A Christmas Night to Remember

The few desultory flakes of a minute ago were thickening into a real snowstorm as Zeke helped her into the car. She watched him as he walked round the bonnet, her heart aching and her stomach churning. This was just the sort of confrontation she’d been hoping to avoid, but then she might have known Zeke wouldn’t give up so easily. She had known it. Hoped, even? a little voice asked. Which was ridiculous and self-indulgent. Zeke was constantly surrounded by the cream of the entertainment industry, and it wasn’t just the wannabes who offered themselves to him on a plate. Women were drawn to him like pins to a magnet. She had seen it so often at parties and functions. He had that undefinable something which would be worth a fortune if it could be bottled and which had nothing to do with his wealth. She’d often teased him and said he’d have made an irresistible gigolo if he’d decided on a different career. It didn’t seem so funny now. Then she had been confident in her youth and perfectly honed body. Now…

He didn’t start the car immediately, turning to her in the luxurious leather-clad interior as he slid an arm along the back of her seat. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said huskily, the ebony eyes as soft as black velvet. ‘Every minute, every hour.’

No, don’t do this. His anger and irritation she could cope with; then he was the Zeke the world knew—hard, determined, ruthless. But with her he had always been the opposite to those things. And when a man as big and masculine as Zeke revealed his soft centre it was terribly seductive. From the first evening, when he had waited for her outside the theatre, he had been open and vulnerable with her in a way that had cut through her initial dislike and antagonism like a knife through butter. The more so when she had learnt his history.

Zeke had grown up in the care system from the age of eight, when his single mother had finally abandoned him after years of neglect and disappeared who knew where. He freely admitted to having been a troublesome child and an even more troublesome youth, and remembered one teacher predicting he’d either be a villain or a millionaire—or maybe both—by the time he was thirty after yet another of his misdeeds had come to light.

‘That teacher did me a favour, although he didn’t know it at the time,’ Zeke had told her one evening over dinner at a fancy restaurant, when she’d been seeing him for a couple of weeks. ‘It was one of those crossroads in life—a decision time, you know? It would have been easy to go down the dark route—I was already more than halfway there—but to make a fortune legitimately was harder. More of a challenge. And I’ve always liked a challenge. So I decided to prove something to him and to myself.’

She remembered she had stared at him, fascinated. ‘And is that the only reason you veered on the side of law and order?’

‘I should say no—that deep down I wanted to do the right and noble thing—shouldn’t I?’ he’d answered with the crooked grin which had already become so familiar to her. ‘But the truth of it is I didn’t think that way then. I’d lived in dumps mixing with all kinds of types when I was with my mother, and once in care I developed a huge chip on my shoulder. I was an angry young man, I guess.’ His grin had widened. ‘I’d have been an excellent villain, though.’

She’d laughed with him. ‘I’m glad you chose the route you did,’ she’d said a little breathlessly, somewhat overwhelmed.

His face had straightened and he’d reached across the table for her hand. ‘So am I,’ he said softly, ‘and never more than at this moment. I would have found it very hard to look into your eyes and ask you to love a man like that.’

She’d blinked before murmuring, ‘And is that what you’re asking me to do? To fall in love with you?’

‘I’ve loved you from the minute you stood on that stage and put me in my place, and I’ve never told another woman I love her because it hasn’t been true before. I don’t want to rush you but I want to marry you, Melody. I want you to be my wife, the mother of my children, my partner through life. I love you, I want you, I need you and I adore you.’ He’d let go of her hand and leant back in his seat. ‘Does that answer your question?’ he’d drawled self-mockingly.

They had got engaged that night and married six weeks later, and she had felt her life had only begun the day she had met Zeke. To have someone who was hers, who loved her, had been sweet.

She turned her head from him now, hardening her voice as she said, ‘You shouldn’t have come here today, Zeke.’

‘The hell I shouldn’t. Nothing could have prevented me.’

The snow was coating the windscreen in a blanket of white, shutting them in their own little world. He was so close the faint familiar smell of his aftershave mingled with leather from the car’s interior, evoking memories Melody could have done without. Memories that turned her fluid inside.

She knew he was going to kiss her, and when he turned her chin to face him she didn’t resist, steeling herself instead to show no reaction as h

is mouth claimed hers. It was a slow, leisurely, sensual kiss, not the hard, possessive onslaught she’d half been expecting, and it took all her willpower not to respond to the magic of his lips. But she managed it. Just.

When his mouth lifted from hers she saw his eyes were narrowed as he searched her face. ‘I see,’ he murmured after a moment. ‘Do you think you can keep it up?’

His body warmth reached out to her, dark and compelling, as she swallowed hard before muttering, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

He smiled faintly. ‘Of course you don’t.’ He leaned forward again and kissed her thoroughly and with an enjoyment he made no effort to rein in, and by the time he finished Melody was not only kissing him back but trembling with desire.

‘There.’ His voice was very soft as he tilted his head to look down into the clear green of her eyes. ‘That’s better.’ He stroked a strand of blond hair from her cheek, his touch tender. ‘Can we go home now?’

Melody stared into the tough, furrowed face and suddenly a flood of anger burnt up all other emotion. Drawing away from him, she said bitingly, ‘Is that all you think it takes? A kiss and I’m putty in your hands?’

A muscle in his cheek twitched at her direct hit.

‘I’m not going home with you, Zeke. Not today, not tomorrow, not any time.’ Ignoring the cloud of fury darkening his features, she continued, ‘Whether you accept it or not, our marriage is over. Now, if you’re not going to take me to the hotel I’ve booked into, I’ll get there under my own steam. Okay?’

There was a long pause when he turned from her and gripped the steering wheel as though he wanted to break it. Then without a word he started the engine and the powerful car growled into life. ‘Where do you want to go?’ he asked coldly, his tone searing her, and after she’d given the name and street of the hotel he pulled out of the parking space.

She had won. He’d given in. As they passed through the hospital gates she sat still and numb, refusing to feel or let herself think. The time for that could come later, when she was alone. For now she had to remain in the bubble that had surrounded her. It was the only way to retain her sanity.

CHAPTER THREE

MELODY hadn’t seen a photograph of the hotel; with most of the ones she had tried being full for Christmas it had been a case of beggars couldn’t be choosers. Now, as Zeke pulled up in front of the somewhat shabby exterior of the building situated in a side street off the Bayswater Road, Melody took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said painfully, ‘I really am. But one day you’ll see this was for the best. Thank you for meeting me today but I think it’s better if we communicate only through our solicitors from now on.’

Zeke said nothing, exiting the car and walking round the bonnet to help her out, his dark face grim.

It was a less than elegant emergence onto the pavement due to her damaged legs and as unlike her normal natural poise as was possible to imagine. Knowing Zeke’s appreciation of grace and style, Melody cringed inside, before telling herself it was all to the good. This was reality, and if he was repulsed by her clumsiness it only underlined the sense of what she had been saying: that they had no possible future together.