By Request Collection Part 2. Natalie Anderson
I have only had one lover. I must have told you about it, surely? It happened when I was singing in a band in Melbourne. I was too young and didn’t realise what I was getting into with someone so much older and experienced. I should have known better, but I was in that rebellious stage a lot of teenagers go through.’
His hand moved from her cheek to rest on her shoulder, his eyes still holding hers like a searchlight. ‘You told me some things about it, yes,’ he said. ‘But then perhaps there are other things you didn’t tell me. Things you preferred to keep a secret from me even during our marriage.’
Her frown deepened across her forehead. ‘Like what?’
He gave her an inscrutable look and dropped his hand from her shoulder. ‘Who knows?’ he said. ‘You can’t remember, or so you say.’
The ensuing silence seemed to ring with the suspicion of his statement.
Emelia sat on the bed in case her legs gave way. ‘You think I’m pretending?’ she asked in an incredulous choked whisper. ‘Is that what you think? That I’m making my memory loss up?’
His eyes bored into hers, his mouth pulled tight until his lips were almost flattened. ‘You remember nothing of me and yet you grieve like a heartbroken widow over the loss of Marshall.’
She pushed herself upright with her arms. ‘Have I not got the right to grieve the loss of a beloved friend?’
His jaw tightened as he held her stare for stare. ‘I am your husband, Emelia,’ he bit out. ‘Your life is with me, not with a dead man.’
She glared back at him furiously. ‘You can’t force me to stay with you. I might never remember you. What will you do then?’
‘Oh, you will remember, Emelia,’ he said through clenched teeth, each bitten out word highlighting his accent. ‘Make no mistake. You will remember everything.’
Emelia felt a rumble of fear deep and low in her belly. ‘I don’t know you. I don’t even know myself, or at least that’s what it feels like it,’ she said. ‘I don’t know who I’ve become over the past two years. Do you have any idea what it’s like for me to step back into the life that was supposedly mine when I don’t recognise a thing about it or me?’
He let out a harsh breath. ‘Leave it. This is not the time to discuss it.’
‘No I can’t leave it,’ she said. ‘You don’t seem to trust me. What sort of marriage did we have?’
His eyes were fathomless black pools as they held hers. ‘I said I don’t wish to discuss this,’ he said. ‘You need to rest. You are pale and look as if a breath of wind would knock you down.’
‘What would you care?’ she asked with a churlish look.
‘I am not going to continue with this conversation,’ he said with an implacable set to his mouth. ‘I will leave you to rest. Dinner will be served at eight-thirty. I would suggest you stay close to the villa until you become more familiar with your surroundings. You could easily get lost.’
Emelia sank back down on the mattress once the door had closed on his exit. She put a shaky hand up to her temple, wishing she could unlock the vault of memories that held the secrets of the past two years. What sort of wife was she that her husband didn’t seem to trust her? And why did he look at her as if he was torn between pulling her into his arms and showing her the door?
After changing into riding gear, Javier strode down to the stables and, politely declining the offer from his stable-hand, Pedro, quickly saddled his Andalusian stallion, Gitano, and rode out of the villa courtyard. The horse’s hooves rattled against the cobblestones but, once the stallion was on the grass of the fields leading to the woods, Javier let him have his head. The feel of the powerful muscles of his horse beneath him was just the shot of adrenalin he needed to distract himself from being with Emelia again.
Holding her in his arms when she had cried had been like torture. He couldn’t remember a time when she had shown such emotion before. She was usually so cool and in control of herself. It had stirred things in him to fever pitch to have her so close. Her body had felt so warm and soft against his, so achingly familiar. He could so easily have pushed her down on the bed and reclaimed her as his. His body had throbbed to possess her. It disgusted him that he was so weak. Had he learned nothing? Women were not to be trusted, especially women like his runaway wife.
He had noted every nuance of her face on the journey home to Spain. If she truly had forgotten how wealthy he was, she was in no doubt of it now. Even if she did recall what a sham their marriage had become, she was unlikely to admit it now. Why would she? He could give her everything money could buy. Her lover was dead. She had no one else to turn to, nowhere else to go. She was back in his life due to a quirk of fate. There was no way now that he could toss her out as he had sworn he would do when he’d found out about her affair. The public would not look upon him kindly for divorcing his amnesiac wife. But there could be benefits in keeping her close to his side, he conceded. He still wanted her. That much had not changed, even though it annoyed him that he could not dismiss his attraction for her as easily as he wanted to. It had been there right from the beginning; the electric pulse of wanting that fizzled between them whenever they were within touching distance. She might not recognise him mentally but he felt sure her body was responding to him the way it always had. It would not take him long to have her writhing and twisting beneath him; all memory of her lover would be replaced with new memories of him and him alone.
He would cut her from his life when he was sure she was back on her feet. Their marriage would have fulfilled its purpose by then, in any case. Their divorce would be swift and final. All contact with her would cease from that point. He had no intention of keeping her with him indefinitely, not after the scandal she had caused him. The public would forget in time as new scandals were uncovered, but he could not.
He would not.
The horse’s hooves thundered over the fields, the wind rushing through Javier’s hair as he rode at breakneck speed. He pulled the stallion to a halt at the top of the hill, surveying the expanse of his estate below. The grey-green of the olive groves and the fertile fields of citrus and almonds reminded him of all he had worked so hard and long for. For all the sacrifices he had made to keep this property within his hands. His father’s gambling and risky business deals had cost Javier dearly. He’d had to compromise himself in ways he had never dreamed possible. But what was done was done and it could not be undone. It eased his conscience only slightly that he hadn’t done it for himself. Izabella had a right to her inheritance, and he had made sure it was not going to be whittled away by his father’s homewrecking widow.
The stallion tossed his head and snorted, his hooves drumming in the dust with impatience. Javier stroked the stallion’s silky powerful neck, speaking low and soothingly in Spanish. The horse rose on his hindquarters, his front hooves pawing at the air. Javier laughed as he thought of his wayward wife and how fate had handed her back to him to do with her as he wished. He turned the horse and galloped him back down through the forest to the plains below, the thrill of the ride nothing to what waited for him at the end of it.
Emelia ignored the comfort of the big bed and, after a refreshing shower and change of clothes, went on a solitary tour of the villa in the hope of triggering something in her brain. Most of the rooms were too formal for her taste. They were almost austere, with their priceless works of art and uncomfortable-looking antiquated furniture. She couldn’t help wondering why she hadn’t gone about redecorating the place. Money was certainly no object, but perhaps she’d felt intimidated by the age and history of the villa. It was certainly very old. Every wall of the place seemed to have a portrait of an ancestor on it, each pair of eyes following her in what she felt to be an accusatory silence. She found it hard to imagine a small child feeling at home here. Was this the place where Javier had grown up? There was so much she didn’t know about him, or at least no longer knew.
She breathed out a sigh as she opened yet another door. This one led into a library-cum-study. Three walls of floor to ceiling bookshelves and a leather-topped desk dominated the space, but she could see a collection