A Christmas Night to Remember

Because she had been so wrapped up in herself, a separate and merciless part of her mind said honestly. So immersed in her battle first to survive and then to claw her way out of the deep fog of despair and depression. And Mabel was right. It was fear which governed her life now. Somewhere in the midst of those first weeks she had let it master her and it had remained in control ever since. It had coloured every thought, every decision.

She had hurt him. Badly. She had pushed him away when he had needed

her as much as she had needed him. She had even stopped him visiting her in the hospital. What had he said? That he had resorted to driving to the hospital car park at night just to be near her. Why hadn’t she realised he’d been asking for help too? How could she have got it so terribly wrong?

Melody stared at him. He hadn’t taken the time to shave when he had found her gone, and his hair looked as though he had run his hand through it a few times—probably in anger. And he had lost some weight over the past months. Altogether he looked harder, sexier and more devastatingly attractive than ever. She loved him, she thought wretchedly. She loved him more than life itself and she had torn them to shreds with her blind stupidity.

She drew in a steadying breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said simply. ‘I’ve done everything wrong and I don’t blame you if you’re sick and tired of me, if you hate me.’

‘Hate you? I love you!’ He was shouting now, and it was a relief. ‘I love you so much I’m going crazy, woman. What the hell do you want from me, anyway? Tell me, because I’d really like to know. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it, damn it.’

Just hours ago she wouldn’t have been able to answer him truthfully—especially when he was glaring at her with such deep intensity the black of his eyes glowed like hot coals. ‘I want you to keep loving me because I love you and I can’t do without you.’ There—she had said it, and now the fear was rising up, strangling her, as the enormity of what she’d done washed over her. She stared at him, waiting for his reaction.

Zeke didn’t move or even blink for an endless moment, then his whole body relaxed with a deep exhalation. ‘Come here,’ he said softly, opening his arms. ‘We need to talk. I have to understand and you have to open up. But first I need to hold you and convince myself you’re really here and not at the bottom of the Thames or in some other guy’s arms.’

He held her for a long time without speaking, and although she had wrapped her arms round his waist Melody was aware her heart was pounding like a drum. This was the moment of truth—or at least the next little while would be the moment of truth. Because their talk could only end in one way, and when it did, when they made love, he would look at her scars. They both knew that. The thought made her feel physically sick.

‘Okay.’ He drew back a little, but only to lead her over to the sofa. ‘I’m going to call Room Service before anything else. What do you want to eat and drink?’

‘Nothing.’ The thought of food was enough to choke her.

Zeke picked up the phone and ordered coffee and croissants for two before coming to sit beside her. ‘Tell me where you went this morning first,’ he said softly. ‘We’ll get onto the whys in a minute. I want to know exactly where you’ve been.’

‘I walked for a while, and then sat on a bench and an old lady came and talked to me. She invited me to her house for a cup of tea,’ Melody said numbly. ‘She—she was kind.’

‘Then I’m grateful to her,’ he said expressionlessly.

‘She told me about her life, how she lost several babies and then went onto have her son. The time…it just went. I didn’t realise. I—I think she’s lonely in her own way.’

He nodded. ‘And do I take it this conversation was a two-way thing? That you told her about our problems?’

She was touched he said ‘our’, when he could, in all honesty, have said ‘yours’. It was her turn to nod.

‘This is not a criticism, more of an observation,’ Zeke said carefully. ‘You could spend four hours talking to this old lady about how you were feeling, but you can’t share it with me?’

Melody couldn’t let that go unchallenged. ‘I didn’t spend four hours with her. It was two at the most—probably only one and a half. And I have talked to you about everything.’

‘No, Dee, you’ve talked at me, when you have talked at all. You’ve given me a list of reasons why the thought of staying with me is impossible—none of which I buy, incidentally. In fact you couldn’t come up with a reason for us to split because there isn’t one. From day one I knew we were going to be together. I told you that often enough. But you never believed me, did you? It never sank in. Even after two years of marriage.’

She stared at him, her eyes huge in her white face. ‘I wanted it to be true.’ She swallowed painfully. ‘I really did.’

‘But you never believed it,’ he said softly. ‘No matter what I said or what I did you didn’t believe it.’

She couldn’t deny it. Some inbuilt survival instinct had prevented it. If she had let herself accept she was the only one for Zeke—his ‘dream woman’, as he’d often described it—the risk would have been too great. Once she had relied on him to that extent she’d never have recovered if it all went wrong. Her voice was a tiny whisper when she said, ‘I suppose I couldn’t believe someone like you would want someone like me for ever.’

Zeke’s fingers took hold of her face and his dark eyes stared straight into hers. ‘What do you mean, someone like you? You’re beautiful, exquisite, unique—the best there is. And the amazing thing, the thing I couldn’t get my head round at first, is that you’re as lovely on the inside as the outside. The first time I met you—when you were late for the audition, you remember?—I wanted you physically. You danced as though every bone in your body was fluid, flowing with the music, and it was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen. And then you stood in the middle of the stage and refused to be intimidated by my questions or by me. A little firebrand, gusty and defiant. And then I heard you talking with the other girls and I found out the reason you were late was because you’d taken pity on an old woman who was devastated by the loss of her cat. Those other girls couldn’t understand it. There wasn’t one of them who would have done the same. I couldn’t understand it. You were an enigma. I had a job to believe you were real.’

‘Me?’ Fascinated as she was by his description of her, she found it hard to believe he was talking about ordinary, run-of-the-mill Melody James.

‘Your soft centre is something I have no defence against, my love,’ Zeke murmured huskily. ‘It melts me, it ties me up in knots, it makes me want to be a better man than I am and to believe that good can triumph over bad—that Father Christmas really does exist, and that roses round the door and happy-ever-after is there for the taking.’ And then he smiled. ‘Don’t look like that. Don’t you know how much I adore you?’

No. No, I had no idea. ‘Of course I do.’

‘Liar.’ It was without heat. ‘Sweetheart, you penetrated my heart as easily as a knife through warm butter. I won’t pretend there were times when I was frustrated I couldn’t do the same with you. But I’m a patient man.’

Zeke? Patient? He had many attributes, but patience wasn’t one of them. And he did have her heart. He always had.

Something of what she was thinking must have shown in her face, because he smiled again, his voice soft when he qualified, ‘Semi-patient at least—for you, that is.’ He bent and pressed a kiss on her mouth, pressed another to the tip of her nose and onto her forehead, before settling back and surveying her with ebony eyes. ‘So, tell me why you banned me from visiting you in hospital, and why your solicitor told my solicitor you want a divorce,’ he said levelly, no inflection in his voice. ‘And why, after we made love—twice—you still felt the need to escape and put some distance between us.’