Chantelle Shaw - By Request Collection Part 2

Her relief was a minute consolation given the loss of a dear friend. Peter was dead? The three words whirled around and around in her head but she wouldn’t allow them to settle. Maybe she was dreaming. Maybe this was nothing but a horrible nightmare. Maybe she would wake up any second and find herself lying in her sunny shoebox flat in Notting Hill, looking forward to meeting up with Peter later to discuss the programme for that night’s performance, just as she did every night before taking her place at the grand piano.

Emelia looked down at her hand beneath the tanned weight of Javier Mélendez’s. There was something about his touch that triggered something deep inside her body. Her blood recognised him even if her mind did not. She felt the flicker of it as it began to race in her veins, the rapid escalation of her pulse making her heart pound at the thought of him touching her elsewhere. Had he touched her elsewhere? Well, of course he must have if they were married…

She gave her head a little shake but it felt as if a jar of marbles had spilled inside. She groaned and put her free hand to her temple, confusion, despair, grief and disbelief all jostling for position.

Javier squeezed her hand with the gentlest of pressure but even so she felt the latent strength leashed there. ‘I realise all this must be a terrible shock. There was no easy way of telling you.’

Emelia blinked away her tears, her throat feeling so dry she could barely swallow the fist-sized wad of sadness there. As if he had read her mind, he released her hand and pulled the bed table closer, before pouring her a glass of water and handing it to her.

‘Here,’ he said, holding the glass for her as if she were a small child. ‘Drink this. It will make you feel better.’

Emelia was convinced nothing was ever going to make her feel better. How was a sip of water going to bring back her oldest friend? She frowned as she pushed the glass away once she had taken a token sip. ‘I don’t understand…’ She raised her eyes to Javier’s ink-black gaze. ‘Why was I in London if I am supposedly married and living with you in…in Seville, did you say?’

His eyes moved away from hers as he set the water glass back on the table. ‘Seville, yes,’ he said. ‘A few kilometres out. That is where I…where we live.’

Emelia heard the way he corrected himself and wondered if that was some sort of clue. She looked at his left hand and saw the gold band of a wedding ring nestled amongst the sprinkling of dark hairs of his long tanned finger. She felt another roller coaster dip inside her stomach and doing her best to ignore it, looked back up at him. ‘If we are married as you say, then where are my rings?’ she asked.

He reached inside his trouser pocket and took out two rings. She held her breath as he picked up her hand, slipping each of the rings on with ease. She looked at the brilliance of the princess cut diamond engagement ring and the matching wedding band with its glittering array of sparkling diamonds set right around the band. Surely something so beautiful, so incredibly expensive would trigger some sort of memory in her brain?

Nothing.

Nada.

Emelia raised her eyes back to his. ‘So…I was in London…alone?’

His eyes were like shuttered windows. ‘I was away on business in Moscow,’ he said. ‘I travel there a lot. You had travelled to London to…to shop.’

There it was again, she thought. A slight pause before he chose his words. ‘Why didn’t I go to Moscow with you?’ she asked, frowning.

It was a moment before he answered. Emelia couldn’t help feeling he was holding something back from her, something important.

‘You did not always travel with me on my trips, particularly the foreign ones,’ he finally answered. ‘You preferred to spend time at home or in London. The shops were more familiar and you didn’t have to worry about the language.’

Emelia bit her lip, her fingers plucking again at the sheet covering her. ‘That’s strange…I hate shopping. I can never find the right size and I don’t like being pressured by the sales assistants.’

He didn’t answer. He just stood there looking down at her with that expressionless face, making Emelia feel as if she had stepped into someone else’s life, not her own. If she was deeply in love with him she would have gone with him, surely? What sort of wife was she to go off shopping—an activity she normally loathed—in another country instead of being by his side? It certainly didn’t sound very devoted of her. More disturbing, it sounded a little bit like something her mother would have done while she was still alive.

After a long moment she forced herself to meet his gaze once more. ‘Um…I know this might seem a strange question but—’ she quickly licked her lips for courage before she continued ‘—were we…happily married?’

The question seemed to hang suspended in the air for a very long time.

Emelia’s head began to ache unbearably as she tried to read his expression, to see if any slight movement of his lips, eyes or forehead would provide some clue to the state of the relationship they apparently shared.

Finally his lips stretched into a brief on-off smile that didn’t involve his eyes. ‘But of course, cariño ,’ he said. ‘Why would we not be happy? We were only married for not quite two years, sí ? That is not long enough to become bored or tired of each other.’

Emelia was so confused, so very bewildered. It was totally surreal to be lying here without any knowledge of her relationship with him. Surely this was the stuff of movies and fiction. Did this really happen to ordinary people like her? She began to fidget with the sheet again, desperate to be alone so she could think. ‘I’m sorry but I’m very tired…’

He stepped back from the bed. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I have business to see to, in any case. I will leave you to rest.’

He was almost through the curtains when she found her voice again. ‘Um…Javier?’

His long back seemed to stiffen momentarily before he turned to look at her. ‘Yes, Emelia?’

Emelia searched his features once more, desperate to find some hook on which to hang her new, totally unfamiliar life. ‘I’m sorry…so very sorry for not recognising you…’ She bit her lip again, releasing it to add, ‘If it was me in your place, I know I would be devastatingly hurt.’

His dark eyes seared hers for a beat or two before they fell away as he turned to leave. ‘Forget about it, querida ,’ he said.

It was only after the curtains had whispered against each other as they closed did Emelia realise the irony of his parting words.

‘WELL, today’s the big day,’ the cheery nurse on duty said brightly as she swished back the curtains of the private room windows where Emelia had spent the last few days after being moved out of the High Dependency Unit. ‘You’re finally going home with that gorgeous husband of yours. I tell you, my girl, I wouldn’t mind changes places with you, that I wouldn’t,’ she added with a grin as she plucked the pillows off the bed in preparation for a linen change. ‘If his looks weren’t enough compensation, just think—I wouldn’t have to work again, married to all that money.’

Emelia gave the nurse a tight smile as she tried to ignore the way her stomach nosedived at the mention of the tall, dark, brooding stranger who had faithfully visited her each day, saying little, smiling even less, touching her only if necessary, as if somehow sensing she wasn’t ready for a return to their previous intimacy. To limit her interaction with him, she had mostly feigned sleep, but she knew once she went home with him she would have to face the reality of their relationship.