MELANIE MILBURNE - The Mélendez Forgotten Marriage

Emelia placed her hand on her chest near her heart, trying to ease the pain of never seeing Peter again. That was a part of her life that was finished. She hadn’t even been given the chance to say goodbye.

Javier schooled his features into blankness as he entered the private suite. ‘Cariño,’ he said, ‘I see you are all packed and ready to leave.’

He saw the flicker of uncertainty in her grey-blue gaze before she lowered it. ‘There wasn’t much to pack,’ she said, slipping off the bed to stand upright.

He put out a hand to steady her but she moved out of his reach, as if his touch repelled her. He set his jaw, fighting back his fury. She didn’t used to flinch from his touch. She used to be hungry for it. He thought of all the times he had taken her, quickly, passionately, slowly, sensually. She hadn’t recoiled from his lovemaking until Marshall had come back on the scene. Javier’s gut roiled with the thought of what she had got up to while his back was turned. How convenient for her to forget her perfidy now when the stakes had changed. The way she had received the news of Marshall’s death confirmed her depth of feeling for him. She hadn’t forgotten her lover and yet she had forgotten him—her legal husband.

Javier clenched his fingers around the handle of the small bag containing Emelia’s belongings. A tiny flick knife of guilt nicked at him deep inside. He had to admit there were some things he hoped she wouldn’t remember about their last heated argument. He had lost control in a way that deeply ashamed him. Had his actions during that ugly scene driven her into her lover’s arms? Or had she been planning to run away with Marshall in any case?

What if she never remembered him?

No. He was not going to think about that possibility, in spite of what the doctors and the psychologist had said. He lived for the day when she would look at him with full recognition in her grey-blue eyes. For the day she would smile at him and offer her soft, full beestung mouth for him to kiss; she would give him her body to pleasure and be pleasured until every last memory of her dead lover was obliterated.

And then and only then he would have his revenge.

‘My car is waiting outside,’ Javier said. ‘I have a private jet waiting for our departure.’

She gave him one of her bewildered looks. ‘You…you have a private jet?’

‘Sí,’ he answered. ‘You are married to a very rich man, mi amor , or have you forgotten that too?’

She bit into her bottom lip, her gaze falling away from his as she continued walking by his side. ‘Dr Carey, the psychologist, told me some husbands find it very hard to accept their wives don’t remember them,’ she said. ‘I know this must be hard for you. I know you must feel angry and upset.’

You have no idea how angry , Javier thought as he led the way out of the hospital. Anger was like a turbulent flood inside him. His blood was surging with it, bulging in his veins like red-hot lava until he felt he was going to explode with it. How could he conceal the hatred he felt for her at her betrayal? The papers were full of it again this morning, as they had been for the past week.

Every headline seemed to say the same: the speculation about her affair with Marshall, their clandestine dirty little affair that had ended in tragedy. Javier knew he would have to work harder at controlling his emotions. This was not the time to avenge the past. What was the point? Emelia apparently had no recollection of it.

He cupped her elbow with the palm of his hand as he guided her into the waiting limousine. ‘I am sorry, querida ,’ he said. ‘I am still getting over the shock of almost losing you. Forgive me. I will try and be more considerate.’

She looked at him once he took the seat beside her, her eyes like luminescent pools. ‘It’s OK,’ she said in a whisper-soft voice. ‘I’m finding it hard too. I feel like I am living in someone else’s body, living someone else’s life.’

‘It is your life,’ Javier said. ‘It is the one you chose for yourself.’

She frowned as she absently stroked her fingers over the butter-soft leather of the seat between them. ‘How long did we date before we got married?’

‘Not long.’

She turned her head to look at him. ‘How long?’

‘Six weeks.’

Her eyes went wide, like pond water spreading after a flood. ‘I can’t believe I got married so quickly,’ she said, as if talking to herself. She shook her head but then winced as if it had hurt her. She lowered her gaze and tucked a strand of her honey-blonde hair back behind her ear, her tongue sweeping out over her lips, the action igniting a fire in his groin despite all of his attempts to ignore her physical allure. Sitting this close, he could smell the sweet vanilla fragrance of her skin. If he closed his eyes he could picture her writhing beneath him as he pounded into her, his body rocking with hers until they both exploded. He clenched his jaw and turned to look out of the window at the rain lashing down outside.

‘Was it a white wedding?’ she asked after a little silence.

Javier turned and looked at her. ‘Yes, it was. There were over four hundred people there. It was called the wedding of the year. Perhaps if you see the photographs it will trigger something in your memory.’

‘Perhaps…’ She looked away and began chewing on her bottom lip, her brow furrowing once more.

Javier watched her in silence, mulling over what to tell her and what to leave well alone. The doctor had advised against pressuring her to remember. She was disoriented and still suffering from the blow of losing her lover. Apart from that first show of grief, she hadn’t mentioned Peter Marshall again, but every now and then he saw the way her eyes would tear up and a stake would go through his heart all over again.

She suddenly turned and met his gaze. ‘Do you have family?’ she asked. ‘Brothers or sisters and parents?’

‘My mother died when I was very young,’ he said. ‘My father remarried after some years. I have a half-sister called Izabella.’ He paused before adding, ‘My father left Izabella’s mother and after the divorce remarried once again. As predicted by just about everyone who knew him, it didn’t work out and he was in the process of divorcing his third wife when he died.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ she said quietly. ‘Did I ever meet him?’

Javier stretched his lips into an embittered smile.

‘No. My father and I were estranged at the time. I hadn’t spoken to him for ten years.’

Her expression was empathetic. ‘How very sad. How did the estrangement come about?’

He drew in a breath and released it slowly. ‘My father was a stubborn man. He was hard in business and even harder in his personal life. It’s why each of his marriages turned into war zones. He liked control. It irked him that I wanted to take charge of my own life. We exchanged a few heated words and that was it. We never spoke to each other again.’

Emelia studied his stony expression, wondering how far the apple had fallen from the tree. ‘Were you alike in looks?’ she asked.

His eyes met hers, so dark and mysterious, making her stomach give a little unexpected flutter. ‘We shared the same colouring but had little else in common,’ he said. ‘I was closer to my mother.’

‘How old were you when she died?’ Emelia asked.

His eyes moved away from hers, his voice when he spoke flat and emotionless. ‘I was four, almost five years old.’

Emelia felt her insides clench at the thought of him as a dark-haired, dark-eyed little boy losing his mother so young. She knew the devastation so well. She had been in her early teens when her mother had died, but still it had hit hard. Her adolescence, from fourteen years old, had been so lonely. While not particularly close to either of her high-flying parents, there had been so many times over the years when Emelia had wished she could have had just one more day with her mother. ‘Are you close to your half-sister?’ she asked.