TEN
‘NOW, I could be wrong, but something tells me you could do with a nice cup of tea, dear. You look frozen to death.’
For a moment Melody couldn’t focus on the small plump woman who had sat down beside her on the bench, an equally small and plump dog flopping at his owner’s feet. She stared into the rosy face vacantly. ‘I’m sorry?’ she murmured.
‘I walked by this way a little while ago—my Billy still has to have his morning constitutional whether it’s Christmas Day or not—and I saw you then. It’s a mite cold to be sitting for long, isn’t it, dear?’ The bright brown eyes were penetrating, but kind. ‘You all right? You look all done in.’
Melody tried to pull herself together. Now she had come back to the real world she realised she was absolutely frozen to the core. Her reply of, ‘I’m fine, thank you’, was somewhat spoilt by the convulsive shiver which accompanied it.
It seemed to have decided her Good Samaritan. The little woman clucked her tongue before saying, ‘I always have a cup of tea once I get in, and my place is just across there, dear. Why don’t you come in and warm up before you get yourself home?’
‘No—no, thank you.’ Melody forced a smile as she stood up, only to find she was as stiff as a board. ‘You’re very kind but I’m perfectly all right. I—I was just sitting awhile.’
‘You don’t look all right, if you don’t mind me saying so.’ Obviously plain speaking was the order of the day. ‘You’re the colour of the snow. Look, my name’s Mabel, and I’m not doing anything until my son comes to collect me and Billy later this morning for Christmas lunch at his place. Lovely house he’s got—all modern and open-plan, I think you call it. Wouldn’t do for me—too much like living in a barn—but it suits him and his wife and the kiddies and that’s all that matters. Anyway, I’ve got an hour or two to kill, and I could do with the company, to tell you the truth. I don’t usually mind being on my own—my Billy’s good company, bless him—but Christmas Day is different, isn’t it? I miss my Arthur then. He died a couple of years ago and I still can’t get used to it. Fifty years we were married, and childhood sweethearts. That still happened in my day. Not like now.’ This was followed by a loud sniff which eloquently depicted Mabel’s opinion of present-day romance.
Melody moistened her lips, ready to refuse the invitation when she caught the fleeting expression in Mabel’s eyes. The loneliness connected with something deep inside her, and instead she found herself saying, ‘If it wouldn’t be any bother I’d love a cup of tea. I didn’t realise how cold I’d got.’
‘That’s right, dear.’ Mabel was aglow, standing up and yanking Billy—who had settled himself down for a nap—to his feet. ‘Nothing like a cup of tea for sorting things out—that’s what I always say. The cup that cheers—that’s what my Arthur said.’
Mabel’s house turned out to be a well-kept terraced property with an air of faded grandeur and photographs of family adorning every surface in the neat little kitchen-diner Melody was shown into. It was as warm as toast, an Aga having pride of place in the old-fashioned fireplace, and two-cushioned rocking chairs complemented the scrubbed kitchen table and four chairs tucked in one corner. There was a serenity to the house, a quietness that spoke of tranquillity rather than emptiness, which was immensely comforting. Melody had a strange sense of coming home.
‘Sit yourself down, lovey.’ Mabel pointed to one of the rocking chairs as she spoke. Billy immediately curled up in his basket in front of the range and shut his eyes, as though to say, duties performed; do not disturb.
‘Thank you.’ Melody sat, somewhat gingerly, and wondered how on earth she had ended up in a total stranger’s house on Christmas Day morning, when Zeke was fast asleep in their suite at the hotel. At least she hoped he was asleep. Yes, he would be, she reassured herself quickly. And even if he wasn’t it was too late to worry about it. She was here now.
Mabel bustled about making the tea, and when the little woman warmed the teapot and then added two teaspoonfuls of tea from a caddy before pouring hot water into the pot Melody wasn’t surprised. Teabags, somehow, weren’t Mabel’s style.
‘Here you are, dear.’ Mabel passed her a cup of tea with a thick slice of homemade shortbread in the saucer. ‘Now, why, if you don’t mind me asking, was a bonny-looking girl like you sitting all by herself on Christmas morning, looking as though she’d lost a pound and found a penny?’
Melody had to smile. No one could accuse Mabel of beating about the bush. She took a sip of the scalding hot tea and then set the cup in its bone china saucer. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said simply. ‘Or which way to turn.’
Mabel deposited her dumpy little body in the other rocking chair and smiled placidly. ‘A trouble shared is a trouble halved—that’s what I always say. So why don’t you tell me all about it?’ She took a bite of her own shortbread and indicated for Melody to try hers. ‘Get yourself on the other side of that, lovey, and tell me what’s wrong.’
‘It’s a long story,’ Melody said hesitantly.
‘Then all the more reason to get on with it straight away.’
The logic was irrefutable.
An hour and several cups of tea later, Melody was wondering how on earth she could have given her life story to a virtual stranger. Not only that, but she was feeling more relaxed and at home in Mabel’s house than she’d felt in years.
Mabel hadn’t interrupted her as she’d told her about her childhood, her teenage years, meeting Zeke and all the trauma following the accident. She had simply listened. Billy had twitched in his basket as he’d chased imaginary rabbits, making little growling noises in his sleep now and again as his paws had moved convulsively, but otherwise the kitchen had been quiet and still with no distractions.
‘So…’ They had sat in silence for a good ten minutes or more, and Melody was half asleep when Mabel broke the peace. ‘What are you going to say when you go back to the hotel?’
Melody stared at her new friend. ‘I don’t know. What should I do?’ Even to herself her voice sounded beseeching.
‘I can’t tell you, dear, but then you know that. This has to be your decision and yours alone. Only you know how you feel.’
Disappointed, Melody straightened in her chair. ‘I can’t stay with Zeke,’ she said tonelessly, pain tearing through her.
‘Can’t or won’t?’ Mabel asked calmly. ‘There’s a difference. My Arthur and me lost five babies before we had our son. After the fifth, I said I couldn’t go through it again. Arthur didn’t argue with me, bless him, not even when I decided I couldn’t stay here, in this house, with all the memories it held. I wanted to make a fresh start somewhere far away, I told him. Australia, perhaps. I had a brother who’d emigrated and he was doing all right. Or New Zealand, maybe. Anywhere but here, with the little room upstairs decorated as a nursery and the empty cot that had been waiting for a baby for umpteen years.’
Melody was wide awake now, hanging on to Mabel’s every word.
‘And so I made my plans. Arthur was an engineer, very well qualified and the top of the tree in his own particular field, so we could have gone anywhere and he’d have been sure of work. My brother sent me information on some lovely houses close to where he lived, and a colleague of Arthur’s had always said if we ever thought of moving he wanted first option on buying our house, so we didn’t even have to worry about selling it. We said our price and he didn’t quibble. Arthur gave notice at work, and everything was set for emigrating at the end of May. I remember May twenty-eighth was the day we were going to set sail. Funny how some things stay in your mind, isn’t it?’
Melody nodded, transfixed by the drama of the long-ago happenings of the little woman in front of her.
‘It was a lovely spring that year—soft and warm and days of endless sunshine all through April. Girls were wearing summer dresses and everyone was happy. Everyone but me. All our plans had gone smoothly, and Arthur had a good job lined up in Australia, but I knew it wasn’t right. I wanted to go, I needed to go, but it didn’t feel right deep inside—here.’ Mabel touched her heart. ‘You know? I was running way. I knew it but I wouldn’t admit it. And I had good reason for wanting a fresh start—heaven knows I did. I felt I couldn’t bear the future if I stayed. The same cycle of hope and then crushing disappointment when my body let me down again.’
Mabel leaned forward, taking one of Melody’s hands between her own. ‘I felt such a failure, you see. Every time it happened I felt I’d let Arthur down and it was affecting our marriage. I wasn’t the girl he’d married, we both knew that, and although he said he loved me just the same, and that as long as he had me it didn’t matter if the children didn’t come along, I didn’t see it that way. I’d even thought about leaving him. He had three brothers and they all had big families, and Arthur was so good with the children—their favourite uncle. I thought if I left him he could have children with someone else.’
Mabel shook her grey head, making her permed curls bob. ‘I was very mixed up. Confused and hurting and trying to be strong.’
‘Like me,’ Melody whispered, and Mabel squeezed her hand. ‘What happened? Did you get as far as trying out Australia?’
‘Arthur’s mother came round to see me one morning. It was at the end of April and the sun was shining. I opened the door to her and burst into tears. She stayed the whole day and we talked and talked. I’d lost my own mum years before, and I wasn’t one for sharing my troubles with anyone—especially anything private-like. She said something very wise to me that day, and it was a turning point, bless her.’
‘What was it?’ Melody was holding her breath.
‘That the only thing to fear is fear itself. I fought the idea at first, telling myself I wasn’t afraid, that it wasn’t as simple as that. It’s amazing how many reasons you can find to justify yourself when you try. But of course she was right. I was frightened of the future, of trying again, of failing, of losing Arthur’s love—a whole host of things. And fear has a way of undermining every foundation in your life, of clouding every issue, especially love and trust. It blinds you.’
‘And so you stayed,’ Melody said softly. ‘You didn’t leave.’
Mabel nodded. ‘It wasn’t a bed of roses, mind. I had to work at it every day. The worries didn’t go overnight—they were too deeply ingrained, I suppose—but slowly I saw light at the end of the tunnel, and when I became pregnant again a few months later I believed it would be different and it was. Our Jack was a big strapping baby, with a pair of lungs on him to wake the dead and a smile as wide as London Bridge.’
Melody smiled. ‘I’m glad for you, I really am, but your circumstances were different to mine.’
Mabel let go of her hand, but her eyes were tight on the young face in front of her when she said, ‘Different circumstances, lovey, but same cause. From what you’ve told me your Zeke isn’t about to change his mind about you because of a few scars. Not now, not ever. And you’re running just the same as I tried to do, although I was going farther than you—across the other side of the world. But you could go that far and it’d be the same mistake. Because you can’t outrun the fear. You take it with you. When you were talking earlier you called yourself a dancer, but that’s not quite right, dear. Dancing was something you did, but it didn’t sum up who you are. You’re made up of a thousand and one things that make the whole, and by the sound of it that whole is what your husband loves. Same as Arthur loved me.’
Melody gazed into the wrinkled face that was so kind it made her want to cry. ‘Zeke said something along those lines,’ she admitted quietly, ‘but I thought he was just being the dutiful husband and trying to say the right thing to comfort me.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with that—a bit of husbandly comfort,’ Mabel said stoutly. ‘But it doesn’t mean he didn’t mean it. I came to realise that what doesn’t break you makes you stronger, as a person and as a couple. That sounds trite, lovey, but I can say it because I’ve proved it. Young folk today have grown up having everything in life as instant as the coffee they drink, and when something happens that needs a bit of backbone to deal with it half of them are befuddled as to how to cope. You’re not like that, and I don’t think your Zeke is either.’
Melody thought back over the past twenty-four hours and the hundreds of little ways Zeke had shown he loved her, and wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘But he hasn’t seen what I look like now,’ she whispered. ‘And there’s so many women out there that throw themselves at him.’
‘That’s the fear talking again.’ Mabel leant forward and patted her hand briskly. ‘Now, I’m going to make us another cup of tea and a nice bacon sandwich before you go. Me and Arthur always used to start the day with a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich, but I’ve got out of the habit since he went. And Melody—’ Mabel held her gaze, her voice soft ‘—don’t expect to cross all your bridges in one fell swoop, dear. You’ll have good days and bad days, but you’ll win through—same as I did. It seems to me that your Zeke needs you every bit as much as you need him. Have you considered that? All those women you talk about were throwing themselves at him for years before he met you, and he didn’t fall for any of them, now, did he? Believe in him, lovey. Have faith. Christmas Day is a better day than most to start doing that, don’t you think?’
Melody nodded, only half convinced. She suddenly realised she needed to see Zeke again, to look into his face when he said he loved her, into his soul. She watched Mabel bustle about the kitchen without really focusing on her. But even that wouldn’t be enough. He had to see her as she was now, and it was then she would know. She loved him so much she would be able to read what he felt about having a crippled wife. She would always walk with a limp now, always have a jerky gait, and in the immediate future there were weeks of physiotherapy in store, with possible complications in the way of arthritis and so on as she got older. Their world had been a place of beautiful people—starlets, celebrities, the rich and famous. And botox and plastic surgery when the edges began to fray.
She glanced at her watch and was amazed to see how the time had gone. It was nine o’clock. Zeke might be awake now, wondering where she was. She had to get back to the hotel.
She gulped down her bacon sandwich, anxious to be gone but not wanting to offend Mabel after all her kindness, and then hugged the little woman before she left the house.
It was bitterly cold outside, but the morning was bright, a high mother-of-pearl sky and a pale sun giving brilliance to the snow-covered world beneath. The city was properly awake now, and although it was not as busy as usual on the main roads, Melody passed lots of pedestrians picking their way along the icy pavements, some with children in tow on new bikes or scooters, which their parents were endeavouring to manipulate through the snow, panting and puffing as they urged their offspring along.
Melody was halfway back to the hotel when she caught sight of Zeke in the distance—a tall, hatless figure head and shoulders above most other folk. Even being so far away she could see his face was as black as thunder. He was angry, furious. Her heart buffeted itself against her ribcage and she stopped, watching him get nearer. He hadn’t seen her yet, and she didn’t know whether to wave or not. In that first moment of panic if she could have disappeared through the floor out of sight, she would have. He was clearly beside himself.
She had always tried not to upset him in the past. Confrontation of any kind had always crushed her. Not just with Zeke, with anyone, she acknowledged rawly. She had always needed people’s approval, or at the very least their acceptance, and to achieve it she had sometimes stifled her own opinions or desires. Somehow the accident had changed that, and she mustn’t go back to how she had been. She didn’t want to do that. She straightened, her slim shoulders going back as her chin lifted.
Zeke saw her in the next instant, and even from fifty yards away she could see the relief which flooded his taut features. She swallowed, feeling her heart rate skip up another couple of notches, and began walking towards him, wondering how her life had become this constant plunging spiral of emotion. She wanted some kind of normality again. Life would never be humdrum if she stayed with Zeke, she knew that, but their day-to-day existence had been if not ordinary then part of a pattern. The times when they had been alone had not been as many as she would have liked, but there had been the nights locked in his arms when he had been all hers. If only that could happen again.
She didn’t know what to expect when Zeke met her. Certainly not the blank face and the voice empty of all expression when he took her arm, saying, ‘Let’s get back to the hotel.’ He suited his long stride to her shorter one, but that was the only concession he made as they negotiated their way along the snowy pavements which were lethal in places.
Melody looked up at him from under her eyelashes, her gaze registering the lines of strain round his mouth and eyes. She had been right. He was angry, but he had been worried too—as she would have been if their positions were reversed. But she’d had to get away for a while, selfish though it had been, although she couldn’t expect Zeke would understand that.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I went for a walk to think. I—I didn’t mean to be so long.’
‘Some four hours in all, according to the receptionist who saw you leave the hotel,’ Zeke said silkily.
Melody winced. She would have preferred him shouting at her than his dangerously controlled soft tone. It never boded well.
‘And it didn’t occur to you to ring me and let me know you were all right?’ he continued. ‘Or even turn your mobile on so I could contact you? But, no, why should it? You’re totally in Melody world, aren’t you? I’m merely your husband, that’s all.’
Melody bit her lip to stop herself firing back. He had every right to be mad. ‘I was fine.’
‘And I knew that by what? Telepathy? I had no idea where you were when I found you’d gone a couple of hours ago. I’ve been scouring the streets looking for you and trying to ignore the fact that the river is very deep and very cold.’
‘You didn’t think—’ She stopped, appalled he could imagine she would take her own life. ‘You couldn’t have imagined…’
‘I didn’t know what to think, Melody.’
The very fact he had used her full name told her he was beside himself—that and the rigidity of his features.
‘I can’t reach you, can I? That’s the nub of the issue,’ he ground out flatly. ‘You’ve shut me out more effectively than I could have imagined. There’s no room for me any more. We’re not a couple. Perhaps we never were. Maybe all I imagined we had was just wishful thinking on my part.’
She didn’t know what to say. That she had hurt him to the core was very clear, but if Zeke held power over her when he was his normal confident, intense and demanding self, it was multiplied a hundred times to devastating effect in his hurt vulnerability. ‘I—I thought I could get back before you woke up,’ she said weakly, the excuse sounding lame even to her own ears. ‘And I didn’t mean to be out for so long, but I met someone—an old lady with her dog. We—we talked for a bit.’
‘Really? And this old lady and her dog were such riveting company that it completely slipped your mind you had a husband who might—just might—be a tad worried that you had up and disappeared in the middle of the night to goodness knows where?’
‘I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.’
‘You can’t talk to me?’ He gave a harsh bark of a laugh but didn’t slow his footsteps or look at her. ‘You’re priceless, do you know that? Absolutely priceless. Only you could say that.’
She felt sudden tears burn her eyes, but blinked them away furiously. How ironic that just when she had begun to think they might have a chance he’d decided they were through. He had had enough and she couldn’t blame him. She’d acted like a crazy woman over the past months and she couldn’t—hand on heart—promise him she was any less scared of the future. He didn’t have to put up with this, and why would he?
By the time they reached the hotel her legs were aching badly from the unaccustomed exercise, but she would have walked on hot coals before showing it. They had just entered the lobby when Melody saw the Japanese family, coming from the direction of the dining room, the two little girls clutching beautifully dressed dolls and chattering away to each other. The mother smiled at Melody as they approached, clearly remembering their conversation the day before. ‘Santa found his way, as you can see,’ she said serenely, secure and content in her role as wife and mother. ‘And the reindeers must have enjoyed the carrots because they were all gone this morning.’
‘That’s good.’ Melody stopped and admired the children’s toys before saying, ‘Have you seen the snow family that came in the night? I think Santa must have brought them too.’
‘Oh, yes, they were delighted.’ As the father walked on with the children, the mother turned, her voice soft as she said, ‘Someone has been very busy.’
The two women exchanged a smile before Melody and Zeke walked towards the lift, and as the doors opened Zeke said flatly, ‘How come a stranger gets your smiles?’
Taken aback, she stared at him. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ He pressed the control panel, and as the lift swept them upwards he thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers, his gaze on his shoes.
‘Zeke, please let me explain. Can’t we talk at least?’
‘Wait.’ He raised his head, pinning her to the spot with his ebony eyes. ‘Wait till we’re in the suite.’
The few seconds until they were standing inside the sitting room seemed like hours, but then Zeke shut the door behind them and Melody forced herself to turn and look at him. His first words took her completely by surprise. ‘Is there someone else?’
‘What?’ She stared at him in utter bewilderment.
‘Have you met someone else?’ he repeated stiffly.
‘Me?’ Her voice was a squeak, and she cleared her throat before she managed, ‘Of course not. How on earth could I have met someone else when I’ve been in hospital for the last three months? I’ve only seen doctors and other patients.’
‘Stranger things have happened.’
‘Well, not to me.’ She struggled to keep her voice steady while anger streaked through her. How could he think that? How could he? ‘And I resent the question.’
He stared at her intently, and what he read in her face must have reassured him on that point at least because she saw the granite features relax. ‘I’m sorry but I had to ask. It would have explained a good few things—not least why you felt it necessary to creep away on Christmas morning and disappear for umpteen hours whilst making sure you were incommunicado.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ she protested weakly.
‘Actually, that was exactly what it was like.’
She watched him take a deep breath and realised he was having difficulty holding on to his self-control. He wanted to yell at her, to shout. He calmed himself with a few more deep breaths and she marvelled at his willpower. ‘What I meant was I didn’t deliberately not call you,’ she said tentatively. ‘I simply didn’t think.’
‘Great. That makes it much better,’ he said with grim sarcasm. ‘I’m so unimportant I didn’t even register on your radar.’
‘Stop being like this.’ Her voice came out sharper than she had intended—probably because she was desperately trying to keep cool so she could think about what to say, how to reach him. ‘I hate it when you’re this way.’
His eyes went flint-hard. ‘Like what?’ he said slowly and deliberately. ‘Like I’m angry or hurting or scared rigid? Like I lie awake every night trying to make an impossible situation possible again, knowing I’m up against an adversary who holds all the cards because I love her? My life is falling apart and everything’s disintegrating. I am going quietly crazy and I can’t concentrate on anything but us. But I mustn’t show it. Is that right? Well, tough. I’m human, believe it or not.’
Melody’s heart stopped. Zeke was always professional, the consummate business tycoon. No matter what happened he didn’t let it interfere with his work. She hadn’t really thought about how her accident was affecting him because she had been too caught up in her own pain and grief, but if she had given it thought she would have expected he was carrying on as normal, engrossed in the daily exhilarating and hectic whirl that made up his show business empire. But that hadn’t been the case at all. And he had already admitted he was blaming himself for not meeting her for lunch that day, as they had originally planned. The guilt of that must have been playing on his mind too. He’d been tormenting himself every bit as much as she had.
She swallowed against the painful lump in her throat as her heart kick-started and then pounded against her ribcage so hard it hurt. How had she missed the fact he was suffering too?
Because she had been so wrapped up in herself, a separate and merciless part of her mind said honestly. So immersed in her battle first to survive and then to claw her way out of the deep fog of despair and depression. And Mabel was right. It was fear which governed her life now. Somewhere in the midst of those first weeks she had let it master her and it had remained in control ever since. It had coloured every thought, every decision.
She had hurt him. Badly. She had pushed him away when he had needed her as much as she had needed him. She had even stopped him visiting her in the hospital. What had he said? That he had resorted to driving to the hospital car park at night just to be near her. Why hadn’t she realised he’d been asking for help too? How could she have got it so terribly wrong?
Melody stared at him. He hadn’t taken the time to shave when he had found her gone, and his hair looked as though he had run his hand through it a few times—probably in anger. And he had lost some weight over the past months. Altogether he looked harder, sexier and more devastatingly attractive than ever. She loved him, she thought wretchedly. She loved him more than life itself and she had torn them to shreds with her blind stupidity.
She drew in a steadying breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said simply. ‘I’ve done everything wrong and I don’t blame you if you’re sick and tired of me, if you hate me.’
‘Hate you? I love you!’ He was shouting now, and it was a relief. ‘I love you so much I’m going crazy, woman. What the hell do you want from me, anyway? Tell me, because I’d really like to know. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it, damn it.’
Just hours ago she wouldn’t have been able to answer him truthfully—especially when he was glaring at her with such deep intensity the black of his eyes glowed like hot coals. ‘I want you to keep loving me because I love you and I can’t do without you.’ There—she had said it, and now the fear was rising up, strangling her, as the enormity of what she’d done washed over her. She stared at him, waiting for his reaction.
Zeke didn’t move or even blink for an endless moment, then his whole body relaxed with a deep exhalation. ‘Come here,’ he said softly, opening his arms. ‘We need to talk. I have to understand and you have to open up. But first I need to hold you and convince myself you’re really here and not at the bottom of the Thames or in some other guy’s arms.’
He held her for a long time without speaking, and although she had wrapped her arms round his waist Melody was aware her heart was pounding like a drum. This was the moment of truth—or at least the next little while would be the moment of truth. Because their talk could only end in one way, and when it did, when they made love, he would look at her scars. They both knew that. The thought made her feel physically sick.
‘Okay.’ He drew back a little, but only to lead her over to the sofa. ‘I’m going to call Room Service before anything else. What do you want to eat and drink?’
‘Nothing.’ The thought of food was enough to choke her.
Zeke picked up the phone and ordered coffee and croissants for two before coming to sit beside her. ‘Tell me where you went this morning first,’ he said softly. ‘We’ll get onto the whys in a minute. I want to know exactly where you’ve been.’
‘I walked for a while, and then sat on a bench and an old lady came and talked to me. She invited me to her house for a cup of tea,’ Melody said numbly. ‘She—she was kind.’
‘Then I’m grateful to her,’ he said expressionlessly.
‘She told me about her life, how she lost several babies and then went onto have her son. The time…it just went. I didn’t realise. I—I think she’s lonely in her own way.’
He nodded. ‘And do I take it this conversation was a two-way thing? That you told her about our problems?’
She was touched he said ‘our’, when he could, in all honesty, have said ‘yours’. It was her turn to nod.
‘This is not a criticism, more of an observation,’ Zeke said carefully. ‘You could spend four hours talking to this old lady about how you were feeling, but you can’t share it with me?’
Melody couldn’t let that go unchallenged. ‘I didn’t spend four hours with her. It was two at the most—probably only one and a half. And I have talked to you about everything.’
‘No, Dee, you’ve talked at me, when you have talked at all. You’ve given me a list of reasons why the thought of staying with me is impossible—none of which I buy, incidentally. In fact you couldn’t come up with a reason for us to split because there isn’t one. From day one I knew we were going to be together. I told you that often enough. But you never believed me, did you? It never sank in. Even after two years of marriage.’
She stared at him, her eyes huge in her white face. ‘I wanted it to be true.’ She swallowed painfully. ‘I really did.’
‘But you never believed it,’ he said softly. ‘No matter what I said or what I did you didn’t believe it.’
She couldn’t deny it. Some inbuilt survival instinct had prevented it. If she had let herself accept she was the only one for Zeke—his ‘dream woman’, as he’d often described it—the risk would have been too great. Once she had relied on him to that extent she’d never have recovered if it all went wrong. Her voice was a tiny whisper when she said, ‘I suppose I couldn’t believe someone like you would want someone like me for ever.’
Zeke’s fingers took hold of her face and his dark eyes stared straight into hers. ‘What do you mean, someone like you? You’re beautiful, exquisite, unique—the best there is. And the amazing thing, the thing I couldn’t get my head round at first, is that you’re as lovely on the inside as the outside. The first time I met you—when you were late for the audition, you remember?—I wanted you physically. You danced as though every bone in your body was fluid, flowing with the music, and it was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen. And then you stood in the middle of the stage and refused to be intimidated by my questions or by me. A little firebrand, gusty and defiant. And then I heard you talking with the other girls and I found out the reason you were late was because you’d taken pity on an old woman who was devastated by the loss of her cat. Those other girls couldn’t understand it. There wasn’t one of them who would have done the same. I couldn’t understand it. You were an enigma. I had a job to believe you were real.’
‘Me?’ Fascinated as she was by his description of her, she found it hard to believe he was talking about ordinary, run-of-the-mill Melody James.
‘Your soft centre is something I have no defence against, my love,’ Zeke murmured huskily. ‘It melts me, it ties me up in knots, it makes me want to be a better man than I am and to believe that good can triumph over bad—that Father Christmas really does exist, and that roses round the door and happy-ever-after is there for the taking.’ And then he smiled. ‘Don’t look like that. Don’t you know how much I adore you?’
No. No, I had no idea. ‘Of course I do.’
‘Liar.’ It was without heat. ‘Sweetheart, you penetrated my heart as easily as a knife through warm butter. I won’t pretend there were times when I was frustrated I couldn’t do the same with you. But I’m a patient man.’
Zeke? Patient? He had many attributes, but patience wasn’t one of them. And he did have her heart. He always had.
Something of what she was thinking must have shown in her face, because he smiled again, his voice soft when he qualified, ‘Semi-patient at least—for you, that is.’ He bent and pressed a kiss on her mouth, pressed another to the tip of her nose and onto her forehead, before settling back and surveying her with ebony eyes. ‘So, tell me why you banned me from visiting you in hospital, and why your solicitor told my solicitor you want a divorce,’ he said levelly, no inflection in his voice. ‘And why, after we made love—twice—you still felt the need to escape and put some distance between us.’