Kitabı oku: «Unforgettable», sayfa 2
Chapter 2
Rafael watched as all the color leeched from her face and she swayed unsteadily. With a curse, he reached to grasp her arms. This time she didn’t fight him. She was limp in his hands and he felt the slight tremble beneath his fingers.
“Come, sit down, before you fall,” he said grimly.
He led her to the bed and she sat, her hands going to the edge to brace herself.
She glanced up at him, her eyes haunted. “You expect me to believe you have amnesia? Is that the best you could come up with?”
He winced because he felt much the same about the idea of amnesia. If all she’d said was true and their positions were reversed, he’d laugh her out of the room.
“I don’t ask this to make you angry, but what is your name? I feel at quite a disadvantage here.”
She sighed and rubbed a hand wearily through her thick hair. “You’re serious about this.”
He made a sound of impatience and she pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers.
“My name is Bryony Morgan,” she said quietly.
She bowed her head and black curls fell forward, hiding her profile. Unable to resist, he ran his finger over her cheek and then pushed the hair back behind her ear.
“Well, Bryony, it would seem you and I have a lot to discuss. I have many, many questions as you can well imagine.”
She turned her head to stare up at him. “Amnesia. You’re seriously going to stick to this insane story?”
He tried to remember how skeptical he’d be in her shoes, but her outright disbelief was ticking him off. He wasn’t used to having his word questioned by anyone.
“Do you think I like being punched in the face at a public gathering by a woman claiming to be pregnant with my child when to my knowledge it’s the first time we’ve met? Put yourself in my shoes for a moment. If a man you’d never seen before or had no memory of walked up to you and said the things to you that you’re saying to me, don’t you think you’d be a little suspicious? Hell, you’d probably have already called the cops you keep threatening me with.”
“This is crazy,” she muttered.
“Look, I can prove what happened to me. I can show you my medical records and the doctor’s diagnosis. I don’t remember you, Bryony. I’m sorry if that hurts you, but it’s a fact. I have only your word that we were ever anything to each other.”
Her lips twisted. “Yeah, we can’t forget I’m not your type.”
He winced. Trust her to remember that remark.
“I’d like for you to tell me everything. Start from the beginning. Tell me when and where we met. Maybe something you say will jog my memory.”
A knock sounded at the door and he scowled. “Are you expecting someone at this hour?” he asked when she rose to answer it.
“Room service. I’m starving. I haven’t eaten all day.”
“That can’t be good for the baby.”
She didn’t look as though she appreciated the remark. Gathering her robe tighter around her, she went to the door and a few seconds later, a room service attendant wheeled in a cart bearing covered plates. She signed the bill and offered a halfhearted smile of thanks to the man.
When Rafael and Bryony were alone again she pushed the cart the rest of the way to the bed. “Sorry. Obviously I wasn’t counting on company. I only ordered enough food for one.”
He lifted a brow as she began uncovering the dishes. There was enough food to feed a small convention.
“Sit down and relax. We can talk while you’re eating.”
She settled in the armchair catty-corner to the bed and curled her feet underneath her. As she reached for one of the plates, he studied the face of the woman he’d forgotten.
She was beautiful. No denying that. Not the kind of woman he usually gravitated toward. She was entirely too outspoken for his liking. He preferred women who were gentle and, according to his close friends, submissive.
Quite frankly it made him sound like a jackass. But he couldn’t deny he did like his women a bit more biddable. He found it fascinating that he’d supposedly met and fallen in love with Bryony Morgan, the antithesis of every woman he’d dated for the past five years.
Okay, so he bought that he’d been attracted to her. And yeah, he could buy sleeping with her. But falling in love? In a span of a few weeks?
That was a giant hole in the fairy tale she’d spun.
But she was also a woman, and women tended to be emotional creatures. It was possible she thought he was in love with her. Her hurt and betrayal certainly didn’t seem feigned.
And then there was the fact she was pregnant with his child. It would probably make him seem even more of a bastard, but it would be stupid not to insist on paternity testing. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that she’d made the entire thing up after learning of his memory loss.
He had the sudden urge to call his lawyer and have him tell him whose signature was on the real estate contract for the land he’d purchased sometime during the weeks he’d lost. He hadn’t seen the paperwork since before his accident. He paid people to keep his business running and his affairs in order. Once he scored the deal, there was no reason to look back.
Until now.
Damn but this was a mess. And yeah, he was definitely calling his lawyer first thing in the morning.
“What are you thinking?” she asked bluntly.
“That this is a huge cluster f—”
“You’re telling me,” she muttered. “Only I don’t see what’s so bad from your perspective. You’ve got more money than God. You’re not pregnant, and you didn’t just sign away land that’s been in your family for generations to a man who’s going to destroy it to build some tourist trap.”
The pain in her voice sent an uncomfortable sensation through his chest. Something remarkably like guilt ate at him, but what did he have to feel guilty about? None of this was his fault.
“How did we meet?” he asked. “I need to know everything.”
She toyed with her fork, and her lips turned down into an unhappy frown.
“The first time I saw you, you were wearing an uptight suit, shoes that cost more than my house and you had on sunglasses. It annoyed me that I couldn’t see your eyes, so I refused to speak to you until you took them off.”
“And where was this?”
“Moon Island. You were asking about a stretch of beachfront property and who owned it. I, of course, was the owner, and I figured you were some guy from the city with big plans to develop the island and save all the locals from a life of poverty.”
He frowned. “It wasn’t for sale? I remember it being for sale before I ever went down there. I wouldn’t have known about it otherwise.”
She nodded. “It was. I…I needed to sell it. My grandmother and I could no longer afford the property taxes. But we agreed we wouldn’t sell to a developer. It was bad enough that I was forced to sell land that’s been in my family for generations.”
She broke off, clearly uncomfortable with all she’d shared.
“Anyway, I figured you for another stiff suit, and so I sent you across the island on a wild-goose chase.”
He sent a glare in her direction. For the first time, a smile flirted on the edge of her lips.
“You were so angry with me. You stormed back to my cottage and banged on my door. You demanded to know what the hell I was doing and said I didn’t act like someone who desperately needed to sell a piece of land.”
“That sounds like me,” he acknowledged.
“I informed you that I wasn’t interested in selling to you and you demanded to know why. When I told you of my promise to my grandmother that we’d only sell to someone willing to sign a guarantee that they wouldn’t commercially develop the stretch of beach, you asked to meet her.”
An uncomfortable prickle went up his nape. That didn’t sound like him. He wasn’t one to get personal. Everyone had their price. He would have simply upped his offer until he found theirs.
“The rest is pretty embarrassing,” she said lightly. “I took you to meet Mamaw. The two of you got along famously. She invited you to stay for supper. Afterward we took a walk on the beach. You kissed me. I kissed you back. You walked me back to my cottage and told me you’d see me the next day.”
“And did I?”
“Oh, yes,” she whispered. “And the day after, and the day after. It took me three days to talk you out of that suit.”
He lifted a brow and stared.
Her cheeks turned red and she clamped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, God, I didn’t mean it like that. You wore that suit everywhere on the beach. You stuck out like a sore thumb. So I took you shopping. We bought you beachwear.”
This was starting to sound like a nightmare. “Beachwear?”
Her head bobbed up and down. “Shorts. T-shirts. Flip-flops.”
Maybe the doctor had been right. He lost his memory because he wanted to forget. Flip-flops? It was all he could do not to stare down at his very expensive leather loafers and imagine wearing flip-flops.
“And I wore this…beachwear.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You did. We bought swim trunks, too. I don’t know of anyone who goes to an island and doesn’t pack something to swim in, so we got you some trunks and I took you to my favorite stretch of the beach.”
So far her version of the weeks missing from his memory was so divergent from everything he knew of himself that it was like listening to a story about someone else. What could have possessed him to act so out of character?
“How long did this relationship you say we had go on?” he croaked.
“Four weeks,” she said softly. “Four wonderful weeks. We were together every day. By the end of the first week, you gave up your hotel room and you stayed with me. In my bed. We’d make love with the windows open so we could listen to the ocean.”
“I see.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t believe me.”
“Bryony,” he said carefully. “This is very difficult for me. I’m missing a month of my life and what you’re telling me sounds so fantastical, so utterly out of character for me, that I can’t even wrap my head around it.”
She pressed her lips together but he could still see them tremble. “Yeah, I get that this is difficult for you. But try to see things from my perspective for just a few moments. Imagine that the person you were in love with and thought was in love with you suddenly can’t remember you. Imagine what kind of doubts you have when you discover that everything he told you was a lie and that he made you promises he didn’t keep. How would you feel?”
He stared into her eyes, gutted by the sorrow he saw. “I’d be pretty damn upset.”
“Yeah. That about covers it.”
She stood and pushed the serving cart back so that she could step around it. Her hand crept around the back of her neck and she rubbed absently as she stood just a short distance from where he sat on the edge of the bed.
“Look, this is…pointless. I’m really tired. You should probably go now.”
He shot to his feet. “You want me to go?” It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her if she was out of her damn mind, but that wouldn’t win him any more points with her. “After dumping this story on me, after telling me I’m going to be a father, you expect me to just walk away?”
“It’s what you did before,” she said wearily.
“How the hell can you say that? How do you know what I did or didn’t do when I don’t even know? You said you loved me and that I loved you. I’ve just told you I can’t remember any of it. How do you get that I walked away from you? That I somehow betrayed you? I was in an accident, Bryony. What was the last day you saw me? What did we do? Did I dump you? Did I tell you I was leaving you?”
Her face was white and her fingers were balled into tiny fists at her sides.
“It was the day after we closed on the land. You said you had to go back to New York. It was some emergency you had to attend to personally. You said it wouldn’t take more than a day or two. You told me you’d be back, that you couldn’t wait to come back, and that once you’d returned, we’d discuss what we’d do with the land,” she said painfully.
“What day was it? The date, Bryony. The exact date.”
“June third.”
“The day of my accident.”
She looked stricken. Her hand flew to her mouth. She looked so unsteady that he thought she might fall. He reached out, snagged her wrist and pulled her down to sit beside him. She didn’t fight. She just stared at him numbly.
“How? What happened?”
“My private jet went down over Kentucky,” he said grimly. “I don’t remember a lot. I woke up in a hospital and had no idea how I’d come to be there.”
“And you remember nothing?” she asked hoarsely.
“Only those four weeks. I have some other gaps but it’s mostly people I’m supposed to know or remember but don’t. I didn’t initially remember the circumstances surrounding my decision to fly down to Moon Island, but that’s easy enough to figure out since I bought a piece of property while I was there.”
“So you just forgot me,” she said with a forced laugh.
He sighed. “I know it’s not easy to hear. Try to understand that I’m having the same difficulty believing all you’ve told me. I may not remember you, Bryony, but I’m not a complete bastard. It doesn’t bring me any satisfaction to see how much this hurts you.”
“I tried to call,” she said bleakly. “At first I waited. I told myself all sorts of excuses. It was a bigger emergency. You’re a really busy guy. But then I tried to call the number you’d given me. No one would let me speak to you. There were always excuses. You were in a meeting. You were out of town. You were at lunch.”
“There was a pretty tight security net around me after the accident. We didn’t want anyone to know of my memory loss. We were afraid it would make investors lose their confidence in me. Any sign of weakness will make many people pull out of a deal.”
“It looked—and felt—like a brush-off, and it pissed me off the more time that passed because you didn’t have the balls to tell me to my face.”
“So why now? Why did you wait so long to come here and confront me?”
She stared warily at him as if determining whether he was suspicious of her motives. And maybe he was. It certainly made sense that if she’d been that angry—and pregnant—she wouldn’t have waited four months to confront him.
“I didn’t find out I was pregnant until I was nearly ten weeks along. And Mamaw was having health problems so I was spending a lot of time with her. I didn’t want to upset her by telling her that I suspected you’d seduced me and lied to me—to us—about your plans for the land. It would have broken her heart. Not just about the land. She knew how much I loved you. She wanted me happy.”
Well, damn. He felt about two inches tall.
He ran a hand through his hair and wondered how the hell someone’s life could change so drastically in a single day.
“We have some decisions to make, Bryony.”
She turned and tilted her head in his direction. “Decisions?”
He met her gaze. “You’ve told me that I was in love with you. That you were in love with me. You’ve also said that you’re pregnant with my child. If you think I’m just going to walk out of your hotel room and not look back, you’re insane. We have a hell of a lot to work out and it isn’t going to be resolved in a single night. Or day. Or week even.”
She nodded her agreement.
“I want you to come with me.”
Her eyes widened. Her mouth parted and her tongue swept nervously over her bottom lip.
“Where exactly are we going?”
“If everything you say is true, then a hell of a lot of my life and future changed on that island. You and I are going to go back to where it all started.”
She stared in bewilderment at him. Had she expected him to walk away? He wasn’t sure if he was angry or resigned over that fact.
“We’re going to relive those weeks, Bryony. Maybe being there will bring it all back.”
“And if it doesn’t?” she asked cautiously.
“Then we’ll have spent a lot of time getting reacquainted.”
Chapter 3
“Have you lost your mind?” Ryan demanded.
Rafael stopped pacing and leveled a stare at his friends, who’d gathered in his office.
“Let’s not talk about who’s lost their mind,” Rafael said pointedly. “I’m not the one mounting a search for the woman who screwed me over with my brother.”
Ryan glared at him then shoved his hands into his pockets and turned to stare out the window.
“Low blow,” Devon murmured.
Rafael blew out his breath. Yeah, it had been. Whatever the reason for Ryan trying to track down his ex-fiancée, he didn’t deserve Rafael acting like an ass.
“Sorry, man,” Rafael offered.
Cam leaned back in Rafael’s executive chair and placed his feet up on the desk. “I think you’re both certifiable. No woman is worth this much trouble.” He clasped his hands behind his head and leveled a stare in Rafael’s direction. “And you. I don’t even know what to say to your crazy idea of going back with her to Moon Island. What do you hope to accomplish?”
That was a damn good question. He wasn’t entirely certain. He wanted his memory back. He wanted to know what had made him go off his rocker and supposedly fall in love with and impregnate a woman in a matter of weeks.
He was thirty-four years old, but from all accounts, he’d acted like a teenager faced with his first naked woman.
“She says we fell in love.”
He nearly groaned. Just saying the words made him feel utterly ridiculous.
The three other men stared at him as if he’d just announced he was taking a vow of celibacy. Though at the moment, it didn’t sound like a bad idea.
“She also claims the child she’s pregnant with is yours,” Devon pointed out. “That’s a lot of things she’s claiming.”
“Have you talked to your lawyer?” Ryan asked. “This entire situation makes me nervous. She could do a lot of damage to this deal if she goes public. If she spills her tale of you being a complete bastard, knocking her up and hauling ass before the ink on the contracts was dry, it’s not going to make any of us look good.”
“No, I damn well haven’t spoken to Mario yet,” Rafael muttered. “When have I had time? I’m calling him next.”
“So how long are you going to be gone on this soul-searching expedition?” Cam asked.
Rafael shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “As long as it takes.”
Devon glanced down at his watch. “As much as I’d love to stick around and be amused by all this, I have an appointment.”
“Copeland?” Cam smirked.
Devon curled his lip in Cam’s direction.
“The old man still adamant that you marry his daughter if you want the merger?” Ryan asked.
Devon sighed. “Yeah. She’s…flighty, and Copeland seems to think I’d settle her.”
Rafael winced and shot his friend a look of sympathy.
Cam shrugged. “So tell him the deal’s off.”
“She’s not that bad. She’s just young and…exuberant. There are worse women to marry.”
“In other words, she’d drive a stick-in-the-mud like you crazy,” Ryan said with a grin.
Devon made a rude gesture as he headed toward the door.
Cam swiveled in Rafael’s chair and let his feet hit the floor with a thud. “I’m off, too. Make damn sure you give us a heads-up before you head off to find yourself, Rafe.”
Rafael grunted and claimed his chair as Cam followed behind Devon. Ryan still stood at the window and he turned to Rafael once they were alone.
“Hey, I’m sorry for the crack about Kelly,” Rafael said before Ryan could speak. “Have you been able to find her yet?”
Ryan shook his head. “No. But I will.”
Rafael didn’t understand Ryan’s determination to hunt down his ex-fiancée. The whole fiasco had taken place during the four weeks Rafael had lost, but Devon and Cam had told him that Kelly had slept with Ryan’s brother. Ryan had tossed her out and had seemingly moved on. Only now Ryan had hired an investigator to find her.
“You don’t remember Bryony?” Ryan asked. “Nothing at all?”
Rafael slapped a pen against the edge of his desk. “No. Nothing. It’s like looking at a stranger.”
“And you don’t think that’s odd?”
Rafael made a sound of exasperation. “Well, of course it’s odd. Everything about this situation is odd.”
Ryan leaned back against the window and studied Rafael. “You’d think if you’d fallen head-over-ass for this woman, spent every waking moment for four weeks with her and managed to knock her up in the process that there would at least be some serious déjà vu.”
Rafael tossed the pen down and spun in his chair until his foot caught on the trash can next to his desk. “I get where you’re going with this, Ryan, and I appreciate your concern. Something happened on that island. I don’t know what, but there is a gaping hole in my memory and she’s at the center. I’ve got to go back, if for no other reason than to disprove her story.”
“And if she’s telling the truth?” Ryan asked.
“Then I’ve got a hell of a lot of catching up to do,” Rafael muttered.
* * *
Bryony stood outside the high-rise office building and stared straight up. The sleek modern architecture glistened in the bright autumn sun. The sky provided a dramatic backdrop as the spire punched a hole in the vivid blue splash.
An orange leaf drifted lazily onto her face, brushing her nose before fluttering to the ground. It joined others on the sidewalk and skittered along the concrete until it was crunched beneath the feet of the many passersby.
She was jostled by someone shouldering past her and she heard a muttered “Tourist” as they hurried on by.
The city frightened and fascinated her in equal parts. Everyone was so busy here. No one stopped even for a moment. The city pulsed with people, cars, lights and noise. Constant noise.
How did anyone stand it?
And yet she’d been ready to embrace it. She’d known that if she were to have a life with Rafael, she’d have to grow used to city life. It was where he lived and worked. Where he thrived.
Now she stood in front of his office building feeling hesitant and insecure. There was a seed of doubt and it grew with each breath. She couldn’t help but wonder if she wasn’t being an even bigger fool this time.
“Fool me once, blah blah,” she muttered. “I must be insane to trust him.”
But if he were telling the truth. If his utterly bizarre and improbable story were true, then he hadn’t betrayed her. He hadn’t dumped her. He hadn’t done any of the things she’d accused him of.
Part of her was relieved and the other part had no idea what to think or believe.
“Bryony, is it?”
She yanked her gaze downward, embarrassed that she was still standing in front of the building looking straight up like a moron, and saw two of the men she’d seen with Rafael at the party.
She took a wary step back. “I’m Bryony, yes.”
They were both tall. One had medium brown hair, short and neat. He smiled at her. The other one had blond hair with varying shades of brown. It was longish and unruly. He frowned at her, and his blue eyes narrowed as though she were a nasty bug.
The smiling one stuck out his hand. “I’m Devon Carter, a friend of Rafael’s. This is Cameron Hollingsworth.”
Cameron continued to scrutinize her so she ignored him and focused on Devon, although she had no idea what to say.
“Nice to meet you,” she murmured.
“Are you here to see Rafe?” Devon asked.
She nodded.
“We’ll be happy to take you up.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s okay. I can make it. I mean I don’t want to be a bother.”
Cameron shot her a cool, assessing look that made her feel vastly inferior. Her chin automatically went up and her fingers balled into a fist at her side. She really wasn’t a violent person. Truly. But in the past few days, she’d had her share of violent fantasies. Right now she visualized Cameron Hollingsworth picking himself up off the pavement.
“It’s no bother,” Devon said smoothly. “The least I can do is see you to the elevator.”
She frowned. “You think I’m incapable of finding the elevator? Or are you just one of those really nosy friends?”
Devon’s smile was lazy and unbothered. He looked at her as if he knew exactly how wound up she was and that her stomach was in knots. Maybe she had that beautiful look of a woman about to puke.
“Then I’ll bid you a good day,” Devon finally said.
She swallowed, wishing she hadn’t been quite so rude. It was a fault of hers that she went on the offensive the minute she felt at a disadvantage. She wasn’t going to win any friends acting like a bitch.
“Thank you. It was nice to meet you.”
She injected enough sincerity into her tone that even she believed herself. Devon nodded but Cameron didn’t look impressed. She forced herself not to scowl at him as the two men walked to the street and got into a waiting BMW.
Taking a deep breath, she headed to the revolving door and entered the building. The lobby was beautiful. A study in marble and exposed beams. The contrast between old and modern should have looked odd, but instead it looked opulent and rich.
There was a large fountain in the middle of the lobby and she paused to allow the sound of the water to soothe her. She missed the ocean. She didn’t venture off the island often, and it made her anxious now, in the midst of so much hustle and bustle, to return to the peace and quiet of the small coastal island she’d grown up on.
Her throat tightened and pain squeezed at her chest. Because of her, her family’s land was now in the hands of a man determined to build a resort, golf course and God knew what else. Not that those were bad things. She had nothing against progress. And she certainly wasn’t opposed to free enterprise and capitalism. A buck was a buck. Everyone wanted to make a few. Not that Rafael seemed to have any problem in that area.
But Moon Island was special. It was still untouched by the heavy hand of development. The families that lived there had been there for generations. Everyone knew everyone else. Half the island fished or shrimped and the other half had retired to the island after working thirty years in cities like Houston or Dallas.
There was an unspoken agreement among the residents that they wanted the island to remain as it was. A quiet place of splendor. A haven for people wanting to get away from life in the fast lane. Things just moved slower there.
Now because of her, that would all change. Bulldozers and construction crews would move in, and slowly the outside world would creep in and change the way of life.
She bit her lip and turned in the direction of the elevator. It hurt to think how naive she’d been. And now that she had distance from the whirlwind relationship she’d jumped into with Rafael, she knew how stupid she’d been. But at the time…At the time she hadn’t been thinking straight. She’d been powerless under his onslaught, his magnetism and the idea that he was as caught up as she was.
She angrily jabbed the button for the thirty-first floor then stepped back as others crowded in. It wasn’t as if the thought hadn’t occurred to her to add in a legal clause to the contract, but she’d imagined that it would seem as though she didn’t trust him. Sort of like demanding a prenuptial agreement before marriage. Yeah, it was smart, but it was also awkward and brought up questions she hadn’t wanted at the time.
He’d absolutely sold her on the idea that he wanted to buy the land for personal use. It hadn’t been a corporation name on the closing documents. It had been his and only his. Rafael de Luca. And she’d believed him when he’d said he’d be back. That he loved her. That he wanted them to be together.
She was so deeply humiliated over her stupidity that she couldn’t bear to think about it. Now, when she’d come to New York to confront Rafael over his lies, she was confronted by his extraordinary claim that he’d lost his memory. It was so damn convenient.
But she couldn’t help whispering, “Please let him be telling the truth.” Because if he was, then maybe the rest wasn’t as bad as she thought. And that probably made her an even bigger moron than she’d already proved herself to be.
When she got off the elevator, there was a reception desk directly in front of her. As Bryony walked up, the receptionist smiled. “Do you have an appointment?”
An appointment? It took her a moment to collect herself and then she nodded. “Rafael is expecting me.”
Her voice sounded too husky and too unsure, but the receptionist didn’t seem to notice.
“Are you Miss Morgan?”
Bryony nodded.
“Right this way. Mr. de Luca asked that you be shown right in. Would you like some tea or coffee?” With a glance down at Bryony’s belly, she added, “We have decaf if you prefer.”
Bryony smiled. “Thank you, but I’m fine.”
The receptionist opened a door, and Rafael looked up from his desk. “Mr. de Luca, Miss Morgan is here.”
Rafael rose and strode forward. “Thank you, Tamara.”
“Is there anything you’d like me to get for you?” Tamara inquired politely.
Rafael shook his head. “See that I’m not disturbed.”
Tamara nodded and retreated, closing the door behind her.
Bryony stared at Rafael, such a short distance away. She could smell him he was so close. She was at a complete loss as to how to act around him now. She could no longer maintain the outraged, jilted-lover act because if he couldn’t remember her, he couldn’t very well be blamed for acting as though she didn’t exist for the past months.
But neither could she just take up where they’d left off and throw herself into his arms.
The result was tension so thick and awkward that it made her want to fidget out of her shoes.
He stared at her. She stared at him. One would never guess that they’d made a child together.
Rafael sighed. “Before this goes any further, there is something I have to do.”
Her brows came together and then lifted when he took a step toward her.
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