He’d known from the first moment that he’d met Livvy’s mother that the woman couldn’t stand him because he hadn’t been her choice of husband for her daughter, but by that stage he and Livvy had been crazily in love and nothing the woman had tried to throw at them had stopped them getting married.
Of course, he’d recognised that he would never be good enough for the only child of the Mannington-Forbes dynasty — for someone as special as Livvy — and he’d thanked his lucky stars that she’d apparently fallen every bit as hard for him as he had for her.
When he’d realised who was on the phone just now, he’d selfishly hoped that he would hear Livvy make some sort of declaration to let her mother know, once-and-for-all, that she was going to stand by him, no matter what the outcome of his surgery.
Instead, in almost the same breath as she’d told her mother that she’d already instructed a solicitor, he’d heard her say that she didn’t love him and had spoken about divorce.
And that was before he’d found the guts to tell her that he was having to weigh up the choice between being able to regain the use of his legs against the possibility of losing the use of his manhood.
The longer he held her gaze the more uncomfortable she appeared to become, a look that seemed very like guilt filling her eyes until, finally, she looked away.
An icy shiver snaked its way up his spine, setting every hair on end, and he froze.
The last time he’d felt that sensation had been…had been…
Frantically, he searched his memory, desperate to uncover what felt like vital information.
Suddenly, it burst into lurid detail and he almost groaned aloud as it buried him under an avalanche of impressions…the unforgettable smell of cordite mixed with the rich scent of the earth thrown up by the explosion…the intermittent sharp crack of gunfire making him flinch, each report growing closer and closer as he tried to squeeze just one more of the wounded into the inadequate transport available…trying to ignore the vulnerable feeling of having no bulletproof clothing to protect himself, the multicoloured trousers and jacket he’d thrown on over his blood-spattered operating scrubs nothing more than camouflage-patterned heavy-duty cotton fabric.
He’d felt the presence of danger all around him in those moments when he’d left the dubious safety of a building erected in less vicious times. Perhaps this vividly remembered sensation had been a presentiment of what was going to happen when he’d answered the old man’s plea for help for his trapped pupils?
But surely he couldn’t be sensing that sort of danger here, in the home he’d shared with the woman who would be a part of every fibre of his being until the end of his days and beyond? There were no hidden snipers or out-of-date boilers ready to explode, just a sensation…an impression that…that there was something coming…something that was going to hurt…something that was going to be even more agonising than waking up to find that not only had he lost the use of his legs but he’d also lost his memory…
Well, he had his memory back, but very little else, and somehow, before tomorrow morning when he had to give his decision to Rick d’Agostino, he had to find the words to tell Livvy just how precarious his situation could be.
It was agonising trying to choose between the real chance that the operation would give him back the use of his legs and the equally real chance that he would never again be able to make love to her.
There wasn’t really a choice to be made when he contemplated the possibility of spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair, dependent on others. In comparison with getting his health and strength back — getting his life back — becoming impotent might seem a small sacrifice. But would that leave him with the agony of trying to decide what sort of a future he would have when Livvy finally told him that she didn’t want him in her life any more?
The phone shrilled a summons and they both jumped then stared at the instrument waiting for the machine to answer it.
He was almost certain that it would be Livvy’s mother again. The woman was noted for her persistence and it didn’t sound as if she’d been satisfied with her daughter’s response to whatever demands she’d been making.
Instead, it was a male voice, and all his possessive instincts raised their heads and snarled.
‘This is Gareth Lloyd from Solomon and Associates with a message for Mrs Olivia Davidson,’ the voice said crisply. ‘I have completed my enquiries and now have the definitive information she requested concerning — ’
Livvy snatched the receiver up, silencing the recording as she broke in. ‘Hello, Mr Lloyd, this is Olivia Davidson. Thank you for getting back to me so quickly.’ She turned her back on him and Gregor was left fuming as the rest of the call deteriorated into little more than a series of noncommittal murmurs.
This time, even though he was openly eavesdropping, he was unable to glean a single thing from the call, other than the fact that the man’s precise way of speaking had left him with the impression that he was a lawyer of some sort.
Suddenly, he was convinced that Livvy would take advantage of the fact that they were within the privacy of their own home to break the bad news — that she had taken steps to end their marriage properly this time by filing for divorce — and in spite of the numerous dangers he’d had to face in his life, cowardice clenched a tight hand around his heart and he burst into hasty speech as soon as the call ended.
‘Are you ready to go back to the hospital or are you thinking of staying here for the night?’ Even as he asked the question his emotions were in such turmoil that he wasn’t sure which answer he wanted.
‘After speaking to my mother and letting her know I’m at the flat, the chances are that she’ll turn up here,’ she pointed out with a grimace.
‘You don’t think she’ll have some more important “do” lined up for this evening?’ he suggested, ashamed to sound so petty.
‘I suppose it’s possible,’ she conceded calmly. ‘She was expecting to be basking in the glorious aftermath of the wedding, this week, and would have accepted all sorts of invitations so that people could tell her how wonderful it had all been and how brilliantly she’d organised the whole thing, so she’ll either be keeping her head down until someone in their circle does something more gossip-worthy, or she could have decided to brazen it out…doubtless, blaming the whole fiasco on her dreadful wayward daughter — ’
‘Or on me for having the bad manners not to die when I was supposed to,’ he interrupted wryly. That startled a chuckle out of her that lifted his spirits enough that he decided to risk making a suggestion. ‘How about ordering a meal from that little Italian restaurant just off the high street before we go back to the hospital? You know the one I mean…where they make that fabulous marinara…and the home-made pannacotta to the grandmother’s own recipe? I think I was fantasising about their food when I was eating yet another bowl of potato soup. Are they still there? Do they still deliver?’
‘They’re still there,’ she confirmed, then hesitated briefly before continuing, ‘but I don’t know if they still deliver because I haven’t had anything from them since…for two years,’ she finished quietly.
His eyes burned with the realisation that she must have been avoiding the place ever since he’d disappeared. Had she missed him so much that she hadn’t been able to face eating food from their favourite restaurant? The mere possibility was enough to rekindle a spark of hope.
‘So, are you going to phone or shall I?’ he asked, hoping the huskiness to his voice wasn’t as obvious to her as it was to him.
The meal was probably as wonderful as ever, but Olivia found it hard to remember a single mouthful with guilt weighing her down so badly.
It had been bad enough when she had only been hiding one secret — a devastating secret that had been gnawing away at her soul for nearly two years already — but since that phone call from Gareth Lloyd she could almost hear Gregor’s mind working as he tried to unravel whatever he’d managed to glean from her deliberately cryptic conversat
ion.
She knew she should tell him. He deserved to know…everything. But there was a small stubborn part of her that kept arguing that he was keeping secrets from her, too…such as the results of all those tests and the verdict on what sort of recovery Gregor could anticipate.
So, here they were, Olivia thought in frustration, the two of them sitting at either side of the table in silence, each apparently wrapped up in their own thoughts.
She had no idea what was going through Gregor’s head…nothing pleasant if the grim expression on his face was anything to go by. And all the while she was struggling to find a way to break the silence with an innocuous topic in the hope that it would lead to the conversation that needed to be broached.
Olivia had just about nerved herself to jump in with both feet when he beat her to the punch.
‘When were you intending telling me that you’re already going ahead with the divorce?’ he demanded, and completely robbed her of the power to speak.
CHAPTER NINE
OLIVIA felt her eyes grow wider and wider as she tried to work out where Gregor could have got such a crazy idea.
‘Don’t look so surprised,’ he growled. ‘It was a bit difficult not to hear what you were saying when you were discussing it with your mother.’
‘With my mother?’ It took her a moment to switch gears. She’d thought he was referring to her recent conversation with Gareth Lloyd, not the previous one with her mother.
She could remember arguing about the fact that she wouldn’t meekly allow herself to be dragooned into using her parents’ tame QC, but Gregor couldn’t have heard her say she was applying for a divorce because it wasn’t true. That was the last thing she wanted to do when she was still so much in love with the man.
‘Come on, Livvy! Don’t pretend you don’t know what you said… “I never loved him. It was a recipe for divorce”… I heard you say it,’ he ground out, and if it hadn’t been for the pain so clear in his eyes she could have laughed at such a crazy misunderstanding.
‘No, Gregor, no!’ she exclaimed as she speared frustrated fingers through her hair. She was further than ever from bringing up the topic she wanted to discuss, but this definitely needed straightening out first. ‘I wasn’t talking about you.’
‘How many men are you intending divorcing?’ he scoffed as he folded his arms tightly across his chest in a giveaway defensive gesture.
‘None!’ she declared fiercely, then continued quickly before he had a chance to interrupt. ‘That’s what the telephone call from Gareth Lloyd was about. I’d asked him to check up on the legal position of our marriage, bearing in mind the fact that you’d been declared dead erroneously.’
‘Well, you had to do that to make sure the way was legally clear for you to finally marry the Honourable Double-Barrelled,’ he pointed out snidely.
‘That would be true if I were in the least bit interested in marrying him,’ she countered swiftly. ‘If he was my choice of husband, I could have married him at any time from when I was sixteen and my mother would have turned cartwheels of joy the length of the Grayson-Smythes’ ballroom.’
‘But, you were about to marry him,’ he said impatiently. ‘In fact, if I hadn’t turned up when I did, you’d be Mrs Double-Barrelled by now — or would that be Countess Double-Barrelled? — and probably well on your way to delighting both families by producing the first of a large brood of junior Double-Barrels.’
‘Hardly, because it was never going to be a real marriage,’ she blurted out, and it was only when she saw his dark eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline that she realised exactly what she’d said.
‘Why on earth not?’ he demanded, clearly startled, and she had to admit that it was the obvious question. ‘Why else would the offspring of two such well-connected families be marrying if not to produce the next generation…unless the two of you had finally and very conveniently fallen madly in love?’
There was a dark edge to the final question that completely overshadowed the heavy-handed irony that had preceded it, and the expression in Gregor’s eyes made Olivia feel more guilty than ever for having given in to her mother’s incessant nagging.
It had never felt right to agree to the solemnity of a church wedding when neither she nor Ash was in love. The whole thing had been a travesty from start to ignominious finish, with not a single one of the emotions that had filled her on the day that she and Gregor had made their vows.
Was this her punishment? To have Gregor distrust her so much that he could believe that she would instigate divorce proceedings without even discussing it with him?
‘You said you wanted children…or was that a lie?’ The question sounded almost like an accusation. ‘Was being a doctor always going to be more important to you because you’d had to fight so hard to get there?’
‘Not at all,’ she said stiffly, feeling as if she was bleeding inside from the wounds he was inflicting, and they were always going to hurt more because of the guilt attached to them. ‘But if I tell you…you must promise that you will never tell anyone else. It could destroy Ash, and he doesn’t deserve that.’
There was a flash of something hot and angry in his eyes but he blinked and it was gone by the time he shrugged and said, ‘Who would I tell?’
‘OK, then… I’m not proud of it, but neither Ash nor I wanted a marriage — to each other or anyone else — but because of our families, we were never going to be given any peace until we found a partner so we could “do our duty” by perpetuating the family names.’ She paused, distracted by the fierce expression still darkening his face, then forced herself to continue. ‘We were hoping that the fact that we never managed to produce a baby for them would be seen as just bad luck and a real tragedy for both dynasties.
‘And the truth?’ he prompted.
‘The truth was that we had no intention of ever sharing a bed, let alone trying to have a baby.’
‘Why not?’ He shook his head. ‘Why would he bother marrying you if he had no intention of…of…?’
‘Because it would have broken his partner’s heart,’ she said simply. ‘The two of them have been together for years and Ash would dearly love to formalise their relationship with a civil ceremony, now that single-sex partnerships can be made legal, but he knows he could never do that to his parents.’
She saw the moment when the penny dropped; saw the mixture of comprehension and…was that relief in his expression? Had he honestly thought that she would so easily have been able to forget her love for him; that she could have replaced him in her heart and in her bed?
‘Ash is a friend,’ she said simply. ‘We’ve known each other, as neighbours, for most of our lives, even though I was never interested in joining the circles he moves in.’ There was an acceptance in the way he was looking at her that prompted her to explain further. ‘It was because we both knew what was at stake, and how awful it could be if either one of us let the cat out of the bag, that we could even contemplate entering into such an arrangement. It was going to let both of us off the hook so we could get on with our lives without constant family pressure.’
‘I can understand wanting to get away from that, and I can see what he was getting from the arrangement — a wife in name only who already knew about his boyfriend and accepted the situation — but what were you going to get out of it? You could have chosen to marry someone who could give you the children you wanted. Why decide to be childless?’
‘Because I wanted your child!’ she exclaimed, and as her heart clenched inside her with the enormity of the pain she’d been carrying around for nearly two years, she burst into tears.
An hour later, in the taxi taking them back to the hospital, Olivia was still kicking herself for missing out on the most perfect opportunity she was likely to get.
It had been all very well to blurt out that she hadn’t wanted any babies if they couldn’t be his, and Gregor had been unbelievably tender as he’d brushed away her tears with gentle fingertips, but somehow, even then…Maybe i
t had been especially then — when he had been so overwhelmingly the man she’d first fallen in love with — that she couldn’t bear to destroy the moment between them…
There was certainly no chance to bring up an emotional topic during the taxi ride back to their room in the hospital, and the atmosphere in the enclosed space made her afraid that Gregor was drawing away from her again; putting up an impenetrable barrier between the two of them.
Had he misunderstood what she’d been telling him about the status of their marriage, she wondered, or did he think that, as a result of her mother’s legal manoeuvring, their marriage had already been ended? Was he relieved? In which case it would be ironic that his survival meant that their marriage had survived, too. If he did want a divorce, he would have to start back at the beginning of the whole process.
Olivia swallowed hard, everything in her clenched against the very idea before a sudden surge of determination had her squaring her shoulders and raising her chin.
She and Gregor had been lucky to find each other and recognise their perfect other half and their marriage had been good and strong before he’d disappeared. She couldn’t believe that even two years without a memory, forced to live as someone else, could have changed the essence of the man she’d loved and who’d loved her in return.
Their marriage was worth fighting for, and once they were ready for bed and she had him at her mercy, she was going to fire the first salvo in her battle to rebuild what they’d so nearly lost. And if that included fighting dirty by donning her sexiest silk nightdress and anointing her pulse points with his favourite perfume before she seduced him into a receptive frame of mind, then so be it.
It was only when they were both back in their borrowed room that Olivia remembered that she’d had a few questions she wanted to ask Gregor before she’d been sidetracked by the need to explain how she’d come to be marrying Ash.
Her Long-Lost Husband Page 14