted his brothers to know that he wasn’t a Saxon by birth. Now, because of her promise to Kay Saxon and out of her respect to her brother, she couldn’t tell Joshua the truth—even though she desperately wanted to. They’d connected on some primal level, she and Joshua. She didn’t like lying to him. Finally she settled for, “We hadn’t known each other very long.”
One brief meeting last night … she’d shaken Roland’s hand. And this morning she’d touched his unconscious body.
From the old cuttings in the town’s archives she knew he’d played rugby as a boy and captained his team to a regional win. She’d shuddered in fear as she’d watched television footage of Roland as a late teen riding his horse over solid fences with a determination that had won him numerous eventing titles. An article in a wine magazine had said Roland joked that he’d liked fast women and good wine. Alyssa had wondered what Amy had thought about that! A recent appearance on a lifestyle television programme hosted by a pretty blonde had revealed that he wore jeans with panache. Every last fact she could glean about him, she had uncovered.
Yet