Even before Emelia opened her eyes she knew she was in
hospital. At the blurred edges of her consciousness she
vaguely registered the sound of shoes squeaking on polished
linoleum and the swish of curtains and voices, both male and
female, speaking in low hushed tones.
She half-opened her eyes. The light was bright, making her
pupils shrink painfully. She squeezed her eyes shut and,
after a moment or two, blinked again and, narrowing her
still flinching gaze, looked at the nurse who was standing
at the end of the bed with a chart in her hands.
'W-what happened?' Emelia asked, trying to lift herself
upright in the bed. 'What am I doing here? What's going on?'
The nurse clipped the folder on the end of the bed before
coming to lay a gentle hand on Emelia's shoulder to ease her
back down. 'Mrs Mรฉlendez, please don't upset yourself.
You're in hospital. You had a car accident a week ago.
You've been in a coma.'
Emelia felt her heart give a jerky beat in her chest like a
kick. She frowned and then wished she hadn't as it made her
head ache unbearably. She put a hand up to her forehead, her
fingers encountering a thickly wadded bandage positioned there.
Hospital? Accident? Coma?
The words were foreign to her, but the most foreign of all
was how the nurse had addressed her. 'W-what did you call
me?' she asked, staring at the nurse with her heart still
thudding out of time.
The nurse glanced over her shoulder as if looking for
backup. 'ErmโฆI think I'd better get the doctor to explain,'
she said and quickly bustled away.
Emelia felt as if she were trying to find her way through a
thick fog while blindfolded. Accident? What accident? She
looked down at her sheet and hospital blanket-covered body.
Although she ached all over, she seemed to be in all one
piece. No plaster casts were on any of her limbs so she
obviously hadn't broken any bones. The worst pain was from
her head, although she felt horrendously nauseous, but she
assumed that was from the pain medication she had been
given. She could see the drip leading from a vein in the
back of her left hand where it was lying on the top of the
bed. She quickly looked away as her stomach gave a rolling turn.
What had the nurse called her againโฆ Mrs Melโฆ something or
other? Her heart gave another little stutter. Married? Of
course she wasn't married! There must be some mistake, a
mix-up in the paperwork or something. They'd obviously got
her name wrong. Her name was Emelia Louise Shelverton. She
had moved abroad from Australia a couple of months ago. She
lived in London, in Notting Hill. She worked part-time as a
singer in The Silver Room at one of the top hotels a couple
of blocks from Mayfair while she looked for a more permanent
position as a music teacher.
Married? What a laugh. She wasn't even dating anyone.
'Ah, so you are finally awake.' A man who was clearly one of
the senior doctors swished the curtains around Emelia's bed
closed. 'That is very good news indeed. We've been quite
worried about you, young lady.'
Emelia glanced at his name tag through eyes that were still
slightly blurry. 'DrโฆumโฆPratchett? What am I doing in
hospital? I don't know what's going on. I think there's been
some sort of mistake. The nurse called me Mrs something or
other but I'm not married.'
The doctor gave her a formal trust-me-I'm-a-doctor smile.
'You have suffered a head injury, Emelia,' he said. 'This
has obviously caused you to have some memory loss. We don't
know how extensive it is until we conduct further tests. I
will have the staff psychologist assess you presently. We
may also need to rescan you under MRI.'
Emelia put her hand to her head again, her brows coming
together in a tight frown. 'Iโฆ I have amnesia?'
The doctor nodded. 'It seems so. Do you know what day it is?'
Emelia thought for a moment but knew she was only guessing
when she offered, 'Friday?'
'It is Monday,' Dr Pratchett said. 'September tenth.'
Emelia drew in an uneven breath. 'What year is it?' she
asked in a frightened whisper.
The doctor told her and she blinked at him in horror. 'That
can't be right,' she said. 'I can't have forgotten two years
of my life. That's ridiculous!'
Dr Pratchett placed his hand over hers where it was lying on
the bed clutching the sheet in her fingers. 'Try to keep
calm, Emelia,' he said soothingly. 'This is, of course, a
very frightening and confusing time for you. You have been
in a coma for several days so things will seem a little
strange at first. But in time you may well remember
everything. It just takes a little time. You need to take
things very slowly at first. Baby steps, my dear. Baby steps.'
Emelia pulled her hand out from beneath the doctor's,
holding it up like an exhibit at an investigation. 'Look,'
she said, pushing her chin up. 'No rings. I told youโthere's
been some sort of mix-up. I'm not married.'
'You are very definitely Mrs Emelia Louise Mรฉlendez,' the
doctor assured her with authority. 'That is the name the
police found on your driver's licence. Your husband is
waiting outside to see you. He flew over from Spain as soon
as he was informed of your accident. He has positively
identified you as his wife. He has barely left your bedside
the whole time you have been unconscious. He just stepped
out a moment ago to take a phone call.'
Emelia's mouth fell open so wide she felt her chin drop
almost to her chest. She felt her heart boom like a cannon
exploding in her chest.
Her husband?
Her Spanish husband?
She didn't even know his Christian name. How could it be
possible for her to forget something as important as that?
Where had they met? When had they got married? Had they? How
many timesโฆ?
Her stomach gave a funny little quiverโฆ It wasn't
possibleโฆwas it ? How could she have lived with and loved a
man and not remember him? Her skin broke out in a sweat, her
palms hot and moist with uncertainty and fear. Was she
dreaming? Surely she must be dreaming.
Think. Think. Think.
What was the last thing she had been doing? She scrunched
her eyes closed and forced herself to concentrate but her
head pounded sickeningly as she tried to recall the last few
days. It was all a blur, a foggy indistinct blur that made
little, if any, sense.
When Emelia opened her eyes the doctor had already moved
through a gap in the curtains and a short time later they
twitched aside again, the rattle of the rings holding the
curtain on the rail sounding too loud inside her head.
She felt her breath stall in her throat.
A tall raven-haired stranger with coal-black deep set eyes
stood at the end of the bed. There was nothing that was even
vaguely familiar about him. She studied his face for endless
seconds, her bruised brain struggling to place him. She
didn't recognise any one of his dark, classically handsome
features. Not his tanned, intelligent-looking forehead or
his dark thick brows over amazingly bottomless eyes or that
not short, not long raven-black hair that looked as if it
had last been groomed with his fingers. She didn't recognise
that prominent blade of a nose, and neither did she
recognise that heavily shadowed jaw that looked as if it had
an uncompromising set to it, and nor that mouthโฆ Her belly
gave another involuntary movement, like a mouse trying to
scuttle over a highly polished floor. His mouth was
sculptured; the top lip would have been described as
slightly cruel if it hadn't been for the sensual fullness of
his lower one. That was a mouth that knew how to kiss and to
kiss to conquer, she thought, as her belly gave another
little jiggle. She sent the tip of her tongue out to the
sand dune of her lips. Had she been conquered by that mouth?
If so, why couldn't she remember it?
'Emelia.'
Emelia felt her spine prickle at the way he said her name.
His Spanish accent gave the four syllables an exotic allure,
making every part of her acutely aware of him, even if she
didn't know who the hell he was.
'Umโฆ Hiโฆ' What else was she supposed to say? Hello, darling,
how nice to see you again?
She cleared her throat, her fingers beginning to pluck at
the hem of the sheet pulled across her middle. 'Sorryโฆ I'm a
little confused right nowโฆ'
'It's quite all right.' He came to the side of her bed in a
couple of strides, his tall presence all the more looming as
he stood within touching distance, looking down at her with
those inscrutable black eyes.
Emelia caught a whiff of his aftershave. It wasn't strong,
but then he looked as if he hadn't shaved for a couple of
days. There was a masculine urgency about the black stubble
peppering his jaw, making her think of the potent male
hormones surging through his body. She shakily breathed in
another waft of his aftershave. The light fragrance had
citrus undertones that smelt vaguely familiar. Her forehead
creased as she tried to concentrateโฆ Lemonsโฆsun-warmed
lemonsโฆa hint of lime or was it lemon grass?
'The doctor said I can take you home as soon as you are well
enough to travel,' the man said.
Emelia felt the skin on her back tingle all over again at
the sound of his voice. It had such a sexy timbre, deep and
low and unmistakably sensual. She could imagine him speaking
in his native tongue; the musical cadences of Spanish had
always delighted her. But there was something about his
demeanour that alerted her to an undercurrent of tension.
There was something about the unreachable depths of his
eyes. There was something about the way he hadn't yet
touched her. Not that she wanted him toโฆ or did she?
She glanced at his long fingered tanned hands. They were
hanging loosely by his sidesโor was that a tight clench of
his fingers he had just surreptitiously released?
Her eyes slowly moved up to meet his. Her chest tightened
and her breathing halted. Was that anger she could see in
that tiny flicker of a nerve pulsing by the side of his mouth?
No, of course it couldn't be anger. He was upset, that was
what it was. He was obviously shocked to see her like this.
What husband wouldn't be, especially if his...
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