A Christmas Night to Remember

‘And cause the hotel staff a lot of extra paperwork and hassle?’ Zeke clicked his tongue aggravatingly. ‘You seem a little short of the milk of human kindness, if you don’t mind me saying so. Hasn’t the spirit of the festive season touched you?’

She had never come so close to hitting someone before, which shocked her further because she had never considered herself a violent person. Gritting her teeth, she took an audible deep breath. ‘I want you to leave, Zeke. Right now.’

She had expected him to argue, so it took the wind out of her sails when instead he said mildly, ‘Once you’re safely in bed. And don’t worry that I’m going to leap on you and have my wicked way. I can see you’re dead on your feet, sweetheart.’

It was the way he said the last word which drained her of all resistance. Horrified that she was going to burst into tears, she said tersely, ‘I’m going to the bathroom,’ and walked as purposefully as she could manage across the room.

The suite consisted of a further three rooms—one a small study, complete with every device needed to keep in touch round the world for a visiting businessman or woman, and two bedrooms, both with en-suite bathrooms and decorated in the same creams and hazy greys and golds as the sitting room.

Walking into the cream marble en-suite of the second bedroom, Melody shut the door and stood for a moment with her eyes tightly closed. It was a sheer effort of will to open them and walk over to the long mirror. She groaned softly as she peered at her reflection. Her summer tan had long since faded after the months in hospital, but she had been careful to keep up with her cleansing and moisturising routine in spite of everything. Today, though, her skin looked pasty and almost grey with the exhaustion that was racking her body, and her green eyes looked enormous in her thin face. Not a pretty sight; no wonder Zeke had wanted to cut the meal short—she looked like death warmed up.

She had seen her case on the luggage rack in the bedroom as she’d marched through, but rather than go into the bedroom she stripped down to her bra and panties before pulling on the big fluffy white bathrobe which was one of two hanging on the back of the bathroom door. It drowned her, but that was all to the good, she decided, pulling the belt tightly round her slim waist. It concealed everything she needed to conceal from those piercing ebony eyes and that was all that mattered.

He was waiting for her when she padded barefoot into the sitting room, and as she said brightly, ‘All ready for bed, as you can see, so you can go now,’ his gaze swept over her from head to foot. She found she was doubly glad of the voluminous robe as her traitorous body responded, the rosy peaks of her breasts hardening.

Gruffly, Zeke said, ‘You look tinier than ever in that thing. Was the hospital food really that bad?’

She shook her head. ‘It was me. I didn’t have much of an appetite, I suppose. I’ll soon put the weight on again now.’

‘Tiny, but beautiful.’ His voice was husky now, his face telling her what his words didn’t. ‘Enchantingly so, in fact.’

It was this she answered when she murmured, ‘Please go, Zeke. I can’t…’ She swallowed hard. ‘Please leave.’

‘I know, I know.’ He took her hands in his, pulling her against the broad wall of his chest and nuzzling the top of her head with his chin. ‘You need to rest. You’ve done too much for your first day out.’

In spite of herself Melody smiled. ‘You make it sound as thought I’ve just been released from prison,’ she whispered, her voice muffled against his shirt. Which was how she felt, actually. And then she pulled away, the smell and feel of him too wonderfully familiar. She wanted to wrap her arms round his neck, to feel his lips on hers, to beg him to forget everything she’d said and hold her tight. ‘Please go,’ she said again, her voice trembling.

He lifted his hand and stroked a strand of silky hair from her cheek. She thought he was going to kiss her, and when he merely brushed her brow with his lips knew a moment’s agonising disappointmen

t.

‘Sweet dreams,’ he said very softly. ‘Don’t forget the tea and cake around four.’

She nodded, not really believing he would go like this, that he would leave her. She watched him cross the room and open the door into the corridor outside, all the time expecting that any moment he would swing round and come back to her. But he didn’t.

The door closed. She was alone. Which was exactly what she had demanded.

CHAPTER FIVE

MELODY stood staring across the room for some moments, fighting the urge to run after Zeke and say…

Say what? she asked herself wearily. That she had changed her mind? But she hadn’t. Not about leaving him. All her reasons held good for that, and had perhaps deepened in the past hours since she had seen him again. She loved him too much, and his power over her had always scared her a little deep inside the private place in her mind where uncomfortable truths were buried. She had to get far away from him. That was the only way.

She swayed a little, so tired she could barely remain upright, and then made her way into the bedroom where her case had been left earlier. Shrugging off the robe, she climbed into bed, wanting to think about her and Zeke, to reaffirm to herself the rationale that vindicated her decision, but so exhausted her brain simply wouldn’t compute. She couldn’t think. Not now.

The swirling snow outside the bedroom window had bathed the room in soft evening shadow, despite it being only a little past one o’clock, and the bed was supremely comfortable after the hard institutional one she had endured for the past three months. Within seconds her breathing was even and deep and she slept a dreamless sleep.

She was completely unaware of the big broad figure that entered the room a few minutes later, standing just inside the doorway until he had satisfied himself her sleep was genuine, at which point he walked softly over to the bed. Zeke stared down at his sleeping wife for several long minutes, his gaze caressing the fragility of her fine features as she slept, and the breakable quality of the shape under the coverlet.

When he noiselessly closed the drapes against the worsening storm outside the cosy cocoon of the hotel his cheeks were damp.

Melody wasn’t sure exactly what had dragged her out of the depths of a slumber so heavy her limbs were weighed down with it. She lay in a deep, warm vacuum, a charcoal twilight bathing the room in indistinct shapes as she forced her eyes open. She felt blissfully, wonderfully relaxed.

For a moment she had no idea where she was, and then the past few hours came rushing back at the same time as voices somewhere beyond the bedroom registered. Male voices.

She couldn’t remember closing the curtains. She stared towards the window, her brain still fuzzy, but then as familiar deep tones registered she sat up in bed, shaking her hair out of her eyes. That was Zeke’s voice. She glanced at her wristwatch but it was too dark to make out the time.

Her heart thudding fit to burst, she threw back the coverlet and reached for her robe on the chair at the side of the bed, pulling it on with feverish haste. After switching on the bedside lamp she again checked her watch. Four o’clock. Tea and cake. Room Service. But that still didn’t explain what Zeke was doing here—unless she had imagined it, of course.