One-Click Buy: November Harlequin Presents

by Susan Stephens

  ‘We worked it out, Lily. Both of us came to our senses and realised our mistakes, worked out together that we really did love each other.’

  ‘You forgave him?’

  ‘And he forgave me,’ Catherine said softly. ‘We had a rough patch, and, yes, it was hell at that time, but we were so, so much more than that, Lily. He was a wonderful husband, a great father…’ Lily could almost feel Hunter in the room, feel his arms around her, understood now that it wasn’t, nor ever had been her secret to keep or reveal or even attempt to understand. ‘Look,’ Catherine continued only this time Lily listened. ‘I don’t know what’s gone on…’ As the phone rang and Catherine went to answer it, Lily lay there, wishing it could be so, wishing that she and Hunter had some of the foundations of her parents’ marriage to build on in desperate times.

  ‘Lily.’ Catherine’s tentative voice broke into her thoughts and Lily’s heart soared with hope, only to be dashed as she heard her mother’s worried voice. ‘That was a reporter from one of the news channels.’

  ‘Just say I’m not here,’ Lily answered quickly. ‘Tell them you don’t know anything about the break-up.’ Frowning, she watched as her mother, instead of heading back out to the hall, came and sat down on the bed, her eyes widening as she took in her mother’s pale face, felt her mother’s hands wrap around hers, just as she had when she’d come into the room one morning and told her that her father had died.

  ‘They want to know if I’ve heard anything from you at the hospital.’

  ‘The hospital?’ She didn’t understand, could hear her voice coming from a long way off as her mind darted to Hunter, as tiny shards of recollection pieced together.

  ‘He was found collapsed this morning, that’s all I know.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ‘HOW could you?’ Emma’s accusing face wasn’t the greeting Lily had been expecting as she was led into the emergency unit’s interview room. She’d expected a roomful of people, but instead it was Jim and Emma, huddled together and waiting for news as Lily breathlessly joined them ‘How could you have left him?’

  ‘Not now, Em.’ Jim wrapped an arm around Emma and gave his cousin a wan smile. ‘I’m sure she had her reasons.’

  ‘I didn’t know he was sick.’ Trembling, shaking, Lily sank into one of the chairs, watched her knees bob up and down as Emma gave an incredulous snort.

  ‘Abigail said that by the time she left him last night he was practically unconscious, that the only reason she left him was because you’d come home.’

  ‘That isn’t what happened.’ Lily’s teeth were chattering. She’d deal with Abigail later, deal with her in the fullness of time, but right now all she wanted to know about was Hunter, to find out what the hell had happened. ‘Where’s Hunter? How is he?’

  ‘What do you care?’ Emma sneered, and for the first time Lily realised with horror that somehow she knew. ‘I spoke to Hunter in briefly in Emergency—he told me the truth, so you can cut out the crocodile tears, you can stop pretending you care how he is. Oh, but, then again, you’ve got a huge vested interest in Hunter’s health—what a merry widow you’ll be!’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Lily demanded, fear, absolute fear gripping her, and guilt, too, at her unwitting part in this, that she’d stood screaming like a banshee while he’d lain there ill.

  ‘They’re not sure. He’s having a brain scan. They’ve called in the best neurologist, so hopefully we’ll have some answers soon.’ Thankfully Jim broke the appalling stone wall she’d been thrown behind. ‘He’s been ill for a few weeks now, according to Abigail. He went to see a doctor yesterday after he came back from Singapore. He was booked in to have some tests on Monday.’

  ‘Oh, God.’ Lily buried her face in her hands, could actually picture his tired, grey face so clearly it was if he were right there in front of her. She wanted to reach out to him as she hadn’t back then, to take him by the hand and lead him to bed, replaying so many, many things in her mind now—the fistfuls of painkillers, the unsteady gait, the vile black temper, all that time he’d been ill! ‘Oh, Hunter.’ Tears were trickling through her fingers, thinking of him so tall and proud lying attached to some wretched machine so scared and ill. Whatever had gone on between them, whatever he felt about her, it couldn’t extinguish the love that burnt there—for Lily at least.

  ‘Oh, please.’ The disgust in Emma’s voice was blisteringly evident. ‘Save the tears for the press. I trusted you, Lily. I sat there and poured my heart out to you and all the time you must have been laughing inside. All this time you were lying about wanting to be here!’

  ‘Never! I genuinely cared for you, Emma.’ Lily looked at her sister-in-law, and it was like looking in a mirror—the raw pain of confusion and humiliation there, as it had been for Lily when she’d found the letters—and she listened as Emma replayed their time together with the wretched twist of deception.

  ‘You never cared. It was all a sham, your marriage, our friendship. I didn’t want a false friend.’ Emma was sobbing so hard she could barely get the words out. ‘I just wanted my brother to be happy, to find some peace!’

  ‘I want the same thing for him.’ Lily’s voice was so small it was barely there, the word whispered through pale lips. ‘You don’t understand—’

  ‘I understand this much.’ Emma stared at her coolly, her tears drying up, displaying some of the strength that had seen her through this most vile of years. ‘You walked out on a very sick man who happens to be a very wealthy one. Right now your filthy secret won’t leave this room, but I swear, if anything happens to my brother I’ll fight you to the bitter end—you won’t see a single cent!’

  The horror of what she was accusing her of barely had time to register. The door opened and a red-eyed Abigail came in, followed by a doctor who introduced himself. They must have hauled him off the golf course because he was still wearing his spikes, and it was easier to focus on that than the horror of Emma’s words, easier to focus on incidentals as she braced herself for news.

  ‘We’re just starting to get some test results in. It would seem there’s an infection somewhere, but till we get the lumbar puncture and CT scan results back, I can’t tell you much more. He’s resting quietly in a private room at the moment.’

  ‘I’ll go and sit with him.’ Emma’s hands moved to the wheels as Abigail turned on her heel, clearly about to follow suit.

  ‘Just one at a time,’ the doctor said. ‘He’s heavily sedated at the moment—right now, more than anything he needs now to rest.’

  ‘I’ll sit with him.’ Lily almost didn’t recognize her own voice, despite the blizzard of emotion in her brain, despite the tears rolling down her face, her voice, in contrast, was measured and controlled.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Emma didn’t even deign to give her a glance as she wheeled her chair through the door, Abigail already marching on ahead towards the lifts. ‘Why on earth would we let you near him?’

  ‘Because he’s my husband.’ Wiping her face with back of her hand, Lily turned to the doctor. ‘I believe, as his next of kin, I have every right to be with him.’

  Every legal right apparently, but as she saw the look on Emma’s face, as the doctor nodded and a nurse escorted her to the room where Hunter was being monitored, morally Lily wasn’t so sure. What right did she have to make this or any decision for him? What right did she have to keep his sister from him, to keep the staff he’d handpicked away, when perhaps he needed them most?

  Tiptoeing into the room, she felt her heart spasm in wretched pain—tried to convince herself that he was just sleeping. Tried and failed, because sleep was restful, sleep relaxed and replenished, yet Hunter looked ravaged. Despite the sedation and the darkened room, his body twitched with tension, his face grey and lined, as if the world had moved forward a decade. Lily’s guilt multiplied, as if somehow this was her fault, as if somehow she’d done this to him.

  To them.

  She held his hand and it felt so cold she held it with
two hands, tried to infuse warmth into him, stared down at the long slender fingers just as she had on the night they’d met, saw the bitten nails of whatever doubts plagued him and willed him to relax, to let whatever it was that was feeding from the drip into his body do its work, to take away his wretchedness, even for a little while.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was thick with tears and even if he couldn’t hear her she said it anyway. ‘Sorry for not seeing you weren’t well, sorry for messing up…’ A sob shuddered on her lips and her nose ran. She even managed a strangled laugh, glimpsed the appalled expression that would surely be on Hunter’s face if only he could see her now. ‘Sorry for loving you.’

  A hand was on her shoulder and, startled, Lily jumped, turning around to see Emma, who had silently entered the room.

  ‘I’m sorry, too.’ Eyes as blue as Hunter’s stared back at her. ‘You really do love him, don’t you?’

  ‘Not that he’d be pleased to hear it,’ Lily sniffed. ‘That wasn’t part of the deal.’

  ‘What I said back there.’ Emma gave a helpless shake of her head. ‘I just couldn’t believe I’d got things so wrong. I was just so embarrassed, so appalled that you’d married to appease me…’

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ Lily said, her mind racing to come up with some magical answer, to take the sting out of Emma’s wound. But nothing she said now could obliterate the past—only the truth might provide a balm. ‘At least, it wasn’t for me.’

  ‘I know.’ Emma stared at her brother for an age but then the tears started again, real tears that came from deep inside that needed to be addressed. And as much as it hurt to let go of Hunter’s hand, Lily did so, knew from the little she did know about him that it was what Hunter would want. She followed Emma outside into the stark white hall to hear and reveal the stark black truth.

  ‘I thought he was sleeping with Abigail,’ Lily admitted. ‘Last night I saw him with his arms around her—that’s the real reason I was crying at the ball.’

  ‘But he nearly passed out at the ball,’ Emma explained. ‘That’s why Abigail brought him home. He didn’t tell you he was leaving because he physically couldn’t—all he wanted apparently was to get the hell out of there without making a fuss.’

  ‘I can see that now,’ Lily admitted. ‘But when I got home…’ She closed her eyes at the horrible image, could still see Abigail’s smirk as she’d come out of the bedroom, still didn’t really know if she was just fooling herself. ‘Abigail let me think they’d been together. Maybe they weren’t last night, but I still don’t know if he’s been unfaithful.’

  ‘What if he has?’ Emma voiced the difficult question. ‘What if he made a mistake?’

  ‘Then it’s over.’ Lily gave a tight nod, balled her fists and held onto conviction. ‘It has to be. I told him when I agreed to the marriage that it was the one thing I’d never forgive.’

  ‘Why does he have to sabotage everything?’ Emma said. ‘I’ve tried to help him. I’ve pleaded with him to slow down—when I heard about your group I thought that maybe if he went…’

  Suddenly Lily was still. For the second time in a single day her past, her conviction utterly, utterly distorted, the sure ground she’d stood on shifting further.

  ‘He came to New Beginnings to check it out for you,’ Lily whispered, remembering again his arrogant face on entering the club, his palpable boredom at the proceedings and his absolute lack of desire to be there.

  ‘Supposedly for me,’ Emma corrected. ‘I wasn’t the one that needed help. I’d already made my peace—I was more than ready to move on with my life. It was Hunter that was struggling. Look, I’m not saying it’s been easy for me, but for all my injuries, for all I’m stuck in this chair, it doesn’t come close to what Hunter’s suffering.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Only now she could admit it, only now could she confess her terrifying helplessness to reach him, only now reveal to Emma just how little she knew. ‘Just what happened in Singapore? He told me he wasn’t driving, that he wasn’t even in the car—’

  ‘He arranged the whole night,’ Emma broke in, and Lily closed her eyes in regret for him. ‘He was in Singapore on business while I was playing there, and he got it into his head that if our parents only heard me play, if we were just together for one night, if we got Mum and Dad out of the house and enjoyed each other’s company, maybe things would be different. They didn’t want to come, but Hunter sort of railroaded them into it. Organised the flight, the hotel, even sent a car to their house to pick them up.’

  ‘Oh, God!’

  ‘They saw me play and then he got called away. We were at this bar and Hunter had something urgent to attend to, so he said he’d meet us back at the hotel for dinner. The accident happened then.

  ‘Do you see now why he blames himself?’ Emma’s face was chalk white. ‘He blames himself and, much as I tell him not to, the truth is I fully understand why, because in my darkest moments sometimes I’ve blamed him, too. If he’d just left things alone, hadn’t interfered, then Mum and Dad would still be here, I’d still be walking…’ Emma snapped her mouth closed, startled eyes darting to Lily’s as if she should somehow be flinching, should somehow berate or reprimand her. But Lily gave the gentlest smile of understanding.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Lily said softly, kneeling down and wrapping her arms around Emma’s. ‘It’s OK to feel like that at times.’

  ‘Is it?’ Emma gulped.

  ‘You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t,’ Lily ventured. ‘Maybe it’s what Hunter needs to hear. As much as the truth hurts, sometimes it’s needed.’

  ‘Stupid thing is, it turns out that he was right.’ Emma pulled away, glimpsed a world that was still standing after her revelation. ‘Mum and Dad were the happiest I’ve ever seen them that night in the bar before the accident. They told me that that night had been the best of their lives, that they were proud of us both…’

  Perhaps they had, perhaps they hadn’t. Lily truly didn’t know if Emma was using poetic licence to distort the painful memory, or if indeed she was telling the truth. All Lily knew was that if it made the agony more bearable then it was something Emma needed to believe…

  Hunter, too.

  ‘Mrs Myles?’ The doctor had changed out of his golf spikes into smart leather shoes, and she jumped at the title. ‘I’ve just got your husband’s results in.’

  And she could have faced it alone, could have sent Emma away, but today had nothing to do with who deserved to hear what—or who was right and who was wrong. Today was about Hunter and, holding Emma’s hand, the two women braced themselves to hear the news.

  How long she sat there staring, Lily didn’t know. Time had no meaning as again she watched the rise and fall of his chest. Once he opened those eyes, squinted at her in the way that always melted her heart.

  ‘Sleep,’ Lily said softly.

  ‘You’re here?’ She sensed his confusion, moved quickly to douse it—touched his beautiful face with her hand and willed him to rest, knowing instinctively now the right words to say to him.

  ‘I’m here because I want to be.’

  She watched the moon move across the sky, watched the sun rise on another morning, watched bag upon bag of fluids seep into his veins until the sun rose on yet another day, stripping the grey and tipping the world into colour, a lazy blush crawling into the room, his cyanosed lips flushing red, the exhausted rise and fall of his chest slipping into an easier rhythm. And for the first time in her adult life Lily allowed herself to be looked after. Sipped the coffee Emma brought, squeezed her hand as she disappeared as silently as she’d come—felt from her sister-in-law the acknowledgment of the love she had for her brother, real love, because whether or not he felt the same was immaterial. Even if she had to leave him because of what he’d done, she’d never stop loving him. True love didn’t have to be reciprocated to exist.

  ‘Hey.’ Hunter blanched at the sunlight that bathed him, winced as the pain caught up with him. ‘I thought that you’d left
me.’

  ‘Believe me, I tried.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He stared right at her as he said it. ‘Sorry for putting you through this. I never wanted you to find out.’

  ‘Well, I did,’ she said simply. Now was not the time for venom, now not the time to impale him with her pain ‘And I’m not here to make things harder for you now. I’m actually here to say sorry, too—sorry for not realising you were sick when I shouted at you.’

  ‘I wanted you to leave me.’ His brutal admission inflicted a pain that was physical and Lily’s vow to stay calm, to not cry at this part, crumbled, along with her pride.

  ‘You could have just told me that.’ Lily blew her fringe skywards, tried to keep her voice calm. ‘You didn’t have to sleep with Abigail to make me leave.’

  ‘I never slept with Abigail.’

  She wanted almost to doubt him because it scared her how badly she wanted to believe him, yet truly she did. Now was not the time for lies. His voice was so unwavering, his eyes so direct she knew she was hearing the truth.

  ‘If I told you I was sick you’d have stayed, but for all the wrong reasons.’ Again he confused her, again she lost the thread of the conversation. Massaging her temples, she dragged in a breath, tried to fathom what on earth he was talking about. ‘You’d have stayed out of duty.’

  ‘What duty?’ Lily frowned. ‘Hunter…’ His words were starting to sink in—like the letters in a game of Scrabble, a seemingly jumbled mess but which, arranged properly, started to make sense. But she needed clarification, needed that one missing part before she made her next move. ‘Hunter, what do you think is wrong with you?’ He didn’t answer, just stared up at the ceiling as she gently explained what the doctors had told her. ‘You’ve got a bacterial infection,’ Lily explained softly, ‘a serious form of labrynthitis.’