by Corri Lee
He cared. My health was his only concern and he’d look after me whether I liked his methods or not. He’d devote his life and sanity to it—scold and growl at me because it was in my best interests. It would have been just as easy for him to let me scupper my recovery by pushing myself too hard or not getting enough rest but he put in the extra mile for me. Always had. Probably always would. For no reason other than that he loved me.
“Okay.” He looked stunned by my compliance and faltered on his way out. “Don’t leave me in here alone too long.”
“I won’t.” He nodded towards the flat screen television mounted on the wall opposite the grand four-poster bed he’d laid me in. “I need to make a few calls, but how does popcorn and a movie marathon sound?”
“Good enough for me to overlook the fact you’re taking over my life.”
“Don’t worry.” He winked and turned back into the lounge. “I’m planning to return it with interest.”
I knew that wasn’t just a romantic pun. If he could, Blaze would extend my life expectancy by several years by any means possible. I’d have to outlive him—it would be his life’s mission. I was almost certain that if he ever lived another single day without me, he’d stay old, lonely and miserable until he died of a broken heart. That might have been a conceited opinion but it was his own fault for telling it that way. My life and love were the two things he treasured most.
At least, that was what I thought until twelve hours later, when the quiet of night was disturbed by a man tortured by nightmares. Between my injuries and the amount of medication pumping through my body, I could do nothing but lay there, paralysed and unable to reach out in comfort.
His moans were heartbreaking, the sobs into his pillow unbearable to hear. What the hell was he dreaming about to make him have such a distressing nightmare?
Maybe the memory of finding me bleeding was replaying again. Maybe it would haunt him for years. A combination of muscle relaxants and pain killers carefully administered and hidden by my new carer had put me into a dreamless sleep and masked my own nightmares, but it definitely wouldn’t help him. I’d broken him, heart and soul, with my suicide attempt. It would undoubtedly haunt me, too.
His hands started to twist in the valance covering the mattress, pulling it away at the corners to wrinkle uncomfortably underneath me. Feeling a cold breeze on my uncovered leg, I had no choice but to reach out a hand and search for him.
“Blaze. Wake up.”
“Don’t take her from me...” His hand clapped down over my wrist and squeezed it like a vice. The resulting pain was so intense I felt sick and saw spots. I knew he hadn’t done it consciously or on purpose, but for a moment I really hated him.
“Damn it, you fucking asshole. Wake up!”
“Natasha!”
The valance was completely tugged away from underneath me so quickly it sent me rolling once, twice, and a third time that sent me face first off the bed. The heat in my wrist told me I was bleeding again but that wasn’t what hurt the most.
He’d been dreaming about her. He missed her. The nightmare that should have been about me had been about her. He cared for her more than he let on—more than me. His subconscious told the only veritable truth he wouldn’t and I’d always valued the way he was totally honest and open. Or at least the way he had been.
But how could I think badly of him for keeping secrets when I kept the worst?
His nightmare seemed to pass the moment he yelled her name. The only basis of that was the absolute silence in the master bedroom. Eventually I heard the movement of fabric and a quiet, “Emmeline?”
“Down here.”
“Emmeline?” I felt him loom over me. “Holy shit, did you fall out of bed or something?”
“Yeah,” I snapped. “That’s what happened.”
“Why didn’t you... Oh. Crap, I... Emmeline, I’m so sorry.” So he’d seen state of the bedding...
“Can you just roll me onto my back or something? Thanks.”
His bare feet slapped down onto the hardwood floor, muted for a moment by rugs preceding the harshness of the main lights. He groaned when he must have looked back at me, righted the bed and carefully rolled me over.
“Fuck. Your wrist.”
“It’ll stop when it’s ready. Just put me back in bed.”
“Emmeline...”
I pressed a finger to his lips to stop him going on. I wished I could walk so I could just get up, leave and be spared the guilt of taking away what he truly loved most.
Blaze murmured behind my finger. “I feel terrible. You have no idea.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
“Please don’t leave me.”
I leaned back from him, feeling the backs of my eyes burn with tears. “Why would I?”
“What I did...”
His reaction to saying his wife’s name and shoving me out of bed was a little too adverse. There was more to it, I just didn’t understand what. What had he done that was so awful? What was it he thought I’d just learned? Would he even told me if I asked?
I was too drowsy and felt too unwell to find out. Forgetting myself, I tried to pull myself to my feet and almost threw up thanks to the amount of pain it induced.
“Cupcake, shit. Don’t move.” Scraping me up, Blaze tucked me back into bed and raced out to grab his phone.
“Don’t call anyone,” I called after him. Frankly, I didn’t care if I bled to death overnight this time. Esme was right; our relationship was ruined now the first bride was out of the picture. How screwed up was it that we only worked while when we had a third wheel that stopped us growing as a couple? Who knew how long he’d dream of her and beg her not to leave? And I’d have to hear it, maybe every single night.
Or not. He bottlenecked in the doorway with his back to me and drummed his fingers across the frame. “I’m going to sleep in the other room. Probably won’t even sleep, actually...”
“Don’t do this...”
“I’m not doing anything.” He turned back to me and sagged with defeat. “It was stupid of me to sleep in the same bed as you while you’re still recovering. I could have really hurt you and that’s the last thing I want to do. It’ll be just like the old days when I’d fuck you rigid and sneak out while you were sleeping.”
I couldn’t believe he was trying to make light of it. “Except we’re supposed to have gotten over that hurdle of not waking up together and I’m rigid for all the wrong reasons.”
“Cupcake...” He grinned slyly down at the floor and drew distracting little pictures with his toes. “I’m supposed to be making you better and having my wicked way with you would put you in traction for months. And if waking up with me means so much, I’ll get up early and come back in here for you. It’s just the sleeping part that worries me.”
I conceded to myself that the sleeping part worried me, too, but for reasons far different to his. What kind of future did we have as a couple if we couldn’t even dream safely side by side? Getting to that point in the first place had been torturous but now to take a step backwards and return to it? We’d build a marriage on him sleeping in the guest room after performing his spousal duties and lying about what was driving us to weep while we were sleeping? Was he just scared of what I’d hear—scared of me realising I was second best?
“I’ll bring you breakfast and your laptop in bed when you wake up. Want me to set an alarm?”
“You know what?” I faked a smile and prayed he didn’t see my heart splitting open. He didn’t need a guilt trip heaping on top of his stress and grief. “Let me sleep in and leave the laptop out there. I’ll just... rest tomorrow.” Rest or mope, I couldn’t be sure which I really meant until I slept on it. Blaze either didn’t pick up the subtext or was just happy to pretend it wasn’t there, waved dumbly and shut me into the dark room.
Alone. And he shut me out as much as he shut me in. I’d always told myself as a child that watching my parents marriage was like watching two speeding cars travelling in opposite d
irections down a one way street, and swore I’d never be in a relationship like theirs.
Which I wasn’t. Both Ivy and Henry knew when to hit the brakes or make a hasty yet skilful u-turn. Blaze and I were an impending catastrophe for another reason: neither of us knew how to save the other. We’d hurtle towards each other with no abandon until we collided and what would become of the wreckage, nobody knew, least not me.
There was only one thing that was certain. The crash would be followed by an unholy burn.
The first week of eight passed in a bizarre blur that made me feel kind of sea sick. By the time I woke up the next morning, Blaze had already spoken to his mother, coerced a registrar into performing the ceremony in her garden and booked our hotel for the wedding night. Over the next three days, he had a large gazebo ordered, half a guest list written, fabric swatches for cravattes strewn everywhere and was eagerly staring at his phone, awaiting the call of Chase Garret, his Monday’s Miracle replacement front man for the thumbs up on not only their attendance but their participation in the wedding.
I couldn’t believe it. What seemed like only five minutes ago, my life had been unremarkable and boring. I’d complained and wished for change. Now I was a multibillionaire’s murdering daughter who’d marry to the sound of one of the UK's biggest rock bands. It just didn’t seem to be my life anymore.
Determined not to be a burden, I’d tried to get myself out of bed and had only ended up back on the floor. Rather than admiration, my tenancy won me nothing but a critical tut and a lecture on how sabotaging my recovery wasn’t going to get me out of dress shopping. The damn wedding was blinding his comprehension of the fact that keeping myself down wasn’t my motive. I was trying to scrape together some semblance of normality in what had become a very abnormal existence.
I didn’t let his disapproval distract me. When he wasn’t looking, I’d prevail in my attempts to become mobile again with or without his help. The cocktail of pain killers made it easier, dulling the pain that came from pushing myself. As long as they kept prescribing them, I’d be okay. The consequences of doing too much were an afterthought I could overlook until Blaze retreated to sleep in the other room, as long as I didn’t have to face them while he was looking right at me.
The day before my meeting with Henry, I stood in the en-suite bathroom and nervously picked at the dressings around my wrists. I hadn’t had the courage to look at the wounds myself but Blaze had, choosing to wait until I was completely passed out at night to sneak in and clean them up.
For me, seeing and redressing the wounds myself was like a rite of passage. It was my way of taking on board what I’d done and accepting the responsibility. Of course, this time was a lot different to when I’d been warily unwinding the bandages last time—the circumstances weren’t the same. But it was a step in the right direction.
One impeded by my ‘carer’. Or rather ‘molly coddler’.
“What the hell are you doing out of bed? Without your collar on? Standing?”
“Can’t you just be glad that I can?”
Ignoring me, Blaze carried me out of the bathroom and put me back in bed, grabbing my discarded collar along the way. “You need your rest. I need you fighting fit.”
“Damn it.” I slapped his hands away when he tried to swaddle me like an infant. “You keep me cooped up in here, I’m not fighting shit. How long are you planning to keep me prisoner?”
“I’m just doing my job, Emmeline.”
“Yeah, that’s right; I’m just work to you now. Another destitute rich girl dependent on your care. I was your fiancée first, remember that? I used to be more than a mercy mission.”
Blaze sank down next to me and pulled the duvet right up to my chin, firmly pinning my arms down underneath it long enough to put the collar back on me. “Can’t you just understand that I’m trying to do the best for you?”
“I’d understand it if I was asking for your blessing to go skydiving or knife juggling at the circus, but I’m not. I know I did something awful last week but should you really be keeping me trapped up with only my own thoughts for company when it’s my thoughts that drove me to it?”
He sucked in a quick breath between his teeth. I’d been aiming for a raw nerve that would bully him into giving me a little leeway and I’d hit my target dead on. “Low blow, Emmeline.”
“I know.” I shrugged flippantly. “But you’re giving me no choice but to start striking below the belt.”
Cursing softly, Blaze leaned away from me and glared stubbornly at the floor. He’d been doing a lot of that recently, making me feel like the evil manipulator. It drove me nuts because I hadn’t asked him for anything but my basic human rights to feed myself and pee without company. “What do you need?”
Miserably, I shook my head and burrowed down into bed. Even if I won this round, I’d never get the prize I really wanted. He’d give me the top range sports car but I wanted the hot model in the driver’s seat, one far more concerned with arranging what should have been the happiest day of my life but wouldn’t be when he was alienating me in the process. “I just wanted to sit in the same room as you and do some work in an upright position so I didn’t feel like a complete outcast. But it doesn’t matter. I’m not in the mood anymore.”
I rolled over quickly so he wouldn’t see my eyes well up. I knew that what I had done had tied me to a life of servitude, but maybe I’d misjudged what really made Blaze happy. It seemed like marriages borne of obligation to incapacitated young socialites was something he thrived on, whether or not that was a trend he kept to consciously. I may not have had the social side down but I ticked more than a few boxes that made me just like Natasha—blonde, younger, rich, unwell, madly in love with him and I’d do anything to get my own way.
I expected him to stand up and leave, just pretend he didn’t see me shaking with the need to cry like a couple who’d grown apart over years. He wouldn’t ask and I wouldn’t tell; it would go on that way forever. Perfect on paper, nobody would see how flawed we were inside. Part of me had stupidly believed we’d be okay, right up until he’d had that nightmare and started closing himself off. We were doomed.
“The funeral is in two days.” Keeping very still, I waited for him to carry on. “She’s been in my life for the longest time. I’m struggling to believe that she’s really gone and I’m a bit lost now she’s not around.”
“You’re mourning. That’s normal.”
“Sure, call it ‘mourning’ to make it sound better. But I’m really just finding it unbelievable that she’s really gone. Right up until the day she died, Natasha always had something she could use against me to ruin my life. I won’t really trust that she doesn’t have a coup de grace lined up until she’s a pile of dust in an urn. If I’m seen looking too happy about her daughter’s death, it’ll provoke Mona. Better I’m not seen at all—you, either.”
Stalling for a beat, I rolled to face him and reached for his hand. He was scared for some kind of posthumous backlash? “Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“Plausible deniability.” He shook his head at my confused frown. “Trust me, please. Stay with me over this hurdle and tell me we’re okay.”
Between his sudden severity and strange personality adjustment over the past few days, I didn’t know that I could. Promises alone could keep us together but I wasn’t sure what we had beyond that anymore. It wasn’t so long ago that I looked at him and saw the end of the beginning of a lesser life—just two weeks, in fact, when he’d been crouched on bended knee in front of me at the top of the Empire State Building. Now I saw that the life of unsaid secrets we had was the lesser, and it felt like the beginning of the end.
But part of me was masochistic enough to fight for longer before our flame died completely, not because I owed him but because he was my gravity—the only thing that kept me grounded and stopped me floating out into a big empty space of loneliness that would kill me. I needed him as much as I wanted him. ‘Okay’ or not, I’d stay with him through an Oly
mpic track of hurdles.
“As long as you want me to keep my promise to never leave, we’re okay.”
“Good.” The sound of a phone ringing outside broke our solemn meeting of minds, and his newfound openness. In the blink of an eye, I saw the shutters go back up and my access to his true feelings cut off, for now at least.
“I need to get that. When I’m done, we’ll talk some more about you sitting with me.”
I didn’t even have it in me to argue that there was nothing more to talk about.
The short time he was talking was long enough for me to fall asleep and apparently long enough for him to have another pendulum-like mood swing while I was dozing. I opened my eyes to find him sitting at my bedside, smiling calmly like the Blaze I’d fallen in love with—the one who let nothing faze him—ready to scoop me up and carry me to the suite’s dining room, where I’d sit and be allowed to feed myself without issuing any further emotional blackmail. Like that didn’t unnerve me enough, I’d vaguely heard him asking the person on the other end of his phone call if ‘it was all really dead and buried’, but had no further hints on what he meant.
He was keeping something from me. The only thing he’d ever omitted before was Natasha, which meant I knew it was something huge and potentially devastating. Pressing him for answers on his big secret would have been a hypocrisy. All I could do was give in to his earlier request for trust and for once, that seriously bugged me.
He must have picked up on my anxiety while I was picking at the soup he’d put down in front of me. I’d smelled him cooking it that morning and was almost sure he’d picked that particular meal because he knew it was easy to digest, but I couldn’t eat it. My mind was addled by a thick fog.
“Emmeline.” Blaze reached across the table and prised the spoon from my hand. “You seem unhappy.”