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He pulled a face, well aware that Arabella couldn’t help but mother him. He strode into the lounge room but she shook her head, moving to the kitchen. He followed, and instantly saw Elizabeth, as she’d been the night he’d hounded her until she’d apologized. And it had been like the floodgates were opening, dousing him in contemplations.
“Xavier? What is it? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost?”
He shook his head and took the water she held out to him, simply for something to do.
“Tell me about our wedding,” he said, uncertainly.
“What do you mean? You were there.” She turned away from him, pressing the button for a coffee. Arabella had always been able to drink coffee, no matter the time of day or night, and it wouldn’t affect her sleep. Even now, in the afternoon, she didn’t hesitate.
“I mean before the accident. I feel like… I have this memory… of us having a conversation and I can’t catch the threads of it, but I feel like it’s important. Is there anything to it? Or is it my damned mind playing tricks on me?”
She shrugged her slender shoulders and drained her coffee. “We had many conversations about the wedding before your accident.”
“But any in particular –,” his voice thickened as his head pain sharpened. He scrunched his eyes and breathed deeply, waiting for it to pass.
“Come on, Xave, you’re in pain. Stop thinking so hard. You should be resting.”
“I’ll rest when I understand what I’m remembering.”
Bella compressed her lips with disapproval.
“I need to remember,” he said, moving closer to her, his eyes imploring. “In my mind, you said, ‘we need to talk’, and then it’s blank.”
The sound of the keys in the door came at the worst possible moment. “Your fiancé?” Arabella asked with pleasant anticipation and relief in her voice as she stood – relief that he wasn’t going to continue down this self-destructive course of action. When his memories began to surface, he was supposed to let them rise of their own accord, not pursue them with his every conscious thought.
The sound of Elizabeth moving through the house cracked through his thoughts. Xavier swore softly.
“Yes. That’s Elizabeth. But she isn’t expecting you.”
“Oh, Xavier,” Arabella smiled tightly. “She’s hardly going to care that a woman you divorced years ago is having coffee with you in the middle of the afternoon. I know you – you could never marry a possessive woman, or she’d leave you within a day.”
He grimaced at the truth that underscored that comment. The implication that he’d given Arabella reason to be jealous?
“Xavier?” The little boy’s voice rang through the house and a moment later, Joshua pitched into the kitchen, a certificate in his hands.
“Master Congeniality” it read, in big, happy letters.
Arabella was now the one who looked as though she’d seen a ghost.
“My God, Xavier, this is… he looks…”
Xavier’s insides churned at the mess he knew was to follow – the pain he was about to cause both Arabella and Elizabeth. It could not have been timed worse. Why the hell hadn’t he thought this through better? Because his head had been banging all day, robbing him of his usual mental strength.
“Joshua,” Elizabeth’s voice followed right behind. “I asked you to take your shoes off. They’re covered in mud and now the house is…” She stopped dead when she entered the kitchen, and it was immediately apparent that she recognized Arabella.
Elizabeth reached out and braced herself on the doorframe.
Arabella regained her composure first. She was emotionally more distant from the situation, and able to school her features into a mask of polite inquiry.
“And who are you, young man?” She asked, crouching down to Joshua’s eye-height.
“Joshua Jones,” he said with an impatience that channeled Xavier’s. He turned to his father. “Look, Xavier, I won a prize!”
“So you did.” The words were heavy. “Why don’t you go to your room and get some tape so we might put it on the wall?”
“Um, okay,” Joshua shrugged and left the room.
“He’s your son?” Arabella asked, standing, her expression tight. Elizabeth had barely moved.
