Carol Marinelli - Emergency - A Marriage Worth Keeping

When she didn’t answer, Salvador moved into the en suite bathroom. She lay there staring at his reflection in the dressing-room-table mirror, watching as he quietly undressed and then leaned over the sink to brush his teeth. The vivid, raised scar on his back, so red and angry, was easy to make out even from this distance.

How she longed to touch it, longed to run gentle fingers over it, to ask him how much it hurt. She winced as she imagined the gnarled metal from the car wreckage stabbing into his beautiful back and then the torturous operation to remove it.

But their wounds didn’t only lie skin-deep. Now they had to fight for the survival of their marriage!

A and E Drama

Blood pressure is high and pulses are racing

in these fast-paced, dramatic stories from

Harlequin® Medical Romance™.

They’ll move a mountain to save a life

in an emergency, be they the crash team,

emergency doctors or paramedics. There are

lots of critical situations amongst the

high tension and emotional passion in these

exciting stories of lives and loves at risk!

Carol Marinelli now also writes for Harlequin Presents™!

Emergency: A Marriage Worth Keeping

Carol Marinelli

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Cover

Introduction “Isla.” When she didn’t answer, Salvador moved into the en suite bathroom. She lay there staring at his reflection in the dressing-room-table mirror, watching as he quietly undressed and then leaned over the sink to brush his teeth. The vivid, raised scar on his back, so red and angry, was easy to make out even from this distance. How she longed to touch it, longed to run gentle fingers over it, to ask him how much it hurt. She winced as she imagined the gnarled metal from the car wreckage stabbing into his beautiful back and then the torturous operation to remove it. But their wounds didn’t only lie skin-deep. Now they had to fight for the survival of their marriage!

Title Page Emergency: A Marriage Worth Keeping Carol Marinelli www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE CONTENTS Cover Introduction “Isla.” When she didn’t answer, Salvador moved into the en suite bathroom. She lay there staring at his reflection in the dressing-room-table mirror, watching as he quietly undressed and then leaned over the sink to brush his teeth. The vivid, raised scar on his back, so red and angry, was easy to make out even from this distance. How she longed to touch it, longed to run gentle fingers over it, to ask him how much it hurt. She winced as she imagined the gnarled metal from the car wreckage stabbing into his beautiful back and then the torturous operation to remove it. But their wounds didn’t only lie skin-deep. Now they had to fight for the survival of their marriage! Title Page Emergency: A Marriage Worth Keeping Carol Marinelli www.millsandboon.co.uk PROLOGUE CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN EPILOGUE Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

‘DOES your husband have a temper?’

‘He’s Spanish,’ Isla answered, thinking of that gorgeous, volatile Latin temperament, of Sav’s arms waving in exasperation as he tried to ram home a point, tripping over the words as his mother tongue took over. ‘So of course he’s got a temper.’ Isla gave a nervous smile but it faded as she saw the solicitor’s eyebrow lift a good inch. ‘But he’s never hit me,’ she broke in immediately, annoyed at the connotation. ‘Sav would never hit me—never,’ she said again for effect, but the solicitor remained unmoved.

‘He doesn’t have to hit you,’ Karin said knowingly. ‘Abuse isn’t always physical.’

‘I’m not abused,’ Isla said firmly.

‘But your husband does have a temper?’

‘Actually, having said that, he doesn’t have a temper any more.’ Isla let out a low, mirthless laugh. ‘We’ve moved well past the stand-up row stage.’

‘And where are you now, Isla?’ Karin asked, waiting patiently as Isla took her time to respond, wondering how she could sum up in a short sentence the abyss their marriage had fallen into, the long lonely days rattling around a house that was too big, too quiet, followed by even longer, lonely nights as they lay in bed, firmly entrenched on their own sides and pretending to be asleep.

‘Where are you now, Isla?’ Karin asked again, only more gently this time, watching as her client’s tired, reddened eyes slowly lifted.

‘Sitting in a solicitor’s office, working out my options.’

The silence dragged on, Isla immersed in her own thoughts and Karin waiting for her client to elaborate further. Usually an expert at summing up people, to Karin there was something about Isla Ramirez that didn’t add up. When she’d walked nervously into her office two weeks ago Karin had been positive that after the initial brief consultation she’d never see her again. Sure almost that the rather fragile-looking blonde with the perfectly manicured nails and Pilate-toned thighs had arrived at the solicitor’s office on the back of a marital row. The affection in her voice when she’d spoken about her husband hadn’t fitted the usual mould of a woman about to leave her husband, and when Karin had actually gone through the procedures for a divorce, she had been sure that Isla Ramirez would be out of her office never to be seen again, yet here she was two weeks later, a touch thinner, a touch more exhausted perhaps, but with a steely determination Karin had missed at their last meeting.

It was Karin who eventually broke the silence, picking up her pen and shuffling the pile of notices in front of her. ‘OK, so we’ll lodge your application citing irretrievable breakdown?’