The Mélendez Forgotten Marriage (12 page)

But of course he hadn't. A man as proud as Javier would not beg anyone to come back to him. Look at what had happened between him and his father. A decade had gone past and he hadn't budged.

‘Emelia?' Javier's deep voice broke through her thoughts. ‘What's going on?'

She met his concerned gaze. ‘I remember…'

He sat upright, tumbling her onto her back, his fingers grasping her by both arms. ‘What? Everything?' he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Bits and pieces. Like when and how we met. Some of our time together. Most of our time together.'

One of his hands moved in a slow stroking motion up and down her arm. ‘So I was right,' he said. ‘Your body recognised me from the first. Your mind just had to catch up.'

She touched his lips with her fingers, tracing over their contours. ‘How could I have forgotten you? I can't believe I didn't remember you. Were you very angry about that?'

Javier captured one of her fingers with his mouth, sucking on it erotically, all the while holding her gaze. He released her finger and said, ‘I have to admit I was angry, especially when you hadn't forgotten Marshall.'

Her eyes dropped from his, a frown pulling at her forehead. ‘I can't explain that. I'm sorry.'

‘It is not important now,' he said. ‘We have to move on.'

‘Javier?' Her soft voice was like a feather brushing along his lower spine.

Javier looked down at her tussled hair and slim naked body. His groin tightened as he thought of having her back in his life permanently. His plans to divorce her seemed so ridiculous now. He had acted stupidly, blindly and in anger. His pride had taken a hit from what had been reported in the press about her and Marshall
and he had let it block out his reason. He wanted her too much to let her go. He didn't like admitting it. He would rather die than admit it. She was the one woman who had brought him to his knees. He had nearly gone out of his head when he found she had left him. He had not realised how much he wanted and needed her until she had gone.

A part of him blamed himself. He had been so preoccupied with the Moscow takeover. It was the deal of a lifetime. The negotiations had been tricky from the get-go but he had always believed he could pull it off. His goal had been to add that Russian bank to his empire and he had done it. It was the ultimate prize, the benchmark business deal. But he just hadn't realised it would come at such a personal cost.

He brushed some damp tendrils of hair back off her face. ‘Tired,
cariño
?'

She shook her head, her grey-blue eyes like shimmering pools. ‘Not at all.' She stretched her slim body against him just like a sinuous cat and smiled. ‘Not one little bit.'

His blood rocketed through his veins and he pressed her back down and covered her mouth with his, kissing her hungrily, delighting in the way she responded just as greedily. His tongue played with hers, stroking and sweeping until she succumbed with a whimpering sigh of pleasure. His hands moved over her breasts, the already erect nipples a dark cherry-red. He closed his mouth over each of them, flicking them with the point of his tongue, before sucking deeply. Her fingers scored through his hair, her body bucking under him as she opened for him.

He knew he was rushing things but he was aching
and heavy with longing. She was already slick with his seed from before, hot, wet and wanting him just as much as he wanted her. It sounded prehistoric but he wanted to stake his claim again and again, to mark his territory in the most primal way of all. Her body wrapped around him tightly as he thrust into her, the walls of her inner core rippling against him. He had to fight to stay in control, each thrusting movement sending gushing waves of need right through him. She squirmed beneath him, searching for that extra friction to send her to paradise. He made her wait; he wanted to make her beg. It seemed fitting since he had suffered so much because of her leaving him, for putting him through such a tormented hell.

‘I want…' she panted beneath him. ‘I want you to…Oh, please, Javier…'

He smiled over her mouth as he took it in another scorching kiss, his hands sliding between her thighs, teasing her with almost-there caresses.

She whimpered again and grasped at his hand, pushing it against her pearly need. ‘Please,' she begged him passionately.

Javier flicked his fingers against her, just the way she liked. He knew her body like a maestro knew his instrument. She felt so silky and feminine, the scent of her driving him mad with the need to let go. He waited until she had started to orgasm, the spasms of her body gripping him until he had no choice but to explode. He pumped into her harder and harder, forcing the images of her alleged affair that had tortured him out of his head. He felt her flinch, he even felt her fingers grasping at his shoulders but he carried on relentlessly, until finally he spilled himself with a shout of triumph.

He rolled onto his back, his chest rising and falling as he tried to steady his breathing. He turned his head as he felt the mattress shift. Emelia had rolled away with her back to him, huddled into a ball. He reached out and stroked a finger down her spine. ‘Emelia?'

She flinched and moved further away from him, mumbling something he didn't quite catch.

Javier sat upright and, taking her nearest shoulder, turned her onto her back. ‘What's wrong?' he asked.

Her eyes flashed at him like lightning. ‘I think you know what's wrong.'

‘I'm not a mind reader, Emelia. If you have something to say, then, for God's sake, say it.'

She continued to glare at him but then her eyes began to swim with tears. ‘Don't ever make love to me as if I was your mistress,' she said, her voice cracking over the words. ‘I am your wife.'

Javier felt a knife of guilt go between his ribs. ‘I got carried away,' he said. ‘I'm sorry. You said you liked it like that in the past.'

She gave him a cutting look. ‘Did you ever think I might have been saying that just to please you?'

He sent his fingers through his hair before he reluctantly faced her. ‘I am not sure of what you want any more, Emelia,' he said. ‘It's like I have a different wife from the one I had only a month or so ago. It's going to take some time to adjust.'

She looked at him through watery eyes. ‘Was our relationship about anything but sex?' she asked.

He got off the bed as if she had pushed him. ‘Now that some of your memory has returned you should know how much I detest these sorts of discussions,' he said with a harsh note of annoyance. ‘I laid out the
terms of our marriage and you agreed to them. Now you want to change things.'

She pulled the bedcovers over her. ‘Why don't you just answer the question? Did you ever feel anything for me other than desire? Did you love me, even just a little?'

Javier tried to stare her down but she held firm. He let out a savage breath. ‘My father told me he loved me but it didn't mean a thing. It was conditional, if anything. He wanted me to be a puppet. As soon as I wanted to choose my own path, his love was cut off.'

‘That was wrong of him,' she said. ‘Parents should never withhold their love, not for any reason.'

He made a scoffing sound in his throat. ‘My father loved his wives, all four of them, and they apparently loved him back, but look where that ended—an early death and two, almost three, very expensive divorces.'

Her brow wrinkled with a frown. ‘So what you're saying is you don't believe love can ever last?'

‘It's not a reliable emotion, Emelia. It changes all the time.'

‘I'm not sure what you're saying in relation to us…'

‘The things that make a relationship work are common ground and chemistry,' Javier said. ‘A bit of mutual respect doesn't go amiss either.'

Her expression was crestfallen and he felt every kind of heel as a result. Was he incapable of loving or just resistant to being that vulnerable to another person? He couldn't answer with any certainty.

‘Don't push me on this, Emelia,' he said into the silence. ‘Our relationship has been through so much of late. This is not the time to be saying things neither of us are certain is true.'

‘But I know I love you,' she said. ‘I know it with absolute certainty. I loved you from the first moment I met you. I didn't tell you because I knew you didn't want to hear it. But I need to tell you now. I can't hold it in any longer.'

He pinned her with his gaze. ‘You speak of loving me and yet you were leaving me, Emelia, or have you not remembered that part? You had given up on our relationship. You wouldn't be here now if you hadn't been injured and lost your memory. You would be back in Australia. You were in that car with Marshall because he was driving you to the airport.'

Her teeth sank into her bottom lip until it went white.

‘Why don't we wait until all the pieces are in place before you start planning the future?' he said when she didn't speak. ‘Unless we deal with the past, we might not even have a future.'

‘You…you want a divorce?' Her voice sounded like a wounded child's.

‘I don't believe we should stay shackled together if one or both of us is unhappy,' he said. ‘We'll give it a month or two and reassess. It is early days. You've only just come out of hospital after a near-fatal accident. You're damned lucky to be alive.'

Her mouth went into a pout. ‘No doubt it would have been much better for you if I had been killed.'

Javier ground his teeth as he thought about that moment when Aldana had informed him there was a call from the police in London. His heart had nearly stopped until he had been assured she hadn't been fatally wounded. ‘My mother died when she was three years younger than you are,' he said. ‘She didn't see my first day at school. She didn't hear the first words I
learned to read. I didn't get the chance to tell her how much I loved her or if I did I was too young to remember doing it. Don't you dare tell me I would rather have you dead and buried. No one deserves to have their life cut short through the stupidity of other's actions.'

She sent him a defiant glare. ‘Maybe it suits you to have me alive so you can pay me back for daring to leave you. I bet I'm the first woman who ever has.'

Javier drew in a sharp breath. ‘You're the one who moved the goalposts, not me.'

‘I can't be the sort of wife you want,' she said, her eyes shining with tears. ‘I can't do it any more. I'm not that sort of person, Javier. I want more from life than money and sex and endless hours in the gym or the beauty salon. I want to be loved for who I am, not for what I look like.'

He snatched up his trousers and zipped himself into them. ‘I care about you, Emelia. Believe me, you would not be here now if I didn't.'

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?' she asked. ‘You
care
about me. For God's sake, Javier, you make me sound like some sort of pet.'

He sent her a frustrated look as he grasped the door handle. ‘We will talk about this later,' he said. ‘You are not yourself right now.'

‘You're damn right I'm not,' she said. ‘But that's the heart of the problem. I have never been myself the whole time we've been married. I am a fake wife, Javier, a complete and utter fraud. How long do you expect such a marriage to last?'

He set his mouth. ‘It will last until I say it's over.' And then he opened the door and strode out, snapping the door shut behind him.

E
MELIA
went to bed totally wrung out after her conversation with Javier. She lay awake for hours, hoping he might come in and join her but he apparently wanted to keep his distance. She spent a restless night, agonising over everything, ruminating over all the stupid decisions she had made, all the crazy choices to be with him in spite of how little he was capable of giving her emotionally. No wonder she had grown tired of their arrangement. She was amazed it had lasted as long as it had. She had compromised herself in every way possible. With the wisdom of hindsight, she knew that if she'd had better self-esteem she would never have agreed to such a marriage. But, plagued with insecurities stemming from childhood, she had been knocked off her feet with his passionate attention. His ruthless determination to have her in his bed had curdled her common sense. She had acted on impulse, not sensibly.

When she woke the next morning after snatches of troubled sleep she felt the beginnings of a vicious headache. The light spilling in from the gap in the curtains was like steel skewers driving through her skull. She
groaned and buried her head under the pillow, nausea rolling in her stomach like an out of control boulder.

The sound of the door opening set a shockwave of pain through her head and she groaned again, but this time it came out more like a whimper.

‘Mi amor?'
Javier strode quickly towards the bed. ‘Are you unwell?'

Emelia slowly turned her head to face him, her eyes half-open. ‘I have the most awful headache…'

He placed a cool dry hand on her forehead, making her want to cry like a small child at the tender gesture. ‘You're hot but I don't think you're feverish,' he said. ‘I'll check your temperature and then call for the doctor.'

Right at that moment Emelia didn't care if he called for the undertaker. She was consumed with the relentless, torturous pain. The nausea intensified and, before he could come back with a thermometer, she stumbled into the en suite bathroom and dispensed with the meagre contents of her stomach in wretched heaves that burned her throat.

Javier came in behind her. ‘Ah,
querida
,' he said soothingly. ‘Poor baby. You really are sick.' He dampened a face cloth and gently lifted her hair off the back of her neck and pressed the coolness of the cloth there.

Emelia brushed her teeth once the nausea had abated. She slowly turned, embarrassed at her loss of dignity. She felt so weak and being in Javier's strong, commanding presence only seemed to intensify her feelings of feeble vulnerability. She could not remember a time when she had been sick in front of him before. He was always so robustly healthy and energetic, which had
made her feel as if he would be revolted by any sign of weakness or fragility. In the past she had hidden any of her various and mostly minor ailments, putting on a brave face and carrying on her role of the always perfect, always biddable wife.

‘The doctor is on her way,' he said, supporting her by the elbow. ‘Why don't you get back into bed and close your eyes for a bit?'

‘I'm sorry about this…' she said once she was back in bed. ‘I thought I was getting better.'

‘I am sure you are but perhaps yesterday was too much for you,' he said. He brushed the hair back from her face, his expression more than a little rueful. ‘I'm sorry for upsetting you. I keep forgetting you're not well enough to go head to head with me.'

‘I am fine…really…'

He grimaced and added, ‘I shouldn't have made love with you. Perhaps it was too soon.'

Emelia wasn't sure what to say so stayed silent. It seemed safer than admitting how much she had wanted him to make love to her.

There was the sound of someone arriving downstairs and Javier rose from the bed. ‘That sounds like the doctor,' he said. ‘I'll be right back.'

Within a couple of minutes a female doctor came in, who had clearly been briefed by Javier, and she briskly introduced herself and proceeded to examine Emelia, checking both of her pupils along with her blood pressure.

‘Have you had migraines in the past?' Eva Garcia asked as she put the portable blood pressure machine back in her bag before taking out a painkiller vial and needle for injection.

‘Not that I can remember,' Emelia said. ‘But I've had a few headaches since I had the accident a couple of weeks ago.'

‘Your husband tells me you've recovered a bit of your memory,' Eva said, preparing Emelia's arm for the injection. ‘That was yesterday, correct?'

‘Yes…'

‘You need to take things more slowly,' Dr Garcia said. ‘I'm going to take some bloods just to make sure there's nothing else going on.'

Emelia felt a hand of panic clutch at her throat, imagining an intracranial haemorrhage or the onset of a stroke from a clot breaking loose. ‘What else could be going on?' she asked hollowly.

The doctor took out a tourniquet and syringe set. ‘You could be low on iron or have some underlying issue to do with your head injury.' She expertly took the blood and pressed down on the puncture site, her eyes meeting Emelia's. ‘What about your periods? Are they regular?'

Emelia was suddenly glad Javier had left the room as soon as he had brought the doctor in. ‘Um…I really can't remember…'

‘So you haven't had one since the accident?'

Emelia bit her lip. ‘No…'

‘Don't worry,' the doctor said. ‘After the ordeal you've been through, your system is probably going to take some time to settle down. Stress, trauma, especially physical as in your case, would be enough to temporarily shut down the menstrual cycle. Are you taking any form of oral contraception?'

‘My prescription has run out,' Emelia said. ‘I wasn't sure whether to go back on it or not. I thought I should wait until…until I knew more about…things…'

‘I'll write you one up, just in case.' The doctor took out her prescription pad and Emelia told her the brand name and dose.

Within another minute or two the doctor was being seen out and Javier came back in. ‘How are you feeling now? Headache still bad?'

‘The doctor gave me an injection,' she said. ‘It's starting to work. I'm already feeling a bit sleepy.'

He stroked a hand over her forehead. ‘I'll bring something for you to drink. Do you fancy anything to eat?'

Emelia winced at the thought of food. ‘No. Please, no food.'

His hand lingered for a moment on her cheek before he left her, closing the door so softly Emelia hardly heard it as her eyelids fluttered down over her eyes…

 

When she woke it was well into the evening. She gingerly got out of bed and dragged herself into the shower. As she came out of the bathroom, wrapped in nothing but a towel, the bedroom door opened and Javier came in.

‘Feeling better?' he asked.

‘A lot.' Emelia tried to smile but it didn't quite work. ‘Thank you.'

‘Do you feel up to having some dinner?' he asked. ‘Aldana's prepared something for us.'

‘I'll just get dressed,' she said, feeling shy, as if she was on her first date with him.

She could see he was trying hard to put her at ease. He had been so gentle earlier, so concerned for her welfare she wondered if he loved her just a tiny bit after all. She chided herself for dreaming of what he couldn't
or wouldn't give. As much as she loved him, she couldn't afford to waste any more of her life waiting for him to change. If he didn't want the same things in life she did, then she would have to have the courage to move on without him, for his sake as well as her own. She hated to think of never seeing his face again or, worse, imagining him with some other woman. How would she endure it?

‘Take your time,' he said, gently flicking her cheek with the end of his finger. ‘I have some business proposals to read through.'

She touched her face when he left, wishing for the moon that was so far out of reach it was heartbreaking.

 

Javier came back to find Emelia dressed in a simple black dress that skimmed her slim form, highlighting the gentle swell of her breasts and the long trim legs encased—unusually for her—in ballet flats. Her hair had been blow-dried but, rather than styling it, she had pulled it back into a simple ponytail. She had the barest minimum of make-up on, just a brush of mascara which intensified the grey-blue of her eyes, and a pink shade of lip gloss which drew attention to her soft full mouth with its rounded upper lip. He felt the heat of arousal surge into his groin as he remembered how that mouth felt around him. She was the most naturally sensual woman he had ever met and yet at times, especially right now, he seriously wondered if she was aware of it.

‘You are looking very beautiful this evening,
querida
,' he said.

She smoothed her hands down over the flatness of her stomach as if she was conscious of the close-fitting nature of the dress. ‘Thank you,' she murmured and
shifted her gaze from his to pick up a light wrap she had laid on the end of the bed.

He escorted her down the stairs, holding her hand in his, noting how her fingers trembled slightly as they approached the formal dining room.

Aldana brought in the meal and Javier watched as Emelia kept her gaze down, as if she was frightened of saying or doing the wrong thing. He was the first to recognise that Aldana was a difficult person, but she was dependent on the income he gave her after her husband had gambled away everything they had owned. Javier didn't want to dispense with her services just because of a personality clash with his wife, but he could see Emelia was on edge and he had cause to wonder if things were worse when he wasn't around to keep an eye on things.

After watching Emelia pick at her food for several minutes, he dabbed his napkin at the edges of his mouth and laid it back over his lap. ‘Emelia,' he said, ‘I know, like many women, you are keen to keep slim, but I have never agreed with you starving yourself. In my opinion, you were perfectly fine the way you were when I first met you. There is no need to deny yourself what you want. Your health is much more important.'

She looked up at him with a sheepish expression. ‘I haven't been to the gym once since I've been home. I can't believe I did it before. Izabella said I was obsessive about it. I normally have no self-discipline. I much prefer incidental exercise, like walking or swimming.'

‘And sex?' he asked with a teasing smile.

Her face coloured and she lowered her gaze to her plate. ‘Is that all you think about?' she asked in a tight little voice.

‘It's what we both used to think about,' he said. ‘You are the most sensually aware woman I have ever been with.'

Her grey-blue eyes flashed back to his. ‘And I bet there have been hundreds.'

He took a moment to respond. ‘You knew about my lifestyle when we met. I have made it no secret that I lived a fast-paced life.'

‘Which is no doubt why you wanted a shallow smokescreen marriage to impress your business contacts,' she put in. ‘I can't believe I agreed to it. I never wanted to turn out like my poor mother, preening herself constantly in case her wayward husband strayed to someone slimmer or better looking or better groomed or better dressed.'

Javier frowned at the sudden vehemence of her words. Her face was pinched and her mouth tight and her shoulders tense. Without her veneer of sophistication, she looked young and vulnerable, and yet she looked far more beautiful than he had ever seen her. ‘I didn't realise you felt like that,' he said after a little pause. ‘You always seemed so confident. I didn't know you felt so unsure of yourself.'

Her throat moved up and down, as if she regretted revealing her insecurities to him. ‘I haven't been honest with you,' she said. ‘I mean right from the start. I should have told you but I was frightened you would walk away, that I would appear too needy or something. I guess back then I wanted you on any terms. I was prepared to suspend everything I wanted in life to be with you.'

He reached out a hand and picked up one of hers, entwining his fingers with her soft trembling ones. ‘I don't
want to lose you,
querida
,' he said. ‘But I can only give you what I can give you. It might not be enough.'

She pressed her lips together, he assumed to stop herself from crying, but even so her eyes moistened. ‘I want to be loved, Javier,' she said softly. ‘I want to be loved the way my mother craved to be loved but never got to be loved. I want to wake up each morning knowing the man I love is right there by my side, supporting me, loving me, cherishing me.' She drew in an uneven breath and added in an even softer voice, ‘And I want a baby.'

Javier felt a shockwave go through his chest. He recalled his lonely childhood: the ache of sudden loss, the devastation of being cast aside by his father after his mother had died. He could not face the responsibility of being a parent. He would mess it up, for sure. Even people from secure backgrounds occasionally ran into trouble with their kids. What chance would
he
have? He would end up ruining a child's potential, crippling them emotionally, stunting their development or making them hate him as much as he had ended up hating his own father for his inadequacies.

He couldn't risk it.

He
would not
risk it.

‘That is not negotiable,' he found himself saying in a cold hard voice that he could scarcely believe was coming from his throat. ‘There is no way I want children. I told you that right from the start and you were in total agreement.'

She looked at him with anguished eyes that scored his soul. ‘I only accepted those terms because I was blindsided by love. I still love you, Javier, more than ever, but I don't want to miss out on having children.'

Javier pushed out his chair and got to his feet. ‘You can't spring this sort of stuff on me, Emelia,' he said. ‘Less than a month ago everything was fine between us. It was fine for almost two years. You did your thing. I did mine.' He pointed his finger at her. ‘You are the one who suddenly changed things.'