Yawning, she tossed her long, dark tresses carelessly off her shoulders as she exited the elevator, then slowly sauntered toward the hotel door and the limousine that was waiting just outside for her. She was late; she knew that. They had a plane to catch and she'd kept him waiting nearly thirty minutes as it was, but she didn't give a damn. She didn't know if it was the pills or the fatigue - or a combination of both - but tonight she felt both restless and defiant, and since defiance was one of the few freedoms afforded her, she wore it constantly like her armor, protecting what little she had of herself with these tiny acts of petulance.

But she knew that she was pushing things tonight with her deliberate slowness, and she wondered just how far he'd allow her to go before he reined her in this time? She supposed it depended on his mood, for if nothing else, Armand Cordoba was a volatile man, prone to fits of anger and jealousy, followed just as quickly by periods of outright gentleness and loving generosity.

In the past he'd allowed her smaller challenges to pass with only minor irritation - and minor retribution - but tonight she'd been deliberately obstinate in refusing to move any faster than she had, and she supposed it would earn her a stern reprimand, if not outright punishment. Not that he'd ever raised a hand to her. No, his abuse of her was far less obvious, though far more sinister, as he slowly took away more and more of her freedoms, meting them back to her one at a time on those occasions when she actually pleased him by doing what he expected.

She figured that after this stunt she'd probably be confined to their hotel suite in the next country for the duration of their stay there, but she'd live with that. In fact, it was probably better than the alternative, which would be to be at his side for nearly every moment, meeting and smiling with all of the leering men and vacuous women with whom he socialized. She hated that, but as his fiancée it was expected of her, and she supposed she owed him that much.

The doorman opened the door for her as she finally reached the hotel entrance. "Mademoiselle," he smiled, bowing as she passed through the doorway and out into the night.

She nodded politely, offering a cool smile in return. The man had been kind to her during her stay but she held back any acknowledgment of that kindness lest her simple gratitude be misinterpreted by the man impatiently awaiting her arrival at their limo.

"You're late - as usual," Armand scolded, the slight frostiness of his tone indicating the degree of his annoyance. Despite his apparent irritation with her, he still couldn't resist the urge to fondle her, as he reached to caress her shoulder, then steal a kiss from her.

Instantly she flinched from his touch, deftly fending off his advances. "Ah, but I'm worth the wait," she countered, arching her perfectly shaped eyebrows as she peered at him over her $500 Fendi sunglasses.

He merely shook his head, suppressing his urge to smile at her impudence despite his annoyance at her deliberate slowness on a night when they were on a tight schedule. Then he motioned for her to get into the limo.

She was right: she *was* worth the wait, in every sense. She was so beautiful, and dressed in these silk pants and sheer shirt, both of which fit her luscious body like a second skin, it was hard for him to stay angry with her for long. And as they settled into the plush leather seats of the limo, he was already imagining how sensuous she would look beside him on the beaches of Rio, their next destination, and how she would finally succumb to his seduction beneath the full Brazilian moon. She was oblivious to his lustful thoughts, instead preoccupied with staring off into the night, escaping inside herself; the only place that remained untouched by Armand Cordoba's constant presence in her life.

This was the dance that they always did: her parry to his thrust, and if there was any normalcy to their relationship, then this was it. In public, she generally allowed him the privilege of a kiss or a caress to keep up the image that they were lovers, but privately she had yet to allow him any further intimacies, nor had she ever allowed him to bed her. And thus far he had respected her wishes on that front - one of the few things he did seem to respect about her.

While he seemed to see theirs as a loving relationship, she saw it as a love/hate relationship; he professed his love for her, though his actions toward her often seemed contrary to that; while she felt nothing but hatred for him… No, she couldn't even call it hatred because that implied deep feelings for the man. Most times she felt nothing at all for him, although there were times that she felt gratitude toward him for saving her life, but she had certainly never felt anything for him that she could ever call love.

She often wondered why he seemed content with their relationship as it stood - to keep her forever as a trophy on his arm? After all, he was a handsome man with both money and power, who could have any woman in the world. With the mere snap of his fingers, beautiful women seemed to bow at his feet, yet he insisted on keeping her as "his intended." Despite his public claims that they were engaged, in private she knew that he often had other women to service his carnal needs, and that relieved her. As long as there were others who went willingly into his bed, it meant that he would not force her to yield to satisfy his sensual desires.

Despite her lack of emotional attachment to him in the months that they had been together, he still insisted that they belonged together. He said that she was his fiancée before the accident, and that she had loved him then and that she would again, and that he would wait patiently until she was ready to give herself fully to him once again, body and soul. But from her point of view, he was in for a very long wait.

She had no memories of ever loving Armand. In fact, she had no memories of anything beyond the previous year, when she had awakened in a small, private clinic in the Bahamas. The nurses and doctors, who cared for her there, told her that her name was Veronica Devereaux and that she had been in a coma for several months. They said that she had been involved in a boating accident off the coast of Nova Scotia and had been transferred there from a private clinic in Canada by her fiancé, Armand Cordoba, who had an estate on one of the nearby islands. They said that she had no family, other than Cordoba, and that Cordoba had been a frequent visitor over the months that she'd lingered in the coma. He was always very attentive to her needs and had paid for her complete care while she was there at the clinic. And after she was released from the clinic, he opened his home to her for her months of slow and painful recuperation.

She remembered nothing of the accident or of her life before she awoke in that clinic, over a year ago. After months of intense physical and psychological therapy, she'd been able to regain all of her muscle tone and physical abilities, but her memories were all still lost to her. The doctors told her that she would most likely never remember her life before and that for her own sanity she should just accept what others told her about herself and move on from there.

So that is what she had tried to do, although it had been neither easy nor comfortable for her, especially her relationship with Armand Cordoba. The doctors had given her prescriptions to handle her residual pain, but they had offered nothing to help assuage her residual doubts about who she was and what had been her life before. But most of the time the pills kept both her physical and emotional pain at bay, making life at least tolerable, if never perfect. She wondered if there had ever been a time in her life when things were perfect for her - when she could stand to see the sun rise and set without a pill to make it both physically and emotionally bearable?

She felt Armand move to pull her closer to him, and she instinctively folded her hands in her lap, her fingers immediately tracing over the intricacies of the antique ring on her left hand. It was an exquisite pink sapphire; Armand had told her that the ring was his gift to her to seal their betrothal just before the accident.

She glanced down at the ring now, and she felt a warmth surround her as she stared at the beauty of the ring. This ring had been one of the first things that she had seen when she had awakened after the accident, and it had been her touchstone ever since - the one thing that she knew was hers from "before" and the one thing that kept her tied to what she knew was her "real past." Whenever she looked at the ring she felt truly loved, but that was the only time she ever felt that way. She smiled at the feelings this ring evoked in her, and she wondered if these were actual remembered feelings or if it were just wishful thinking on her part? Had life been perfect for her - for them - when this had been slipped onto her finger?

Armand professed his love for her almost daily, yet she never truly felt loved by him. Perhaps it was because she couldn't understand his definition of love, which seemed to be more about control and obedience than it did about mutual respect and unselfish devotion. How had she ever fallen in love with such a man and agreed to marry him, she wondered? Had she changed so drastically since the accident that her wants and desires had also changed, which is why he no longer filled the hollow space that was her heart?

The story that Armand had told her about their engagement had seemed real enough and she was truly moved by his support of her since she'd awakened, so over the many months that they had been together she had simply come to accept that every aspect of their engagement was real, although she had yet to accept him as her lover. But lately - in those moments when she was most cognizant of both her physical and emotional pain - she couldn't shake the feeling that, while the ring and the love surrounding it felt real, her supposed love for Armand Cordoba before the accident did not, and she sensed that there was something - or someone - who was missing for her.

And her many recent dreams and fleeting images of another man and another time made her doubt Armand even more and made her wonder about what had truly been her life before. And now, as she stared out at the passing horizon of the Parisian night, she wondered more than anything if there was someone else out there who had loved her enough to give her this ring as a token of their love and still loved her and missed her and wanted her back - or was all of this just a fantasy born of a drug-induced haze?

…Little did she know that at that moment on the rapidly disappearing street behind them, the very man who'd placed that treasured ring on her finger had caught a brief glimpse of her as she'd entered the limo and was now trying desperately to reach her…