The Mélendez Forgotten Marriage by Melanie Milburne Page B

what waited for him at the end of it.
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    Emelia ignored the comfort of the big bed and, after a refreshing shower and change of clothes, went on a solitary tour of the villa in the hope of triggering something in her brain. Most of the rooms were too formal for her taste. They were almost austere, with their priceless works of art and uncomfortable-looking antiquated furniture. She couldn’t help wondering why she hadn’t gone about redecorating the place. Money was certainly no object, but perhaps she’d felt intimidated by the age and history of the villa. It was certainly very old. Every wall of the place seemed to have a portrait of an ancestor on it, each pair of eyes following her in what she felt to be an accusatory silence. She found it hard to imagine a small child feeling at home here. Was this the place where Javier had grown up? There was so much she didn’t know about him, or at least no longer knew.
    She breathed out a sigh as she opened yet another door. This one led into a library-cum-study. Three walls of floor to ceiling bookshelves and a leather-topped desk dominated the space, but she could see a collection of photo frames beside the laptop computer on the desk, which drew her like a magnet. The floorboards creaked beneath the old rugs as she walked to the desk, the hairs on the back of her neck lifting like antennae.
    â€˜Don’t be stupid,’ she scolded herself. ‘There’s no such thing as ghosts.’ But, even so, when she looked at the photographs she felt as if she were encountering something supernatural—the ghost of who she had been for the past two years.
    She picked up the first frame and studied it for amoment. It was a photo of her lying on a blanket in an olive grove, the sun coming down at an angle, highlighting her honey-blonde hair and grey-blue eyes. She was smiling coquettishly at the camera, flirting with whoever was behind the camera lens.
    She put the frame down and picked up the next one, her heart giving a little skip when she saw Javier with his arms wrapped around her from behind, his tall frame slightly stooped as his chin rested on the top of her head, his smile wide and proud as he faced the camera. She could almost feel his hard body pressing into her back, the swell of his arousal, the pulse and thrum of his blood…
    The door of the study suddenly opened and Emelia dropped the frame, the glass shattering on the floor at her feet. She stood frozen for a moment as Javier stepped into the room, closing the door with a click that sounded like a prison cell being locked.
    â€˜Don’t touch it,’ he commanded when she began to bend at the knees. ‘You might cut yourself.’
    â€˜I’m sorry…’ Emelia said, glancing down at the floor before meeting his gaze. ‘You frightened me.’
    His black eyes didn’t waver as they held hers. ‘I can assure you that was not my intention.’
    Emelia swallowed as he approached the desk. He was wearing a white casual polo shirt and beige jodhpurs and long black leather riding boots, looking every inch the brooding hero of a Regency novel. He smelt of the outdoors with a hint of horse and hay and something that was essentially male, essentially him . He filled her nostrils with it, making her feel as if she was being cast under an intoxicating spell. His tall authoritarian presence, that aura of command he wore like anextra layer of skin, that air of arrogance and assuredness that was so at odds with her insecurities and doubts and memory blanks. ‘I…I was trying to see if anything in here jogged my memory,’ she tried her best to explain.
    He hooked a brow upwards. ‘And did it?’
    She bit her lower lip, glancing at the shattered glass on the floor, which seemed to sever them as a couple. Was it symbolic in some way? A shard of glass was lying across their smiling faces, almost cutting them in two. She brought her gaze back to his.