and black striped tie that highlighted his colouring and his tall commanding air. His smile was not as wide as Emelia’s; it seemed a little forced, in fact. She wondered if she had noticed it on the day and been worried about it or whether she had been too caught up in being the centre of attention.
Emelia looked up from the photograph she was holding to see Javier’s watchful gaze centred on her. ‘I’m sorry…’ She placed it back on the bedside table with a hand that was not quite steady. ‘I can’t remember anything. It’s as if it happened to someone else.’
His dark gaze dropped to the image of them in their wedding finery. ‘Sometimes when I look at that photograph, I think the very same thing,’ he said, the slant of his mouth cryptic.
Emelia studied him for a moment in silence. Was he implying he had come to regret their hasty marriage? What had led him to offer her marriage in the first place? So many men these days shied away from the formal tie of matrimony, choosing the less binding arrangement of living together or, even more casually, moving between two separate abodes, thus maintaining a higher level of independence.
Had those first two years of marriage taken the shine off the passion that had apparently brought them together? Relationships required a lot of hard work; she knew that from watching her father ruin one relationship after another with no attempt on his part to learn from his previous mistakes. Had Javier fallen out of love with her? He certainly didn’t look like a man in love. She had seen desire in his eyes, but as for the warmth of lifelong love…well, would she recognise it even if she saw it?
Javier caught her staring at him and raised one brow. ‘Is something wrong, Emelia?’
She moistened her lips, trying not to be put off by the dark intensity of his gaze as it held hers. ‘Um…I was wondering why you wanted to get married so quickly. Most of the men I know would have taken years to propose marriage. Why did you decide we should get married so quickly?’
There was a movement deep within his eyes, like a rapid-fire shuffle of a deck of cards. ‘Why do you think?’ he said evenly. ‘Do you think you were not in the least agreeable to being married to me? I can assure you I did not have to resort to force. You accepted my proposal quite willingly.’
Emelia gave a little shrug, trying not to be put off by the black marble of his gaze as it held hers. ‘I don’t know…I guess it’s just that I don’t remember being on the hunt for a husband or anything. I’m only twentyfive—’
‘Twenty-seven,’ he corrected her.
Emelia chewed at her lip. ‘Ri-ght…twenty-seven…’ She lowered her gaze and frowned.
He tipped up her face with one finger beneath her chin. ‘I wanted you from the moment I saw you sitting at that piano,’ he said. ‘It was an instant attraction. You felt it too. There seemed no point in delaying what we both wanted.’
Emelia looked into the blackness of his eyes and felt the tug of attraction deep and low in her body. Was this how it had been? The magnetic pull of desire, an unstoppable force that consumed every bit of common sense she possessed? She felt the burn of his touch; the nerve endings beneath her skin were jumping and dancing where his fingertip rested. ‘How soon did we—’ she swallowed tightly ‘—sleep together?’
He brushed the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip. ‘How soon do you think?’ he asked in a low, smoky tone.
Emelia felt the deep thud of her heart as his strong thighs brushed against hers. ‘I…I’m not the type to jump into bed with someone on the first date.’
His dark eyes glinted. ‘You sound rather certain about that.’
Her eyes widened in shock. ‘Surely I didn’t…?’
He dropped his hand from her face. ‘No, you didn’t,’ he said. ‘I was impressed by your standards, actually. You were the first woman I had ever dated who said no.’
Emelia gave herself a mental pat on the back. He would be a hard one to say no to, she imagined. ‘Did that make me a challenge you wanted to conquer?’ she asked.
He gave her an enigmatic smile. ‘Not for the reasons you think.’
Her gaze went to the wedding photograph again. ‘I don’t suppose we waited until the wedding night.’
‘No.’
Emelia wondered how one short word could have such a powerful effect on her. Her skin lifted all over at the thought of him possessing her. Her breasts prickled with sensation, her belly flapped like washing on a line in a hurricane and her heart raced. But all she had was her imagination. Her mind was empty, a total blank. She felt cheated. She felt lost and afraid she might never be able to reclaim what should have been some of the most memorable days of her life. She gave a little sigh and faced him again. ‘The funny thing is there are some people—like my father, for instance—who would give anything to forget their wedding days. But I can’t recall a thing…n-not a thing…’ Her voice cracked and she placed her head in her hands, embarrassed at losing control of her emotions in front of him.
He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t cry, querida,’ he said.
His low soothing tone was her undoing. She choked on another sob and stumbled forward into the rock-hard wall of his chest. Her arms automatically wound around his lean waist, her face pressing into his shirt front, breathing in his warm male scent. Her body seemed to fit against him as if fashioned exactly to his specifications. She felt the strong cradle of his pelvis supporting hers, his muscled thighs holding her trembling ones steady. Her body tingled with awareness as she felt the swelling of his groin against her. How many times had he held her like this? She felt the flutter of her pulse in response, the tight ache between her thighs that felt both strange and familiar.
One of his hands went to the back of her head and began stroking her in a gentle, rhythmic motion, his voice when he spoke reverberating against her ear, reminding her of the deep bass of organ pipes being softly played in a cavernous cathedral. ‘Shh, mi amor. Do not upset yourself. Do not cry. It can’t change anything.’
Emelia tried to control her trembling bottom lip as she eased back to look up at him. ‘I want to remember. I want to remember everything. What girl can’t remember her wedding day? How can I live my life with whole chunks of it missing?’
Javier brushed her hair back from her face, his dark steady eyes holding her tear-washed ones. ‘There are no doubt other things you have forgotten that are worth forgetting. What about that, eh? That is a positive, sí?’
He took out a handkerchief and used a folded corner of it to mop up the tears that had trailed down her cheeks. Emelia found it a tender gesture that seemed at odds with his earlier aloofness. Was he finally coming to terms with her inability to remember him?
‘What things would I want to forget?’ she asked with a puzzled frown.
His eyes shifted away from hers. He refolded the handkerchief and put it in his trouser pocket. ‘No marriage is perfect,’ he said, ‘especially a relatively new one. We had the occasional argument, some of them rather heated at times. Perhaps it is a good thing you can’t remember them.’
Emelia tried to read his expression but, apart from a small rueful grimace about his mouth, there was little she could go on. ‘What sort of things did we argue about?’ she asked.
He
