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A different sort of smile painted Emily’s lips and something sharp blinked in her eyes before it was gone.
‘I shall see you tomorrow then.’
‘We can go together?’ he said, leaning in, unable to deny himself the hint of honeysuckle in her perfume. She looked up at him, his gut clenched. How had he forgotten how petite she was? Suddenly his mind was awash with erotic images that stole his mind and his breath. Her hand rose to press against his chest, where she would surely feel the thunder of his heartbeat. He felt claimed by it, until she opened her mouth.
‘Javi...’ The sing-song tone of her voice was at odds with the sensual web he was caught in. ‘You know that the doctor ordered separate beds.’
‘I know no such thing!’ His outrage was swift and clear.
‘Well,thatwas what he toldme. You’ll be okay getting to bed on your own?’ Emily asked, knowing that Javier would see it as a challenge.
His response, ‘Of course,’ was a relief. She really didn’t think that she could help him to bed. Not now that she knew he was lying to her. Anger, a hot and wild thing, unravelled in her and drew pinpricks of heat across her skin that hurt.
Emily got to the spare room, readied herself for bed and changed into her nightgown, lying down on a bed in a room that she had once hoped to make a nursery with the man she loved. With a man she had loved. But that man had been taken away from her and the thief was sleeping in the next room. A tear escaped and a line was drawn.
And as Javier Casas planned a seduction for his wife, Emily Casas planned their divorce.
CHAPTER FOUR
JAVIERWOKEUPfeeling a sense of serenity he hadn’t known in years.
His wife’s redecoration efforts hadn’t stopped in the lower sections of the house, but here in this room it had been something wondrous. As if Emily couldn’t bring herself to make it awful. What had once been simple white walls accentuating the stunning greenery of the gorge through floor-to-ceiling windows was now...magical. There was no other word to describe it, and Javier was not one to use that word lightly.
The room was still sparsely furnished, the simple lines of the large wooden bedframe and the curved arch doorway to the en suite bathroom deeply satisfying. But she had bridged the area where the wall met the window with a thousand plants. Ones with trails, or little balls, some heart-shaped and others like tongues, but the sense of this room—it feltalive. As if she’d drawn the outside in and there was no glass, no separation between them and the rich landscape beyond. It softened a space he hadn’t realised needed changing.
He threw back the covers and felt fire. A sudden, painfully bright, piercing jabbed into his ribs, catching his lungs in a death grip and tightening already bruised muscles along his side.
Cabrón.
He waited for the tremors to subside, the waves of pain to retreat, and forced his breathing to slow. He hadn’t felt this helpless since he was a child and even the thought of it had him gritting his teeth. He forced himself up and, although it was slow going, made it to the bathroom, where he stared down the painkillers he’d left on the counter.
Emily hadn’t made any changes that he could see to the room, but that didn’t mean he trusted her not to have booby-trapped something. The thought had him expel a laugh that hurt more than he liked. So he reluctantly reached for the pill bottle and dry swallowed a tablet.
The light behind the mirror glowed golden across the unusual paleness of his skin and for the first time since the accident he took in the damage to his body. The bruise across his cheekbone had settled into a yellow-tinged purple which looked far worse than the angry red it had been, even if it was a sign of healing. He winced as he gently prodded the dissolvable stitches used by the plastic surgeon his mother had demanded—but his healthcare had paid for—on the cut on his forehead.
Javier had never been a vain man and he was always amused by how that surprised so many people. Scar or no scar, his only concern was how infuriatingly itchy the area was. Healing, again. He’d been warned. But... Not enough. He’d not been warned enough. Or maybe he just hadn’t wanted to listen.
In the next room, Emily was probably sleeping and the thought of it made a mockery of all the times he had delighted in waking her up with kisses that turned into gentle touches, and caresses that turned into sighs of pleasure and the taste of her on his tongue. In mere seconds, Javier was hard and angry.
She had taken that away from them. Years of time they could have been happy. He turned on the tap and splashed ice-cold water across his face, wondering just how long it would take for the painkillers to kick in and just how quickly he could bring his wife to his mercy.
He thought of the flare in her eyes last night, as he’d reminded her of Gabi’s sixteenth. He thought of the need building within him and the urge to take advantage of the passion that had been like nothing else he’d ever known from the very first moment he’d seen her.
But he wouldn’t.
No. He would never.
But he also thought of the concern and confusion he’d seen in her eyes. She had started to doubt her belief that he was faking, he knew it. And through the course of the evening he’d persuaded her that his memory loss was real. He’d felt it, her softening, melting, the way she had done in the past whenever she’d argued about the money he’d wanted to lavish on her or the gifts he’d bought her to compensate for the hours he’d worked. A slow, inevitable yielding as he’d got his way. A victory of sorts—one that was only marginally less sweet than what it would feel like to have her back by his side and in his bed.
Emily stared at the steam unfurling from the second espresso she’d made since finally giving up on sleep and trying to stop the circular thoughts from spinning around her head. Javier was punishing her, she was sure of it. Punishing her for leaving him, even if she hadn’t wanted to. Even if she hadn’t intended to. Because really she’d thought he’d come for her when he realised she’d gone. Thought that he’d rush to her side with apologies and promises that their marriage would be like it had been at the very beginning. But he hadn’t. Not once had he reached out to her.
It’s not as if you reached out to him.
No, she thought, she hadn’t—couldn’t—bring herself to call him. Because it would have hurt too much to beg, to plead with him to see her, to love her. Emily’s heart throbbed.Thatwas why she’d needed him to come for her. Why she’d needed him to make the first move. So she would know that it hadn’t been a mistake. That they hadn’t just been caught up in the passion of it all. That there was something real binding them together. That it hadn’t just beenherin this marriage alone.
She heard the slap of his bare feet on the stone steps leading down from the first floor, gathering herself in a panic. Javier clearly thought she believed his act. But he had forgotten how well she knew him. Nothing would keep him from his precious businesses. Not his sickbed and certainly not fake amnesia! So, no. He had underestimated her and this time she would have him at her feet, begging for forgiveness.
The steps, slow and hesitant, an unusual amount of time between them, poked and prodded at her conscience, but the gleam in his eye last night as he had teased her with the almost desperate sensuality between them cast her will in iron.
