FIVE
MELODY stood staring across the room for some moments, fighting the urge to run after Zeke and say…
Say what? she asked herself wearily. That she had changed her mind? But she hadn’t. Not about leaving him. All her reasons held good for that, and had perhaps deepened in the past hours since she had seen him again. She loved him too much, and his power over her had always scared her a little deep inside the private place in her mind where uncomfortable truths were buried. She had to get far away from him. That was the only way.
She swayed a little, so tired she could barely remain upright, and then made her way into the bedroom where her case had been left earlier. Shrugging off the robe, she climbed into bed, wanting to think about her and Zeke, to reaffirm to herself the rationale that vindicated her decision, but so exhausted her brain simply wouldn’t compute. She couldn’t think. Not now.
The swirling snow outside the bedroom window had bathed the room in soft evening shadow, despite it being only a little past one o’clock, and the bed was supremely comfortable after the hard institutional one she had endured for the past three months. Within seconds her breathing was even and deep and she slept a dreamless sleep.
She was completely unaware of the big broad figure that entered the room a few minutes later, standing just inside the doorway until he had satisfied himself her sleep was genuine, at which point he walked softly over to the bed. Zeke stared down at his sleeping wife for several long minutes, his gaze caressing the fragility of her fine features as she slept, and the breakable quality of the shape under the coverlet.
When he noiselessly closed the drapes against the worsening storm outside the cosy cocoon of the hotel his cheeks were damp.
Melody wasn’t sure exactly what had dragged her out of the depths of a slumber so heavy her limbs were weighed down with it. She lay in a deep, warm vacuum, a charcoal twilight bathing the room in indistinct shapes as she forced her eyes open. She felt blissfully, wonderfully relaxed.
For a moment she had no idea where she was, and then the past few hours came rushing back at the same time as voices somewhere beyond the bedroom registered. Male voices.
She couldn’t remember closing the curtains. She stared towards the window, her brain still fuzzy, but then as familiar deep tones registered she sat up in bed, shaking her hair out of her eyes. That was Zeke’s voice. She glanced at her wristwatch but it was too dark to make out the time.
Her heart thudding fit to burst, she threw back the coverlet and reached for her robe on the chair at the side of the bed, pulling it on with feverish haste. After switching on the bedside lamp she again checked her watch. Four o’clock. Tea and cake. Room Service. But that still didn’t explain what Zeke was doing here—unless she had imagined it, of course.
Zeke was very real when she opened the door to the sitting room. Too real. Melody’s senses went into hyperdrive as she registered the very male body clad only in black silk pyjama bottoms. Not that Zeke had ever worn pyjamas to her knowledge.
It was clear he’d just had a shower before answering the door. His thickly muscled torso gleamed like oiled silk where he hadn’t dried himself before pulling on the pyjama bottoms, and the black hair on his chest glistened with drops of water. He was magnificent. Melody had forgotten just how magnificent, but now she was reminded—in full, glorious Technicolor.
She swallowed hard, telling herself to say something. Anything. But her thought process was shattered.
‘Hi.’ His smile was ridiculously normal in the circumstances. ‘Did the knock at the door wake you? It’s our tea and cake.’
She tried, she really tried to rise to the occasion, as one of the sophisticated beauties he’d dated before he’d met her would have done, but she knew she’d failed miserably when her voice held the shrillness of a police car siren. ‘What are you doing here?’ she yelled. ‘You’re supposed to have left.’
His expression changed to one of wounded innocence, which was all the more unbelievable in view of his attire—or lack of it. Before he could voice the reasonable and utterly false explanation she just knew was hovering on his lips, she continued, ‘And why is the tea and cake for two, considering you ordered it hours ago?’
‘Ah…’ He smiled, a smile of singularly sweet ingenuousness. ‘I can explain.’
‘Please do,’ she said with biting sarcasm.
‘I never intended for you to be alone on Christmas Eve, so I thought I’d stick around for a while, that’s all.’
He raked back his hair, which had fallen quiff-like across his brow, and she was reminded how much it suited him that bit longer than he normally wore it before she hastily pushed the thought aside. ‘I didn’t invite you to stay,’ she glinted angrily. ‘And why are you dressed—’ perhaps undressed would have been a more appropriate description ‘—like this?’
He glanced down at the pyjama bottoms, as though he was surprised at the obviousness of the question, and then met her furious gaze with a serenity that sent Melody’s stress level up a few more notches. ‘I was having a shower when Room Service came with the tea and cake,’ he said patiently.
Melody hung on to her patience by a thread. ‘Why were you taking a shower in my hotel room?’ she said tersely. ‘And how come your pyjamas are here?’
‘I was taking a shower in my room—you notice this suite has two bedrooms?’ His tone was such he could have been talking to a total dimwit. ‘And I went out and bought the pyjamas and a couple of other bits while you were asleep. I assumed you’d prefer me to wear something to answer the door in the sort of situation that just occurred,’ he added, his tone so reasonable she wanted to hit him.
Glaring at him, she wondered how she had lost control of things. It had all been so straightforward earlier that morning. Leave the hospital. Book into the hotel. Go to bed and hibernate Christmas away. And now look at what a ridiculous position she was in—her estranged husband sharing a hotel suite with her and standing practically naked a few feet away.
And looking hot. The little voice in the back of her mind was ruthlessly honest. In fact he was fairly smoking. Zeke had always been very much at ease with his body, and it enhanced his flagrant masculinity tenfold. Wretched man.
Pulling herself together, Melody hardened her heart as well as her expression. ‘You said you were leaving earlier,’ she said stonily. ‘And I expected you to do just that.’
He gave her a crooked smile as he sat down on one of the sofas in front of the glass coffee table where their tea and cake were waiting. ‘No,’ he corrected softly. ‘I never did. I know that because wild horses couldn’t have dragged me away. I would have preferred us to go home and discuss what needs to be discussed there, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen. So—’ he shrugged broad muscled shoulders and Melody’s mouth went dry ‘—I adapted to the circumstances as I saw fit.’
‘Hence changing the room to a suite?’ she said stiffly.
‘Quite. We may as well be comfortable for as long as this charade continues.’ He grinned happily. ‘These cakes look fantastic. I’ve always been a sucker for chocolate cupcakes and fondant fancies—and that’s a lemon drizzle cake, if I’m not mistaken. We missed dessert, so come and tuck in.’ He was pouring two cups of tea as he spoke.
Melody hesitated for a moment. She wasn’t going to give in, and there was no way Zeke was sharing this suite tonight, but the assortment of cakes did look tempting, and surprisingly—for the second time that day—she found she was actually quite hungry. She would have preferred Zeke to be fully dressed, but as he seemed more interested in the food than in her…
She sat down on the opposite sofa, accepting the cup of tea he handed her with a nod of thanks and selecting one of the little pink-and-white Genoese sponge fondant fancies hand-decorated with sugar daisies. It melted in her mouth, and when Zeke offered her the cakestand again she took a piece of lemon drizzle cake, filled with rich buttercream and lemon curd, refusing to acknowledge how cosy this was.
Outside the snow was coming down thicker than ever, and as she glanced at the window Melody’s stomach did a pancake flip. It was too late to send Zeke away. He’d never make it to Reading now, she acknowledged silently. Okay, so maybe he would have to stay after all, but strictly on her terms—and that included his and hers bedrooms first and foremost.
She glanced at him from under her eyelashes. He was sitting eating with every appearance of relaxed enjoyment, and after she had declined more cake had made short work of what was left on the cake stand. The man was impossible—utterly impossible.
He glanced up and caught her looking at him, and as always when he smiled at her in a certain way her blood fizzed. ‘Remember when you made that clementine, saffron and polenta cake in Madeira?’ he murmured softly. ‘I haven’t tasted anything so good as that before or since. You promised you’d make it again back in England, but you never did.’
The memory of that day at the villa in Madeira swept over her. It had been their last holiday before her accident and they’d had a magical time: horse-riding along the beach, scuba-diving, sunbathing in the shade of the trees around their private pool and spending each soft, scented night wrapped in each other’s arms. They had bought the small juicy clementines at the little local market close to the villa, and she had followed a recipe which Aida—Zeke’s daily from the village—had written down for her. Melody was the first to admit she wasn’t much of a cook—Zeke was actually much better than her, and had a natural flair with food that made most dishes he served up truly sensational—but the cake had turned out surprisingly well and Zeke had been lavish with his praise.
They had eaten the moist, wonderfully tangy cake after dinner with their coffee, sitting on the villa’s balcony in the richly perfumed air as a glorious sunset had filled the sky with rivulets of scarlet, gold and deep violet, and afterwards, content and sated, had made love for hours in their big, billowy bed. He’d told her she was exquisite, a goddess…
Enough. The warning was loud in her head. That was then and this was now, and the girl who had lived in a bikini practically the whole holiday was gone. She had never considered herself particularly beautiful, but had always had confidence in her firm, graceful dancer’s body, able to hold her own in that regard with the jet-set who congregated around Zeke like moths to a flame. What would they say now?
People. Melody’s green eyes darkened. Always people. When she thought about it now, she had never felt she had Zeke completely. There had always been people in the background making claims on him. Even in Madeira there were friends who came by for dinner or barbecues—beautiful people, rich, funny, intelligent, fascinating. She had told herself she had to expect that; he was nearly forty years old, for goodness’ sake, and he had built a life for himself that had to continue when she had come along. It would have been totally unreasonable to expect anything else. And she hadn’t minded then—not much, anyway. Only sometimes she’d felt on the outside looking in.
‘What’s the matter?’ He was staring at her. ‘What is it?’
She came back from the past to find she must have been looking at him without seeing him. ‘Nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘My mind was wandering, that’s all.’
‘Wherever it had wandered it didn’t seem to be a good place from the look on your face.’ His gaze narrowed. ‘What makes me think it was something to do with us?’ he added softly, leaning back in the sofa as he surveyed her through glittering black eyes. ‘It was, wasn’t it? What was it?’
Her senses registered the way his powerful muscles moved as sleekly as an animal’s, and she was reminded again how magnificent his body was. The first time she had seen him naked she had been in awe of his male beauty. She still was.
‘Melody?’ he pressed silkily, in a way she knew meant he wasn’t going to let the matter drop. ‘Tell me.’
Suddenly she threw caution to the wind. ‘I was thinking about how in the whole of our marriage, apart from on our honeymoon, we were constantly surrounded by people wanting a piece of you,’ she said flatly. ‘Weekdays, weekends—it was always the same. Looking back, I’ve sometimes thought I was just one of many hangers-on in your world.’
To say she had shocked him was an understatement. She watched as his fiercely intelligent mind considered what she’d said. ‘You were never, ever just anything. As my wife you were up there with me one hundred per cent. Or at least I thought you were.’ He had sat up straight as he’d spoken, every line of his body tense now. ‘Obviously I was mistaken.’
She wasn’t going to let him lay it all on her. ‘You never asked me what I wanted, Zeke. Not really. And I admit for my part I should have spoken up, but I was overwhelmed by it all.’ By my incredible fortune in marrying you. By the impossible fact that you loved me. ‘And I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it, because I did, but I never really felt—’
‘What? What didn’t you feel?’
‘That I fitted in, I guess.’ She shook her head, biting her lip. ‘Maybe you were right when you said I never thought we’d last. I was never conscious of thinking that, but once you said it I realised there was an element of truth there. And it wasn’t just because of my grandmother and her attitude to men. Not wholly. It was because I sort of slotted into your life without you having to make any changes, with me hardly making a dent in your way of going on. And if I disappeared out of it again the same would apply. Nothing would really alter. I’d barely make a ripple as I left.’
Zeke was staring at her as though he’d never seen her before. ‘You can’t believe that,’ he said eventually, clearly stricken. ‘How many times did I tell you I loved you? That I had never loved anyone else? Did you think I was lying?’
Melody paused before answering. She was aware she had opened a can of worms, but there was no going back now. ‘No, I know you loved me,’ she said slowly. ‘But why wouldn’t you when I was doing everything you wanted? Being what you wanted? And it wasn’t all your fault. I’m not saying that. I loved seeing how the other half lived and being part of that world. It was exhilarating and crazy and a million things besides. But—’ Another silence while she searched for words to explain the unexplainable. ‘But there’s another world too—a real world. A world devoid of rose-coloured glasses.’
‘Meaning what, exactly?’ His voice was grim, his body tense.
She shrugged. ‘I suppose I mean that outside the Zeke James bubble people struggle to pay their bills each month, they work nine to five just to make ends meet, they strive all their lives and never really make it. They can’t just pick up the phone and have half a dozen people ready to jump through hoops and pave the way for whatever they want. They’ve never experienced walking into a store and being able to buy whatever they like without looking at the price tag. They have bad days, they get sick, they—they have accidents.’
She stopped abruptly. She wasn’t putting this very well. What she wanted to say had nothing to do with wealth and fortune. Not really. It was about Zeke belonging to her and she to him. ‘I can’t explain it very well,’ she added lamely.
‘Are you blaming me for succeeding in life?’ Zeke asked, his voice as even as a sheet of glass. ‘Because you’ll wait one hell of a long time for me to apologise for that. I pulled myself out of the gutter inch by inch, and I saw enough to know I’d rather slit my own throat than go back to it. Try living in a succession of rooms with the one person who’s supposed to love and look after you but who forgets you’re alive most of the time. Sleeping in filthy beds, eating half-mouldy food because if you don’t you’ll starve and no one will give a damn. Having no idea what a bath is but knowing other people out there don’t smell like you and your mother and her pals do. And when you’re finally dumped into care, longing to go back to that life, bad as it was, because it’s all you’ve ever known and you’re scared out of your wits.’
As if he couldn’t bear looking at her he stood up, turning away and taking a deep breath. For a moment his back was ramrod-straight and the muscles in his shoulders hard and tense. Every line in his body proclaimed how much she’d hurt him.
Horrified at the wounds she’d uncovered, Melody murmured, ‘Zeke, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… I’m sorry.’
He swung to face her and she saw the iron control was back. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ His face was relaxed, calm, but she knew he wasn’t feeling like that inside. ‘It was a long time ago. But don’t tell me I haven’t experienced life, Dee. I wasn’t brought up in what you call the Zeke James bubble. Blood, sweat and tears got me to where I am today—that and Lady Luck. But I’ll tell you one thing.’ He moved over to where she was now standing, his dark eyes fixed on hers. ‘I could give it all up tomorrow and walk away without a backward glance or an ounce of regret. You talk about my world, but let me make one thing perfectly clear. It doesn’t own me. I own it. There’s a difference. One hell of a difference.’
Melody stared into the rugged face. She wanted to believe him but she didn’t know if she did. And, anyway, did it really make any difference one way or the other? It was all relative.
This close, she was aware of the fresh soapy smell emanating from his body, of his still-damp hair falling into the quiff which was somewhat boyish and incongruous against the hard tough features. It strengthened his overwhelming maleness in a way that caused her heart to pound as the intimacy of the moment deepened. She felt the pull of his attraction drawing her.
He reached out and sifted a strand of her hair through his fingers, letting it fall back into the shining curtain on her shoulders as his eyes caressed her face. ‘You look good enough to eat,’ he said huskily. ‘Far more delicious than fondant fancies and infinitely more satisfying.’
Melody knew what was going to happen, and she also knew he was giving her time to move away, to break the spell which had fallen. The sitting room was lit only by a couple of lamps Zeke had switched on, and the soft mellow glow was enhanced by the swirling snow outside the window and the twinkling white lights on the little Christmas tree. It was cosy and snug, safe and warm, and the power of his sensuality wrapped round her as she gave herself up to the magic of his kiss.
His bare arms folded round her waist, tugging her into the cradle of his hips as he purposefully deepened the onslaught on her senses. She felt her breasts respond as the towelling robe pressed against the wall of his chest, their tips hardening and swelling as the blood heated in her veins.
His tongue probed the warmth of her inner mouth and the effect on her was electric. A little moan escaped her throat, vibrating against his mouth and causing Zeke to groan in return as her arms wound round his neck, her fingers sliding into the black thickness of his hair.
Now his mouth was hungry, demanding and wonderfully, achingly familiar as every nerve in her body sensitised. His grip tightened around her waist, his hips grinding against hers as he moved her against him. She arched in unconscious abandonment, unaware the folds of the robe had opened as her belt had loosened. And then she felt his warm hands on the bare flesh beneath the thin wispy bra she was wearing and she froze.
‘No.’ Her voice was high with panic as she jerked away, pulling the robe back in place and jerking the belt tight.
Zeke was breathing like a long-distance runner and he had to take a rasping breath before he could speak. ‘It’s all right.’ He wouldn’t let her escape him completely, drawing her back into his embrace with steel-like arms which allowed no protest. ‘We can take this as slow as you want.’
‘I don’t want it at all.’ Melody’s mouth was dry and she licked her lips and swallowed painfully. ‘We can’t—’
‘We can.’ He kissed her again—a mere brushing of her trembling mouth. ‘We’re man and wife, Dee, and you’ve just proved you want me every bit as much as I want you.’ It wasn’t arrogant or triumphant, just a simple statement of fact. ‘We are one and you can’t fight that.’
She shook her head dazedly, a hundred and one conflicting emotions tearing her apart. If they made love, if he saw her naked, he couldn’t fail to be repulsed. And she couldn’t bear that. She wanted him to remember her as she had been—to picture her in his mind as smooth-skinned, nubile, inviting. She was doing this for him as much as her. She was. He had married her when she was perfect. Why should he have to learn to adapt to anything less? She was finding it hard, but what would it do to a man like Zeke? No, this was the only way. It had to end now. Swiftly, cleanly, unhesitatingly—like the surgeon’s scalpel. She had to remain strong. She couldn’t weaken.
‘No, Zeke,’ she whispered. ‘We’re not man and wife any more. Not here, in my head.’
‘I don’t believe that.’ He still continued to hold her, but now the circle of his arms was relaxed. ‘Not for a minute, a second. So don’t waste your breath trying to convince me when all you’re really doing is lying to yourself, okay? Now, go and pamper yourself—have a long soak in the tub and cream and titivate and whatever else women do when they’re getting ready for a night on the town. I’m wining and dining you tonight, and I’ve got tickets for the theatre.’
Melody stared at him aghast. ‘I’m not going out.’
‘Of course you are. We’re not going to let a bit of snow beat us. This is London, not the arctic.’
‘I don’t mean that.’ And he knew it. ‘I’m staying here.’
‘Why?’ The ebony eyes challenged her. ‘Why is that?’
Melody fell back on one of the oldest excuses in the book—the one that came just after I’ve got a headache. ‘I’ve got nothing to wear,’ she said. It was true. Her suitcase contained the leggings and T-shirts and other comfy clothes she had worn in hospital once she was allowed her own things, but absolutely nothing suitable for the sort of evening Zeke had described. All her evening things were back at their house.
He grinned. ‘No problem.’ Releasing her, he walked over to the Christmas tree and she saw that at some point during the afternoon a host of beautifully wrapped parcels had appeared beneath it. ‘You can have a couple of your Christmas presents early,’ he said cheerfully, extracting two parcels from the pile. ‘I bought a size below your normal measurements, so hopefully they’ll fit. Try them on and see.’
Utterly taken aback, Melody stuttered, ‘When—? How—?’
Zeke paused as an array of emotions—wariness, delight, embarrassment—flitted across his features. ‘I did a little shopping when you were asleep,’ he admitted. ‘I’d left your Christmas presents at home. I thought—’ He shook his head. ‘Well, you know what I thought. I didn’t expect we’d be spending Christmas in a hotel in the city.’
‘Zeke, I can’t accept these.’ It seemed absolutely brazen to take anything from him in the circumstances. ‘You must see that.’
‘Why not?’ he said easily and without heat.
Melody wasn’t fooled. She’d seen the flash of granite in his eyes.
‘I just can’t,’ she murmured helplessly. ‘I haven’t got anything for you, for a start. It—it wouldn’t be right.’
He slung the parcels on a sofa and reached for her again, refusing to let her go when she tried to pull away. One hand took hold of her face gently, lifting her chin so his midnight-dark eyes stared straight into hers. ‘You being able to walk out of that place today is all the present I’ll ever want. In those first few days I didn’t think you were going to make it. I was terrified and I couldn’t do anything. Something like that has a way of sorting out the priorities of life, believe me. So, you’re my Christmas gift this year.’
‘Zeke—’ She was struggling not to cry. ‘I can’t—’
‘I know, I know.’ He pressed a quick kiss on her mouth. ‘You don’t want to hear it, but tough—it’s the truth. Now, take your presents and go and make yourself even more beautiful, if that’s possible. Because we are going out tonight, Dee. Even if I have to dress you myself.’ He smiled, but Melody knew he wasn’t joking. ‘Which, incidentally, is the option I prefer.’
Knowing she ought to be stronger, but still melting from the beautiful things he’d said, she continued to stand looking at him for a moment more. Maybe going out was the best idea after all. Certainly a night in together would be dangerously cosy with Zeke in this impossibly seductive mood.
As if to confirm her thoughts Zeke kissed her again, as though he couldn’t help himself—a kiss of slow sensuality. She had wedged her arms between them, flattening her palms on his powerful chest in an effort to push away from the hot desire which had immediately gripped her. It had always been the same; he only had to touch her and she was lost. His mouth moved to one shell-like ear, nibbling it before progressing to her throat and finding her pounding pulse. His rapid-fire heartbeat under her palms revealed Zeke’s arousal as blatantly as the silk pyjama bottoms, and for a split second the old thrill and delight that she could inspire such desire in him was there, before a flood of cold reality doused the feeling as effectively as a bucket of icy water.
He didn’t know what she looked like under the robe. He hadn’t seen the scars and puckered skin.
Melody jerked away so violently she took him by surprise. ‘Please don’t,’ she said brokenly. ‘Please, Zeke.’ She gathered up the parcels he’d thrown on the sofa and moved to the door, turning in the doorway to say, ‘What time do I need to be ready?’ as she nerved herself to look at him.
He hadn’t moved, and her breath caught in her throat at the sheer male beauty of his magnificent body. The velvet eyes swept over her and there was no annoyance in his face. His voice was deep and warm and very sensual when he said, ‘I’ve ordered cocktails here in the room for seven before we go.’
She nodded stiffly, holding the tears at bay through sheer willpower as it came to her that she had never loved him so much as she did right at this moment. He was everything she had ever wanted—would ever want—and she was going to let him go. She knew it. She just had to make him believe it before she went insane trying.