The Mélendez Forgotten Marriage (13 page)

Emelia put up her chin. ‘I'm tired of doing things your way. I'm tired of seeing your picture splashed over every international paper with yet another wannabe model or starlet. Surely you have more control over who you are seen with?'

He clamped down on his jaw. ‘The person I should be seen with is my wife,' he said. ‘But she is always too busy shopping in another country or having her hair or nails done.'

Emelia flinched at his stinging words. But perhaps the sliver of truth in them was what hurt the most. She had been caught up in the world of being his wife instead of being his companion and soulmate. There was a big difference and it was a shame it had taken this long for her to see it. ‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘I thought I was doing what you wanted.'

There was a stiff silence.

‘Forget I said that,' Javier said. ‘I didn't exactly make it easy on you on the few occasions you came with me. I am perhaps too task-oriented. I tend to focus on the big picture and lose sight of the details.'

‘We've both made mistakes,' she said. ‘I guess we just have to try not to make them again.'

He pushed his hand through his hair. ‘I want this to work, Emelia,' he said. ‘I want us to be happy, like we were before.'

‘Javier, you were happy but I wasn't, not really,' she
said. ‘My accident has shown me what a lie I've been living. The woman you want in your life is not the one I am now. I have never been that person.'

He came over and took her hands in his, pulling her to his feet. ‘You
were
happy, Emelia,' he said, squeezing her hands for effect. ‘I gave you everything money could buy. You wanted for nothing. I made sure of it.'

Emelia tried to pull away but he held firm. ‘You're not listening to me, Javier. We can't go back to what we were before.
I
can't go back.'

‘Let's see about that, shall we?' he said and brought his mouth down hard on hers.

At first Emelia made a token resistance but her heart wasn't in it. She wanted him any way she could get him, even if it was in anger or to prove a point. At least he was showing some emotion, even if it was not the one she most wanted him to demonstrate. She kissed him back with the same heat and fire, her tongue tangling with his in a sensual battle of wills.

He pressed her back against the nearest wall, pulling down the zip at the back of her dress, letting it fall into a black puddle at her feet, his mouth still locked on hers. She clawed at his waistband, her fingers releasing his belt in a quest to uncover him.

He tore his mouth off hers. ‘Not here,' he said. ‘Aldana might come in to clear the table. Let's take this upstairs.'

Emelia had her chance then to call an end to this madness but still she let her heart rule her head. Later, she barely recalled how they got upstairs; she seemed to remember the journey was interspersed with hot drugging kisses that ramped up her need of him unbearably.

By the time they got to the bedroom she was almost delirious with desire. He came down heavily on top of her on the bed, his weight pinning her, his mouth crushing hers in a red-hot kiss that made her toes curl.

He removed her bra and cupped her breasts possessively, subjecting them to the fiery brand of his mouth. He went lower, over the plane of her belly, lingering over the dish of her belly button before he parted her thighs. She gulped in a breath as he stroked her with his tongue, the raw intimacy as he tasted her making her spine unhinge. She felt the tension building and building to snapping point, the waves of pleasure coming towards her from a distance and then suddenly they swamped her, tossing her around and around in a wild sea of sensual pleasure that superseded anything she had felt before.

Then he drove into her roughly at first and then checked himself, murmuring something that sounded like an apology before he continued in a rhythmic motion that triggered all of her senses into another climb to the summit of release. His thrusts came closer together, a little deeper each time, his breathing intervals shortening as he approached the ultimate moment.

Emelia felt her body preparing for another freefall into pleasure. She pushed her hips up to intensify the feeling his body provoked as it rubbed against her point of pleasure, her breathing becoming increasingly ragged as she felt the tremors begin. This time when her orgasm started she pushed against him as if trying to expel him from her body, the action triggering her G spot, sending her into an earth-shattering release that rippled through her for endless seconds.

Javier came with an explosive rush, his deep grunt
of ecstasy sending shivers of delight down Emelia's spine. This was the only time she felt he allowed himself to be vulnerable. She clung to him as he emptied himself, the shudders of his body as it pinned her to the bed reverberating through her. She kept her arms wrapped around him, hoping he wouldn't roll away and spoil the moment.

‘Am I too heavy for you?' he asked against the soft skin of her neck.

‘No,' she said as she ran her fingers up and down his back.

He lifted himself on his elbows, looking down at her for a lengthy moment. ‘I didn't hurt you, did I?'

She shook her head. ‘No.'

His eyes travelled to her mouth, watching as she moistened it with her tongue. ‘Still unhappy?' he asked.

Emelia searched his features for any sign of mockery but she couldn't find anything to suggest he was taunting her. But then he was a master at inscrutability when he chose to be. Even his dark eyes gave nothing away. ‘There are times when I am not sure what I feel,' she said, taking the middle ground.

His mouth tilted in a rueful smile. ‘I suppose I deserve that.'

Emelia let a silence underline his almost apology.

After another moment or two he lifted himself off her, offering her a hand to get up. ‘Want to have a shower with me?'

The invitation she could see in the dark glitter of his eyes stirred her senses into a heated frenzy. How could he do this to her so soon after such mind-blowing satiation? Just one look and he had her quivering with need all over again. Wordlessly, she took his hand, allowing
him to lead her into the en suite bathroom, standing to one side as he turned on the shower lever that was set at a controlled temperature.

He stepped under the spray and pulled her in under it with him. The fine needles of hot water cascaded over them as he brought his mouth to hers. It was a softer kiss this time, a leisurely exploration of her mouth that lured her into a sensual whirlpool. His tongue swept over hers, stroking and gliding with growing urgency, his erection hot and heavy against her belly. She slid down the shower stall and took him in her hands, exploring him with sensuous movements that brought his breathing to a stumbling halt. ‘Careful,
cariño
,' he said. ‘I might not be able to hold back.'

‘I don't care,' she said recklessly.

She gave him a sultry look from beneath her lashes before taking him in her mouth in one slick movement that provoked a rough expletive from him. She smiled around his throbbing heat, her tongue gliding wetly along his length. She tasted his essence, inciting her to draw more of him into her mouth. His hands shot out to the glass walls of the shower to anchor himself, his thighs set apart, his chest rising and falling as he struggled to control his breathing. ‘You don't have to do this,' he said, but the subtext, she knew, was really:
please don't stop doing this
.

‘I like doing this to you,' she said. ‘You do it to me so it's only fair I get to do the same to you.'

He swallowed tightly, his jaw clenching as he watched her return to his swollen length. Emelia felt the tension in the satin-covered steel of his body. He was drawing closer and closer to the point of no return and it excited her to think she could have such a powerful hold over him.

He jerked and then shuddered into her mouth, spilling his hot life force, his flesh lifting in goosebumps in spite of the warmth of the shower.

Emelia glided back up his body, rinsing her mouth under the shower spray before meeting his dark lustrous eyes. He didn't say anything. He just looked at her with dark intensity, his hands reaching for the soap and working up a lather. She quivered with anticipation as he started soaping her, firstly her neck and shoulders, and then her breasts, the length of her spine and then her belly. He used circular movements that set all her nerves into a frantic dance, his touch so smooth and sensual she felt every bone inside her frame melt.

His hand cupped her feminine mound, seeking the swollen nub of her desire. She felt her breathing come to a stumbling halt as he bent down before her as she had done to him. His tongue separated her, teasing her, a soft flicker at first and then increasing the pace until she was gasping her way through an orgasm that shook her like a rag doll.

She collapsed against him as he rose to hold her, his arms coming around her as she rested her head against his chest. His heart was drumming under her cheek, one of his hands coming up to stroke her wet hair. He rested his chin on the top of her head and for a moment she wondered if he was going to tell her he loved her after all, that he wanted the same things she wanted.

But of course he didn't. Instead, he turned off the water and silently reached for a bath towel, wrapping her in it as one would a small child.

Emelia stepped out of the shower cubicle and did her best to squash her disappointment. Was this intense physical attraction the only thing she could cling to in
order to keep him by her side? How long would it last? What if he tired of her and went to someone else to fulfil his needs? The thought of it was like an arrow through her heart. She hated even thinking about all the partners he had had before her. He never spoke of them and she never asked, but she knew there had been many women who had come and gone from his bed.

Javier turned her face to look at him. ‘What is that frown for?' he asked.

She gave him a half-smile. ‘Nothing…I was just thinking.'

His hand moved to cradle her cheek. ‘About what?'

She pressed her lips together momentarily. ‘I don't know…just where this will lead, I guess.'

His hand dropped from her face. ‘Life doesn't always fit into nice neat little boxes, Emelia,' he said. ‘And it doesn't always give us everything we want.'

‘What do you want from life?' she asked.

He paused in the process of drying himself to look at her. ‘The same things most people want—success, a sense of purpose, fulfilment.'

‘What about love?'

He tossed the damp towel on the bed. ‘I don't delude myself that it's a given in life. Love comes and it goes. It's not something I have ever relied on.'

Emelia mentally kicked herself for setting herself up for more hurt. If he loved her, he would have told her by now. He'd had almost twenty-three months of marriage to do so, irrespective of what had occurred over the past couple of weeks.

‘Come to bed,
querida
,' he said. ‘You look like a child that has been kept up way past its bedtime.'

She crawled into bed, not for a moment thinking she
would be able to sleep after spending so much of the day in a drug-induced slumber, but somehow when Javier pulled her into his body she closed her eyes and, limb by limb, her body gradually relaxed until, with a soft sigh, she drifted off…

Javier lay with her in his arms, his fingers laced through the silky strands of her hair, breathing in its clean, newly washed fragrance. In sleep she looked so young and vulnerable. Her soft full mouth was slightly open and one of her hands was lying against his chest, right where his heart was beating.

He'd thought he had the future all mapped out but now he was not so sure. Things were changing almost daily. The more time he spent with her, the more he wanted to believe they could be in this for the long haul.

He tried to picture a child they might make together: a dark-haired little boy or perhaps a little girl with grey-blue eyes and hair just as silken and golden as her mother. But the image faded, as if there was no room in his head for it.

Perhaps it was fate. He wasn't meant to be a father. It wasn't that he didn't like children. One of his business colleagues had recently become a father and Javier had looked at the photos with a strange sense of loss. His lonely childhood had marked him for life. He couldn't imagine himself as a parent. He didn't think he would know what to do. He hated the thought of potentially damaging a child's self-esteem by saying or doing the wrong thing. Children seemed to him to be so vulnerable.
He
had been so vulnerable.

He had never forgotten the day his mother had died. She had been there one minute, soft and scented and
nurturing, and the next her body was in a shiny black coffin covered with red roses. He still hated the sight of red roses, any roses, in fact. They made his stomach churn. Within a year he had been sent off to boarding school in England as his father couldn't handle his ongoing grief. Javier had taught himself not to love anything or anyone in case it was ripped away from him without warning.

The thing that worried him the most was that it might be too late to change.

E
MELIA
woke up in bed alone and when she came downstairs Aldana informed her that Javier had left to see to some business in Malaga and would be back later that evening. She handed her a note with pursed lips. Emelia thanked her politely and, taking a cup of tea with her, went out to the sunny terrace overlooking the gardens.

The note was simple and written in Javier's distinctive handwriting, the strong dark strokes reminding her of his aura of command and control. It read:

 

Didn't want to wake you. See you tonight. J.

 

Emelia felt disappointed she hadn't woken before he'd left. There was so much she still wanted to say to him. She felt he had sideswiped her yet again by enslaving her senses. It was always the way he dealt with conflict, by reminding her of how much she needed him. It made her less and less confident of him shifting to accommodate her needs. He still had control, as he had always done. Nothing had changed, except the depth to which she could be hurt all over again.

The phone rang a little later in the morning and Aldana came out to the pool where Emelia was doing some laps and handed her the cordless receiver. ‘It is the doctor,' she said, leaving the receiver on the table next to the sun lounger.

Emelia got out of the pool and quickly dried her hands on her towel before she picked up the phone. ‘Hello? This is Emelia Mélendez speaking.'

‘Señora Mélendez, I have some results for you from the blood tests I took,' Eva Garcia said.

Emelia felt her stomach shuffle like the rapidly thumbed pages of a book. ‘Y-yes?'

‘You are pregnant.'

Emelia's fingers clenched the phone in her hand until her knuckles became white, her heart thumping like a swinging hammer against her breastbone. ‘I…I am?'

‘Yes,' Dr Garcia said. ‘Of course I am not sure how far along. It can't be too many weeks, otherwise I am sure the doctors who examined you after your accident would have noticed. You had an abdominal CT scan at some stage, didn't you?'

‘Yes,' she said, still reeling from the shock announcement. ‘It was done to check for internal bleeding but it was all clear. But how can I be pregnant? I was taking the Pill, or at least I assume I was. I don't really remember that clearly.'

‘Perhaps you missed a dose here and there,' Dr Garcia suggested. ‘It is very easy to forget and with these low dose brands it can create a small window of fertility. If you can remember when your last menstrual period was, I can calculate how far along you might be.'

Emelia thought for a moment. ‘I think it might have been about three or four weeks before the accident. I
remember I got a stomach virus right after. I couldn't keep anything down for forty-eight hours.'

‘That would have been enough to render the Pill ineffective,' Dr Garcia said. ‘But if, as you say, your last period was well over a month ago, you had probably fallen pregnant before you went to London. It is still very early days, but that doesn't mean you are not having all the symptoms. Some women are more sensitive to the hormonal changes than others.'

Emelia wondered how much her headaches and nausea were the result of the accident or of the early stages of pregnancy. She wondered too if her decision to leave Javier had been an irrational one brought on by the surge of hormones in her body. She could recall being more emotional than usual, her frustration at his absence escalating to blowout point when he'd come back just as the newspaper article had appeared, showing him with the nightclub singer. She was almost thankful she couldn't remember that ‘ugly scene' as he called it. She was almost certain she would have been as wanton and needy as ever. It would not have helped her cause, saying with one breath she wanted out and begging him to pleasure her with the next.

‘Well, then,' the doctor continued in a businesslike manner, ‘I'd like you to start some pregnancy vitamins and we can make an appointment now if you like so we can organise that ultrasound.'

Emelia ended the call a minute or two later, her head spinning so much she had to sit down on the sun lounger.

Pregnant.

She placed a hand on her smooth flat abdomen. It
seemed impossible to think a tiny life was growing inside there. What would Javier say? she wondered sickly. Would he think she had ‘accidentally' fallen pregnant? He was so cynical, she couldn't see how else he would react. But she didn't for a moment believe she had done it on purpose. Yes, she had become increasingly unhappy about taking the Pill, but she would not have deliberately missed a dose. She had wanted Javier to commit to bringing a child into their relationship. Foisting one on him was not something she had thought fair. It was a joint decision that she had longed he would one day be ready to make, but now it seemed neither of them had made the decision—fate, chance or destiny had made it for them.

She spent the rest of the day in an emotional turmoil as she prepared herself for facing Javier. She would have to tell him. She couldn't possibly keep it from him. He had a right to know he was to become a father, even if it was the last thing he wanted to be.

She heard him arrive at eight in the evening. Each of his footfalls felt like hammer blows to her heart as he made his way into
la sala
where she was waiting. She stood as he came in, her hands in a tight knot in front of her stomach.

‘Sorry I'm late,' he said, coming over to her. He brushed his knuckles down the curve of her cheek. ‘You look pale,
querida
. You haven't been overdoing it, I hope.'

She gave him a nervous movement of her lips that sufficed for a smile. ‘No, I spent most of the day by the pool. It was hot again today.'

He pressed a soft kiss to her bare shoulder. ‘Mmm, you are a little pink here and there.' He met her eyes
again. ‘You shouldn't lie out there without protection. Did you put on sunscreen?'

Emelia lowered her gaze from his. ‘I did have some on but it must have worn off while I was in the water.'

He tipped up her face, studying her with increasing intensity. ‘Is something wrong?' he asked. ‘You seem a little on edge.'

She took a breath but it caught on something in her chest. ‘Javier…I have something to tell you…'

A frown pulled at his brow. ‘You've remembered something else?'

She bit the inside of her mouth. ‘No, it's not that. I…I got a call from the doctor.'

His eyes narrowed slightly and his voice sounded strangely hollow. ‘There's nothing seriously wrong, is there?'

Emelia gave him a strained look. ‘I guess it depends on how you look at it.'

‘Whatever it is, we will deal with it,' he said. ‘We'll get the best doctors and specialists. They can do just about anything these days with conditions that had no cure in the past.'

She couldn't quite remove the wryness from her tone. ‘This isn't a condition you can exactly cure, or at least not for a few months.'

‘Are you going to tell me or am I supposed to guess?' he asked after a slight pause.

Emelia could feel his suspicion growing. She could see it in his dark eyes, the way they had narrowed even further, his frown deepening. She took another uneven breath. ‘Javier, I'm pregnant.'

The words fell into the silence like a grenade in a glasshouse.

She saw the flash of shock in his face. His eyes flared and he even seemed to jolt backwards as if the words had almost rocked him off his feet.

‘Pregnant?' His voice came out hoarsely. ‘How can you possibly be pregnant? You've been on the Pill for the whole time we've been together.' He cocked his head accusingly. ‘Haven't you?'

Emelia wrung her hands, deciding there was no point in pretending she was invincible any longer. ‘I was sick about a month or so ago. I didn't tell you. I had some sort of stomach upset. I think that would have been enough to cancel out the Pill.'

His rough expletive made Emelia flinch. He turned away from her and rubbed a hand over his face. Then he paced the floor a couple of times, back and forth like a caged lion, his jaw pushed all the way forward with tension.

‘Don't dare to mention a termination,' she said. ‘I won't agree to it and you can't force me.'

He stopped pacing to look at her. ‘I do have some measure of humanity about me, Emelia. This is not the child's fault.'

She gave him an accusing glare. ‘Are you saying it's
my
fault?'

He raked his hair with his fingers. ‘You should have told me you weren't well. What were you thinking?'

‘Being sick doesn't come with the job description of corporate trophy wife,' she threw back. ‘I'm supposed to be glamorous and perfectly groomed and ready for you at the click of your fingers, remember?'

He stood staring at her, as if seeing her for the first time. ‘You think that is what I always expected of you?'

‘Wasn't it?' she asked with an embittered look.

He swallowed tightly and sent his hand back through his hair. ‘You have it so wrong, Emelia.'

‘I know you probably won't believe me, but this is not something I planned,' she said. ‘Not like this. I wanted to have a baby but I wanted us to both want it.'

He was so silent she started to feel uncomfortable, wondering if his mind was taking him back to what the press had speciously claimed about her relationship with Peter Marshall.

‘This baby is yours, Javier,' she said, holding his gaze. ‘You have to believe me on this. There has been no one but you.'

‘No one else is going to believe that,' he said, pacing again.

Emelia flattened her mouth. ‘So that's what's important to you, is it? What other people think? You didn't seem to mind what people thought when that nightclub singer draped herself all over you.'

He frowned darkly as he turned back to face her. ‘Emelia, this is not helping. We have to deal with this.'

‘
You
have to deal with it,' she said. ‘I have already dealt with it. I want this baby more than anything. It's a miracle to me that it's happened.'

‘How many weeks are you?'

‘I'm not sure,' she said. ‘The doctor thinks only a month, if that.'

He gave a humourless laugh, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘
Dios mio
, what a mess.'

‘This is a child we are talking about,' Emelia said, feeling a little too close to tears than she would have liked. ‘I don't consider him or her to be a mess or a problem that has to be solved. I want this baby. I will love it, no matter how or why or when it was conceived.'

Javier saw the shimmering moisture in her eyes and felt a hand grab at his insides. Her hormones were no doubt all over the place and he wasn't helping things by reacting on impulse instead of thinking before he spoke. No wonder she had been so het up about his regular trips to Moscow, especially when that ridiculous article came out on his return. ‘Emelia, we'll deal with it,' he said. ‘I will support you. You have no need to worry about that. You and the baby will want for nothing.'

She looked at him with wariness in her grey-blue gaze. ‘I'm not sure I want my child to grow up with a parental relationship that is not loving and secure.'

He came over and unpeeled her hands from around her body, holding them in the firm grasp of his. ‘There are not many things you can bank on in life, Emelia. But I can guarantee you this—whatever happens between us will not affect our child. I won't allow it. We will have to put our issues aside. They can never have priority over the well-being of our child.'

Her expression was still guarded. ‘You're not ruling out divorce at some stage, though, are you?'

He drew in a breath, holding it for a beat or two before releasing it. ‘There is no reason why a divorce cannot be an amicable arrangement,' he said. ‘If we feel the attraction that brought us together is over, I see no reason not to move on with our lives as long as it doesn't cause upset to our child.'

She pulled out of his hold and hugged herself again. ‘We clearly don't share the same views on marriage,' she said. ‘I've always believed it should be for life. I know things can go wrong but that's true of every relationship, not just a marital one. Surely two sensible
adults who respect each other can work their way through a rough patch instead of bailing out in defeat.'

‘I find it intriguing that you are suddenly an expert on marriage when you were the one to leave the marital home, not me,' Javier said. ‘You pulled the plug, remember?'

Her mouth was pulled so tight it went white at the edges. ‘That is so like you, to put the blame back on my shoulders, absolving yourself of any culpability. You drove me from you, Javier. You had no time for me. I was just a toy you picked up and put down at your leisure. I had no assurances from you. I didn't know from one day to the next whether you would be called away on business. Business always came first with you. I gave up everything to be with you, and yet you didn't give me anything in return.'

‘I beg to differ,
cariño
,' he said. ‘I spent a fortune on clothes and jewellery for you. Every trip I returned from, I gave you a present of some sort. I know many women who would give anything to be in your position.'

She glared at him hotly. ‘You just don't get it, do you? I don't want expensive jewellery and designer clothes. I hate those clothes and ridiculous shoes upstairs. They make me feel like a tart. I've never wanted any of that from you.'

‘Then, for God's sake, what do you want?' he asked, goaded into raising his voice.

She looked at him bleakly. ‘I just want to be loved,' she said so softly he had to strain his ears to hear it. ‘I have dreamed of it for so long. My father couldn't do it without conditions. I thought when I met you it would be different, but it wasn't. You want something I can't
give you, Javier. I can't be a trophy wife. I can't be a shell of a person. I have to love with my whole being. I gave you my heart and soul and you've crushed it beneath the heel of your cynicism.'