But if she knew that, she would also know the standard information a healthy mind takes for granted. She would know her own birthday and remember her parent’s faces. She would know where she’d grown up, and if she’d shared her childhood with other siblings.

Oh, Salva had given her answers. Three years ago, when she’d opened her eyes and found herself naked in his huge brass bed, he’d assured her that there was nothing to worry about; she was safe, at home with her loving husband. Then he had filled in the blanks: she was Kristen Harris from St. Petersburg, Florida. She was twenty-one, and as far as he knew, she had no family. He suspected her real name wasn’t Harris, he told her, because she had been eluding the police at the time they’d met.

That particular news had shocked her, and seeing that it had, Salva had patted her hand and assured her that whatever mistakes she’d made were unimportant. That he and the island were her future—the perfect safe haven for a fugitive on the run.

Salva’s words had made sense. Still, Kristen had insisted on seeing a doctor. The next day her husband had sent for a neurologist. Dr. Eden—George to her husband—had explained her condition, calling it retrograde amnesia. In Kristen’s case, the blow to her head in the boating accident had been the culprit for her memory loss. In most cases the amnesia wasn’t permanent, Dr. Eden had attested. There was, however, no medicine or treatment to reverse her condition.

Three years later, Kristen was still playing a waiting game, still unable to remember anything past the morning she’d opened her eyes and learned she was the wife of a perfect stranger. A very dangerous stranger.

“Then you forgive me, Princess?”

Kristen blinked out of her muse. “Forgive you?”

“For this morning.”

She would never forgive him for that or for any of the other times he’d forced himself on her. But Kristen carefully nodded, her gaze drifting over the imposing naked body that lay beside her, knowing full well that whether she forgave him or not had nothing to do with the outcome of the next few hours.

In the moonlight, all six feet, two inches of Salvador Maland radiated danger and authority. He was the perfect male specimen—a tropical tan on an athletic body, and sinfully handsome. His commanding dark eyes almost too exotic for a man.

The island women thought him breathtaking. Kristen thought him frightening. The man behind the model’s build and the sculptured perfection was the epitome of arrogance—second only to his violent temper, which he demonstrated daily by making the maids cry and the guards shake in their boots. More than once Kristen had found herself backed into a corner pleading for mercy for herself or Amanda. And there, standing over her, wearing a smug expression while she squirmed like a vulnerable fish on a deadly hook, was this stranger who called himself her husband.

“I forbid you to leave this room tonight.” He raised his arm to rest his sleek, shaved head in the palm of his hand. “Amanda has a competent nanny. She doesn’t need you sitting up with her or walking the floor.”

Kristen had learned she was pregnant only a few short weeks after she’d opened her eyes and found herself on the island. As if dealing with an empty head and a strange husband wasn’t enough, for the next several months she had endured severe morning sickness. Seven months later she’d given birth to a little blond angel Salva had insisted they name Amanda after his mother, the island’s wealthy Creole grande dame, Miandera Maland.

In the beginning Kristen had wanted to believe Salva. She had wanted the island paradise to be her and Amanda’s refuge, and she had wanted Salva to be their savior—the hero every woman dreams of marrying. But as time passed it became clear that Salva was as dangerous and unpredictable as the jaguars that prowled the wildlife preserve at Cockscomb. He was a ruthless man, and his island paradise Kristen’s prison—a prison she ached to escape.

“Did you hear me? You will not leave my side tonight. Is that understood?”

“Salva, be reasonable. Amanda’s a baby. These rules of yours—”

Like a snake striking on instinct, he wrapped his fingers around Kristen’s neck. She fell silent, knowing what it would cost her if she challenged Salva’s authority further.

Her quick submission brought a gleam of satisfaction to his confident dark eyes. Slowly he traced her small, fragile mouth with a blunt-tipped finger. “Amanda will learn her lessons eventually.” His smile broadened, his eyes turning carnal. “And you, my lovely, have waited long enough to be rewarded for being so forgiving. Lie back, Princess.”

Dread swept over Kristen. “Salva, I don’t feel—”

His long fingers slid down her neck, squeezing and cutting off her protest, demanding that she flatten out on the bed. “You’re amazing,” he praised. “So fragile, and so remarkably perfect. From the moment I saw you, I knew I had to have you.”

Lavish compliments—this was the way it started—the prelude to several hours of enduring a woman’s worst nightmare. Dread seized the moment and Kristen began to beg. “Salva, please… I’m bruised and—”