AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Infuriated, she reared back. ‘Javi! You are on the floor, what is wrong withyou?’
He winced and gently rolled his head from side to side until he stared at the door, confusion once again filling his gaze.
‘Emily. What isthat?’
CHAPTER FIVE
HEWASGOINGto take great satisfaction in destroying that ceramic parrot. After he found out what the hell it was that was hissing at him from inside a small cage.
Mierda, his head hurt. Coming through from the patio, he’d had his phone in one hand, coffee in the other when he’d startled at the sight of the big white bird. Not that he would admit it to any living soul, but he’d jumped, spilling the coffee, and then—humiliatingly—had slipped on it and fallen. With his hands full and his stomach muscles already bruised, his body had reacted more slowly than usual and he’d landed on the floor, winded and aching.
He looked up at Emily, her expression unsure and guilt painting slashes of red over her lush cheekbones. She flicked her gaze between him and the cage and bit her lip.
‘It’s...it’s...your...erm... It’s our...’
Her eyes grew wider each time she tried to explain, the words seeming to bottleneck in her throat, and curiosity and pain were the only things that stopped him from laughing out loud.
Oh, God,what fresh hell was this?
He peered at the crystalline eyes glaring daggers at him from the small crate and the clawed paw that looked alarmingly threatening.
‘We have a cat?’ he asked, knowing full well they didn’t.
Emily nodded quickly, blonde hair quivering around her like a shimmering halo.
‘She’s been at the cattery. While you were...’ Her hand slipped from where he still held it, and gestured in circles—and a memory surfaced of her doing exactly the same thing when she had lied about something silly years before. One thing was for sure. His wife should never play poker.
But, he realised as he gently rested his head back down against the floor, his wife apparentlydidn’tbelieve his amnesia and had found a new way to torment him. The cat—without a shadow of a doubt—was one of the ugliest things he’d ever seen.
He wanted to ask where the cat’s fur was, but instead he asked, ‘Her name?’, while his mind recalibrated this new information about his devious wife.
Emily paused for a second, flicking the cat a glance and only releasing the pin of teeth on her lip to answer, ‘Diabla.’
And this time hedidlaugh.She devil. It seemed appropriate.
Emily had barely got over her shock when it morphed into anger again. But she refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing how worried she had been. The stubborn, mule-headed, infuriating man deserved every single thing coming to him.
When she’d first seen him lying on the floor, her heart had stopped. Actually stopped. Only to start again with a whoosh that sent electric sparks shooting around her body, tingling her fingertips, pricking her heart and trembling her hands.
It was the second time he’d done this to her and it was too much, she’d decided angrily as she’d let Diabla out of the cage. The animal had burst from her confines, pausing only to hiss at Javier before rushing off at an alarming speed. To Emily’s surprise, Javier had only laughed even harder.
She’d gone to the freezer, grabbed a bag of peas, retrieved his painkillers and stood over him as—still on the floor—he’d swallowed down two tablets. After that she had gone to her room, shut the door and ignored his attempts to speak to her.
Opening her laptop, she spent an hour fielding emails and assigning workloads to her staff, silently promising them all a pay rise when this was done. She’d never been away from her work or staff this long since she’d started the company and it tore at her to be away from it now.
She remembered Javier’s swift dismissal that his businesses would be ‘fine’. Well, she was gladhisinterests were fine. They couldn’t all have a million and one assistants to cover their vast empires, she thought angrily. And then regretted her thoughts. That was uncharitable and mean. He had always worked hard, despite the money he had been born into. Javier was nothing like the rich men she knew from London: entitled, lazy, loud and bordering on brutish. No, Javier’s work ethic had been inspiring, until it had become almost obsessive, until it had taken him away from her for days on end.
At some point Javier left some lunch outside the room, which she’d retrieved and absentmindedly eaten as she’d scanned the plans for the San Antonio project. The mood boards were her starting point, gathering any imagery that was associated with the client and the location. Because she had to bring italltogether. The client wanted what they wanted, but if it didn’t fit the space, if it workedagainstthe location, then whatever she created would stick out like a sore thumb. It might, on the surface, be fine, but beneath it would be simmering discontent. So she threw herself into colours and moods and textures and, before she knew it, four hours had passed and her back ached.
But it had been worth it because Emily had finally got that feeling—the thrill of findingthe thing. And suddenly everything slotted together: the patterns she wanted to use, the light fittings and the wall panels, the textures for some of the furnishings, even the style of crockery, all coming from a paint colour called Mountain Dawn.
It had caught her eye because she’d seen exactly that same rich buttery yellow that morning, creeping over the hill line above the gorge. It was a yellow that fitted against a dusky blue and a rich blush, a deep cobalt and a startlingly clean white. And the range of colours were perfect for San Antonio and her client. And now she was happy and eager to press on...but not until she’d seen where the next two weeks would take her.
Changing into a bikini she’d left behind the last time she was here, she hoped that the pool’s cool water might soothe the anxiety skittering beneath her skin. She wrapped a robe around her and slipped quietly down the stairs, wanting to make it to the pool without alerting Javier. She just wasn’t ready to confront him at the moment. She was bruised by his lies, and scared by her concern for him, a man she was seriously considering divorcing.
Because, really, what kind of relationship was this? She had wants and needs that couldn’t be put on hold for another six years—a home, family, children... People she wanted to love and be loved by. What had started as a yearning a few years ago was becoming stronger and harder to ignore. She owed it to herself to try for more. She deserved more than this strange limbo she had been in since she’d left.
She snuck into the kitchen to retrieve the cat food she’d bought for Diabla. Emily shook the dry biscuits so the cat would know that food was there, her heart jumping a little as she caught sight of the clear blue gaze peeking around the door frame. She poured a large helping into a bowl and placed it on the little balcony, wondering why the cattery had given her such a bad reputation. Deciding that Diabla was simply misunderstood, while vainly hoping that she might scratch just a little at Javier, Emily made her way outside, where the early evening sun still had enough heat to warm the skin.
