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She’d arrived at the hospital and found her way to the private ward, nearly passing the room completely when the sight of him had pulled her up short. Her heart in her mouth, she’d listened for his answers to the doctor’s questions, needing to know that he was okay. Hehadto be okay. Her thumb had reached to stroke the ring she’d retrieved just before leaving her apartment when she’d heard her name on his lips.
Her eyes snapped to his, frozen in place by the intensity of his gaze until—
‘Amnesia!’ his mother screamed and Emily, tired and wrung-out, rolled her eyes. She thought she saw a glimmer of a smirk from Javier but a blink and it was gone.
The doctor saw her standing in the doorway and nodded his acknowledgement.
‘My baby has amnesia! Do something.’
‘Mrs Casas.’ The doctor’s firm tone snapped Renata to attention and she allowed him to gesture her out of the hospital room into the corridor, where she turned an ugly shade of red the moment she caught sight of her son’s wife.
‘I don’t know whatsheis doing here,’ Renata rushed out in rapid Spanish.
‘She is Javier’s next of kin.’ He turned to Emily, seemingly unaware that to call her ‘Mrs Casas’ in front of Renata would incite violence. ‘YouareMr Casas’s wife?’ he asked in Spanish. Emily was about to answer but his mother interrupted.
‘She doesn’t speak Spanish.’ The disdain in the older woman’s tone was unmistakable.
Emily bit back a retort. No, she hadn’t spoken Spanish at the beginning of her relationship with Javier but she had made the effort to learn it, even after she’d returned to England when she’d thought she might still need it.
Renata stared straight at the doctor as if trying to cut Emily out of her line of sight and Emily was surprised it still hurt. His mother had never been anything but barely tolerant of her presence at the best of times, and this wasnotthe best of times.
Deciding not to challenge Renata’s statement, she allowed the doctor to bring her up to speed in English. The accident had caused a fracture of three ribs, some very nasty cuts and bruises but miraculously no broken bones. Most of his injuries were considered ‘superficial’, leaving Emily a little concerned by their definition. Over the doctor’s shoulder she saw Javier arguing with the nurse about the electrodes he was trying to remove from his chest.
Taking advantage of his distraction, her hungry gaze consumed the rest of him. His massive frame looked almost comically large in the bed, but there was nothing funny about the collage of bruises across skin that was a shocking shade of grey. From the very first moment she’d met Javier, he’d been an explosion of life and colour—a vivid virility mixed with a charm that bordered on lethal, one that she’d surrendered to utterly and irrevocably.
The moment she felt Javier’s focus shift from the nurse to her, she looked back to the doctor. Javier’s attention might have been as gentle as a caress but it was as hot as a flame and just as dangerous.
‘You are concerned about his memory?’ she asked, unaware that she had interrupted Renata.
Both she and the doctor ignored the older woman’s huff of outrage. ‘Yes. He has a concussion. Scans show a little bruising that will go down in time, but we will need to run more tests to know if there is cause for significant concern.’
She forced herself to meet Javier’s eyes through the window to his room, but what she saw in his gaze stopped her thoughts. Calculation. Determination. There was absolutelynothinghindering Javier Casas’s mental processing. But the doctor didn’t seem to see what she saw.
‘What does this mean? If it is...amnesia?’ she asked.
‘It will depend on how much he remembers,whathe remembers. But, in rehabilitation terms, the main goal is to make him comfortable and keep things familiar without forcing a return of memories.’
Emily tried to get at what the doctor wasn’t saying, but knew it was pointless until they knew more. ‘Run your tests.’
The next few hours passed in a blur. Emily waited outside the room while the tests were conducted, which was fine by Javier’s mother. His half-sister Gabi came out and sat next to her without speaking. Emily was surprised when the young woman she remembered as a beautiful teenager took her hand and held on tight. It was as if neither wanted to say anything until they knew what was going on.
What would she do? Whatever the outcome, Javier would need help. Maybe he’d hire someone to stay with him? She’d read that he’d moved into an apartment in Madrid, ashamed by how greedily she’d consumed information about him in the gossip columns over the years. He’d be fine, she reassured herself like a mantra, over and over and over. That was all she needed to know and then she could leave. If she was lucky, she might make it back to London having only missed a day.
But...she knew that was a lie. Six years might have passed since she had last seen her husband, but she felt it. Time was up. There would be no more hiding from her marriage to this Spanish billionaire. An icy finger was tripping its way down her spine when the doctor came out, looking a little puzzled but hopeful.
‘Mr Casas is doing well. Cognitively he’s retained all normal function. However, the last few years are almost a blank to him. At the moment, his brain is struggling to cope with the injury, so the goal is to create a peaceful and quiet environment. To reduce any further risk, it’s going to be important that you are with him at all times. There may be periods where he gets frustrated with his rehabilitation, where he asks the same thing repeatedly. It will be wearing and difficult, so it’s important that you have support and help too.’
‘Me? Why would I need support?’ Emily’s tired mind was taking too long to catch up.
‘Because you will be allowed to take him home in a few days and you’ll be caring for him, no?’
Her head snapped to Javier, his gaze on her steady and waiting.
Emily tuned out the doctor’s words as she realised what it meant. What was expected of her. What Javier had forced her into. It was aknowing. Deep in her gut, and low in her heart. There was no amnesia. The look in his eyes told her that he remembered everything. Worse, it was the anger simmering in that gaze. An anger that she had never seen before, but knew categorically had been put there by her departure six years before.
Her husband, it seemed, was playing games and it infuriated her. Was this his way of punishing her for leaving all those years ago? His final act of revenge? Oh, she had no doubt that he had cast himself the innocent in his mind. But Javier Casas—the man who wasneverwrong—had made a fatal mistake this time. She was no longer the unconfident young bride of before. She had changed and if he wanted to wilfully and carelessly mess with her life then it was only fair that she do the same.
Entering the room, she went to his bedside, taking his hand in hers. For a second, she thought she saw a flare in his irises, the surprise contact shocking them both. But this wasn’t her caring husband, the man who had swept her off her feet at nineteen and offered her the world. No. It was the man who had shown her the world only on his terms. And now she was going to do the same. She leaned forward, sweeping his thick dark hair from his forehead in seeming affection, his skin warm beneath the cold of her fingers, and leaned to his ear.
