Mona Lisa Eclipsing Read online

  “Then you know as much as I,” Dr. Torres announced, closing his bag. “Medicine and the human body is not an exact science unfortunately. I called the hospital and spoke to the doctor who examined you. You suffered a traumatic brain injury, enough that they initially feared a skull fracture and hemorrhaging inside the brain.”

  “A fracture? Bleeding? Just from tripping and hitting my head on the ground?”

  “You hit your head on a rock very hard, according to Senor Carderas. The doctor swore you had a positive Babinski when he first examined you.” He gazed at me as if that should have some meaning, and it did. A positive Babinski reflex, fanning of the big toe upon stimulation of the sole of the foot, indicated a significant problem in the central nervous system . . . like cerebral hemorrhaging.

  “But your CAT scan was negative, and you proved only to have a concussion,” he concluded.

  “And amnesia,” I added. “Mustn’t forget that. Will I regain my memory?”

  “What would you tell your own patients?” Dr. Torres asked.

  “That I may or may not. That no one really knows. Only time will tell.”

  “Precisely. I am a general practitioner, not a specialist, however. I will be happy to refer you to a neurologist.”

  “No need,” I said. “He’ll probably run a bunch of tests, charge a lot of money, and then tell me the same thing you just did.”

  Dr. Torres gave me a sympathetic smile. “Look at it this way, Miss Hamilton. You lost only a small part of your memory, and have kept the most important parts: you still know who you are. Your injury could have been much worse.”

  The doctor’s words stayed with me after Roberto saw the doctor out.

  Your injury could have been much worse.

  I wondered for a moment if it had been.

  A positive Babinski . . . Could my skull really have been fractured? Could I have been bleeding into my brain and my body’s unusually rapid healing ability repaired the damage in the few hours it had taken to travel here and have the CAT scan done? Most likely I just had a simple concussion, but the long length of time I must have been unconscious—several hours—bothered me.

  “Darn it,” I said when Roberto returned. “I forgot to ask him about this.” Turning around, I unzipped the back of the dress enough to reveal the tiny red mark between my shoulder blades, wondering why the more severe injuries had been healed while the lesser injuries still remained. “I noticed this while showering. It looks like a puncture wound.”

  “A puncture wound?” Roberto said. “Where . . . here?”

  I shivered as I felt his finger lightly brush over the spot. Awareness flared up bright and hot between us but controllable, or more accurate to say, controlled.

  “Do you know what it is, what caused it?”

  “Perhaps you fell on something sharp when you hit the ground,” he said.

  “Like a sharp stick that happened to be shaped exactly like a needle?” I asked a little dryly.

  “Why do you say that?” He gently turned me around to face him. “Do you remember anything?”

  “No, it was just that it was my first thought also, that I had fallen against something sharp on the ground. Only it looks more like a needle mark to me. Did the doctors give me a shot or something?”

  “In your back? Not that I know of.”

  “Maybe they did, and you just don’t know about it.”

  He took my hands in his, making me shiver slightly with awareness. “I was with you the entire time, querida. It does not look like a needle mark to me.” He looked a bit concerned over why I was pressing the matter.

  I couldn’t explain my certainty to him without revealing my ability, and despite the sense of intimacy that was quickly flaring up between us, I wasn’t ready yet to do that. Hiding my differences from other people was a lifelong habit, deeply ingrained.

  “I’m sorry. You’re probably right. It was likely from just a sharp twig on the ground.”

  He smiled, releasing my hands. “I shall have Maria bring you up a salve.”

  “No, no. I’m fine, really. I feel much better after taking a shower and getting cleaned up. Dr. Torres mentioned a CAT scan. That’s much more expensive than an X-ray.”

  “Please, no more mention of money,” he said, laying a kiss on my hand. The sizzling sensation of his lips brushing my skin and the bright flare-up of that tightly contained attraction between us snatched my breath, and any further words, away from me. “Just rest and recover for now. We shall talk more later.”

  Wow. Talking later wasn’t what came to my mind. More like seeing if his lips running over other parts of my body would be as staggering as that light brush against my hand. His touch left me in a mute sensual daze; it was almost a relief when he closed the door behind him.

  Lying down on the clean bed, which had been freshly changed, and remembering the extremely dirty state of my clothing when I had first awakened, I mentally added a new bedspread as well as the CAT scan to the growing tally of what I owed my gracious host.

  SIX

  I RESTED, NOT for the brief fifteen or twenty minutes that I had expected, but for several long hours during which time I slept deeply. When I awoke, I found my hand reaching for something that was not there.

  I sat up and thought, Where is my necklace?

  A panicked rush out of the bedroom brought me my first glimpse of the main house. It shouted of a degree of wealth that was far beyond anything I’d ever seen before. Roberto’s home was styled like a grand palazzo, with marble floors, fluted columns, massive windows, and ceilings that were impressively high—classical elegance blended with modern sophistication. The dress Maria had provided me, that had felt too formal and overdressed before, now seemed perfectly fitting in the graceful splendor of the residence. I ventured down the wide staircase feeling a bit like Alice dropped down the rabbit hole.

  Heartbeats sounded toward the back of the house. I was about to head over there when Maria came through a door bearing a tray. On it was a plate of some sliced exotic fruit and a glass of orange juice, freshly squeezed, if the juicy pulp was anything to go by.

  “Miss Lisa, you up. Good, I tell Senor Carderas. Come.” Leading me to another room, she set the tray down on a small table overlooking the gardens outside, and gestured for me to sit. “This for you. You eat and drink now. You want medicina for head?”

  “Medicine? No, thanks. My headache’s gone now.” And not only was my headache gone, but the lump on the side of my head had disappeared. The purple bruises on my arm, openly displayed by the short-sleeve dress, were also yellow now. Five days of healing accomplished in several hours of rest. If Maria thought it odd in any way, she didn’t comment on it.

  I was savoring the last bite of the delicious fruit when Roberto appeared. I hadn’t thought much of his clothing before, only that he favored white and cream-colored clothes that set off his dark skin tone rather nicely, but on closer inspection I saw that it was very much in keeping with his home, a casual lord-of-the-manor style of dress.

  “You look much better,” Roberto said, sitting down beside me and taking my hand so that a sharp frisson of awareness flared up between us again with the contact.

  “I feel much better. This is the most delicious fruit I’ve ever tasted. What is it?” I gestured to my plate where only the thick outer green peel and black discarded seeds of the fruit remained. I had spooned out and eaten every single bite of the inner, custardlike white flesh.

  “Cherimoya,” Roberto answered, looking divinely handsome sitting there. “Mark Twain once declared it the most delicious fruit known to man.”

  “I would have to agree. Do they have this in the United States?”

  “Why?” asked Roberto.

  “Because it would be criminal if I never tasted this again.”

  “Stay here with me and you can have all the cherimoya you can eat.”

  Our conversation had been the easy kind that casual acquaintances had with one another. His last comment, though, ha
d been uttered with what sounded very much like sincerity. As if he had truly meant it.

  Stay here with me . . .

  I did what any woman who wasn’t sure if the man she was speaking to was joking or not would do. I laughed and withdrew my hand from his light grasp. “Wow, if you’re an example of that famous Latin charm, no wonder it’s, well . . . famous.”

  He held my gaze. “Will you consider it?”

  “What?” I needed him to say it, in case I was mistaken.

  “Staying here with me.”

  I blew out a breath. “You’re kidding.”

  “I do not kid,” Roberto said with grave sincerity. “I ask that you think about it.”

  The idea that he was serious—that he meant it—was overwhelming. “Why? You hardly know me. I hardly know you.”

  “I know that you are like me, and that I have been alone all my life until now, as have you. I know that our chemistry is alike, a small miracle to me.” He grazed his thumb lightly over the back of my hand, sparking that strange surge of energy between us again. “It does not sound as if you have much to return to: no job, no family, no close lovers or friends. You have been alone all your life, like me, and I have never felt anything like this before with another woman. It would be criminal, as you say, not to taste this, explore it . . . savor it.”

  Oh my. For someone who had never been attracted to a woman before, he was very, very good—smooth and suave and tantalizingly seductive.

  My hand crept up automatically in a nervous gesture to touch the necklace I had always worn. “My necklace,” I said, reminded of its loss. “What happened to my necklace? I know I was wearing it when I fell. I always wear it.”

  “Do you?” he asked curiously.

  “Yes, it was the only thing I had when they found me abandoned as an infant on the doorsteps of an orphanage.”

  “So you have had it ever since you were a child?”

  “Yes, it’s the only thing I have from my mother. Please tell me you have it.”

  He nodded, and I felt a surge of relief well up within me. “Oh, thank God. I would have been devastated if I had lost it.”

  “It looked valuable, so I put it in my safe for safekeeping and forgot about it until you reminded me. I shall go get it. No, stay here. Allow me to bring it to you.”

  My joy, when he returned, turned to puzzlement. The item he laid carefully down on the table was a necklace all right, but one I had never seen before. “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Your necklace. The one that you were wearing when you fell and hit your head.”

  “But the necklace I’ve always worn is just a simple cross. This . . . I don’t recognize it.” I looked down at an exquisite cameo, the likeness of a man carved upon its ivory surface with scroll-like writing framing the rim. The bottom was engraved with the fierce image of a stylized dragon. As I ran my finger over the engraving, the present world hazed over and the man whose likeness was carved onto the cameo was looking at me. His eyes were a deep, rich chocolate brown.

  “The dragon denotes my lineage and is the crest of our family line. Will you wear this?” he asked.

  With an abrupt wrench, I returned back to present reality.

  “What’s the matter?” Roberto asked, grasping both my hands.

  I was shaking, trembling.

  “I don’t know. I think . . . I remembered something—someone. The man who gave me this necklace. He said the dragon denoted his lineage, his family line.”

  “Who was he?” Roberto demanded.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  Roberto stared at the cameo image as if by sheer will he could make it impart its secrets to him.

  Picking up the bright silver chain, I examined the scrolled writing more closely to see if it might jar loose some more memory.

  “That does not hurt you?” Roberto asked, sounding odd.

  “What?”

  “The silver chain you are holding.”

  “No? Why should it?” I asked.

  He gazed at my fingers holding the delicate chain. When I continued to simply hold it with no sign of discomfort, he pushed his chair back and stood. “How interesting,” he murmured. “Do you remember anything else?”

  “No. Nothing else,” I said, disappointed and highly perturbed. Who was that strange man with the dark chocolate eyes? And why was I wearing the necklace he had given me instead of the silver cross that meant so much to me? Could he have been the fourth man my landlord had mentioned? The one he described as average looking?

  “Lisa,” Roberto said, drawing my attention back to him, “we have mentioned that we are alike, you and I, but have tiptoed around the matter. I think it time to lay our cards on the table. I shall go first. I heal unusually fast like you do,” he said, gesturing to the fading bruises on my arm. “I am also faster and stronger than anyone else I know. I can hear things other people cannot hear, and see things from a great distance away that other people cannot see.”

  I felt as if my heart stilled for a moment as he said aloud the secrets I had kept from others all my life.

  “What about you?” he asked softly.

  As my heart regained its rhythm and thumped loudly in the silence, I realized something else I had not noticed till now. Roberto’s heartbeat was beating as slow as mine, at around fifty beats per minute. Most heartbeats ranged from sixty to a hundred beats per minute. Another shared oddity between us.

  “Me, too,” I whispered, intimidated even now by speaking of these things aloud. “Ever since puberty I’ve been faster and stronger than other people, my senses—hearing, seeing, smell—all sharper, more acute.”

  “But this.” He gestured to the silver chain I still held in my hand. “This does not hurt you or weaken you in any way?”

  “No. Why should it?”

  He searched my eyes as if he would glimpse all their secrets. “No reason,” he said, sitting back down.

  I blew out a breath, feeling a curious relief from unburdening myself. “Oh my God, I can’t believe it. You’re just like me.” Hesitantly, shyly, I laid my left hand over his chest to feel his unusually slower heartbeat. “Your heart even beats slower, like mine.”

  He held himself very still beneath my touch.

  “What?” I asked. “Why are you grinning and looking at me like that?”

  “Because it is the first time you have voluntarily touched me.”

  I drew back my hand, flustered. “I’m sorry, I—”

  “No, do not apologize. I like it very much when you touch me. Why are you staring at me like that?”

  The words left my mouth before I had a chance to think. “Because when you smile you go from being remarkably handsome to almost irresistible.” I felt my cheeks grow warm. “Did I just say that out loud?”

  Roberto laughed, and the sound of his laughter was as compelling and tantalizing as the rest of him. “Yes, to my great enjoyment. I shall endeavor to smile more for you, my sweet Lisa,” he said, reaching for my hand.

  I drew back, my gaze dropping to the necklace that lay between us. “No . . . I’m sorry. You make flirting so easy, so fun, and I admit to a powerfully strong attraction to you . . . but I don’t remember the last few months of my life. I don’t know if there might be someone else I’m committed to, unlikely though that may be.”

  “You do not wear a wedding or engagement ring,” Roberto observed carefully.

  “No.” I looked down at my bare fingers. “I don’t.”

  Gently he lifted my chin until our eyes met again. “Then count me in the running.”

  “Of what?”

  “A suitor, like this other man you remember may be.”

  “More likely he was just a new friend I had made, or perhaps a neighbor or a coworker.”

  “There you go again, denigrating yourself.”

  “With good reason. I know I’m not beautiful. I’m just a very plain-looking woman.”

  “You do not know what I see. But, gracias Dios, I know that you fe
el what I feel.” That ever-present heat flared up between us like an invisible muscle flexing, testing. “You are special to me, as I know I am to you.”

  Roberto started his campaign that very night.

  The coastal city of Cancun, I found, had a high-gloss charm. Sprawled like a languid queen amidst the natural splendid beauty of white-sand beaches and indigo sea, it abounded with four-star hotels, glittery nightclubs, and international tourists roaming the night looking for fun.

  “It’s just dinner,” he said when I protested the expensive-looking restaurant his driver pulled up in front of. “You are doing me a favor by keeping me company while I eat, truly.”

  We dined in discreet luxury, ushered immediately to a corner table, bypassing the line, the maitre d’ and waiter treating us like royalty.

  “They seem to know you,” I said, grateful for the lace shawl that hid the yellow bruises on my arms.

  “I dine here often,” Roberto said.

  Digging immediately into the food, I found myself unexpectedly ravenous. “Everyone’s looking at us,” I whispered.

  “That’s because they are all wondering who my lovely companion is.”

  It proved to be an accurate surmise. Not that I was lovely, but that people here were curious as to who I was. Other diners, acquaintances that Roberto knew, stopped by our table—a dapper gentleman who proved to be the mayor of the city, a local real estate mogul, even the owner of the hotel we were dining in. It appeared the crème de la crème of society was here, all peering at me with avid interest in their eyes.

  Roberto introduced me simply by my name. The proprietary hand he laid casually around my shoulder, however, defined our relationship more clearly than any words he could have uttered.

  “What are you doing?” I asked in a low voice.

  “I am staking my claim to everyone.” With a smile, he laid a gallant kiss on the back of my hand, sending a chorus of whispered speculation buzzing anew throughout the dining room.

  “I told you before,” Roberto murmured, stroking my hand, sending tingling warmth coursing through me, “other women have never interested me the way you do.”