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His wife had been possessed by a demon.
The swift inhale thrust another needle into his lungs. He’d been ready to admit that he’d lied, even willing to apologise to her for having her come all this way and for interrupting her life. But this?
This was an act of war.
She was making changes to their house totaunthim, to force him to admit that he was lying. Well, she should have known better. Because Javier Casas did not lose and he was one hundred percent determined that soon, very soon, she would be begging, no,pleading, for mercy.
CHAPTER THREE
EMILYMIXEDAsalad dressing while trying to shake the horrible feeling that she’d got it all terribly wrong. He’d not said a thing, not reacted to any of the changes she’d made at all. And she wassurethat the parrot would have done it.
Could he really have amnesia?
The only thing she hadn’t missed was the way he’d tried to hide the pain he was in. Its shadow had whispered across his cheeks and she remembered well how much he had always hidden any sign of weakness. At the beginning of their relationship his stoicism had attracted her, but by the end she had resented it. The doctor had emailed her a list of the medication and the doses he would need over the next two weeks before they returned for a review, with instructions to contact him if she needed anything. She stifled a laugh. She needed a dictionary, a calculator and her own headache tablets.
Emily nibbled at the nail of the thumb on her right hand, unseeing of the feast she had gathered for dinner. She had, in fact, made him the meal he’d most hated from their time together, but that had been thrown into the bin the moment he’d sent her fleeing from the dining area and that kiss. She raised her hand to her cheek. Her heart was pounding as if he were still standing not an inch from her, heat in his eyes that burned into her soul.
The sputter of the peppers in the pan snapped her attention back and she removed it from the heat, with only a little bee sting from the oil. That was what she got for not paying attention. But as she ran the peeler over the courgettes, adding them to the fresh green salad with pistachios that was a favourite of Javier’s, she wondered. What if hedidhave amnesia?
Could she do it?Pretend that all the hurt hadn’t happened? The hours, days and even weeks sometimes when he hadn’t come home. She’d been alone in a country that wasn’t hers, unknowing of the language or people who could become friends. The gifts that he’d left in his wake—expensive, absolutely, exquisite, quite probably—but nothing that she would ever have chosen for herself and most definitely poor compensation for the loss of him.
But when they were together... A flush rose to her cheeks that had nothing to do with the heat of the kitchen. There had been a time when they had been pure intense passion. But Emily had soon discovered that it wasn’t enough to hold a marriage together. They had needed more.Shehad needed more.
She finished the salad and plated thePadrónpeppers with a sprinkle of sea salt and took them out to the table on the green and white tiled patio. The sun was beginning to drop towards the dark craggy outline of the range across the gorge and in the far distance she could see a sliver of the sea, sparkling like a jewel. And, even though her emotions were all over the place, her soul recognised this as home.
In sickness and in health.
The words gently whispered into her mind and she knew that she would give Javier the help he needed. She just wouldn’t, couldn’t, give more of herself than that. Not this time.
Javier watched his wife standing on the patio from what had once been his favourite room in the house and was now a child’s drawing of scribbled colours that hurt his eyes and his head. Gritting his teeth, he braced himself as he levered himself up, enticed more by the prospect of painkillers than food.
He had half imagined that Emily would have made his most hated meal—some evil concoction called corned beef hash that he’d disliked on principle. Meat should never,evercome in a tin. Even just the thought of it turned his stomach. But the scent wafting in from the open doors was mouth-wateringly familiar and he couldn’t help but be drawn to the table Emily had prepared.
But it was her he gravitated to. As she stood there, staring into the distance, Emily felt as far from his reach as when she’d been in London. His conscience stirred.
‘Are you okay?’ he was unable to stop himself from asking.
She turned, a rueful smile on lips that had seduced him, had loved him and then cursed him. ‘I was about to ask you the same.’
He nodded, allowing them both to avoid the question.
‘Morcilla, salad,Padrónpeppers, roast aubergine, Manchego...Dios, Emily, this is a feast.’
Taking in the table, he was suddenly famished. He didn’t know where to start. As if sensing the sheer force of his hunger, she shook her head, a small smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. ‘Just go for it.’
And he did. He filled his plate with portions of everything, each part of the meal a delicious taste. The citrus of the lemon-dressed salad, the sweetness of the quince paste for the creaminess of the semi-hard cheese, the salt of the morcilla and the fleshy aubergine.
‘I think you have made every single one of my favourites.’
‘Yes,’ his wife replied as if it were obvious.
He looked up at her, leaning back in her chair, glass of white wine in hand and something in her eyes he’d thought he’d never see again. It poked at him and he didn’t like it. But she must have misread the confusion in his gaze.
‘It’s what you do when someone is not well.’
‘What?’ he asked, this time definitely confused.
She frowned at his response. ‘You make the person’s favourite foods.’
