There’d been an aloofness, a self-sufficiency about him that had appealed to her. While in some ways it had reminded her of her father and how he kept himself emotionally detached from his children, it also meant Xander wouldn’t need her as much as her siblings had needed her. For the first time in years, she could focus on herself. She could be independent, to a point, and do what she’d always wanted to do. Paint and create her own family on her own terms. And she had done all that—but she’d forgotten the vital ingredient to a truly happy marriage. Making those big decisions as a couple, not as a pair of individuals.
She had a lot to make up to Xander for. Caring for him once he’d been released from the hospital had been a start. Repairing their marriage was next.
Xander’s hand skimmed the curve of her buttocks even as he slept, and she smiled and closed her eyes again. She had plenty of time to work out when she would tell him everything. For now, she’d just revel in the moment.
Ten
When Olivia woke again, the sun was streaming into their bedroom windows. The space beside her in the bed was empty, and she could hear the shower running. A smile of deep satisfaction spread across her face as she stretched and relished the sensation of her naked skin against the sheets. Everything was going to be okay; she just knew it.
A perturbing memory flickered on the periphery of her mind. The condom Xander had used last night—she’d completely forgotten about them being in his bedside drawers. After Parker’s birth, Xander had taken control of that side of things. They hadn’t discussed it, but she suspected it was mostly because he didn’t want to be hijacked into parenthood again. She’d had no objections. But how old would those condoms have been? And was the fact he’d reached for one so automatically an indicator that windows on the past were subconsciously opening for him again?
She leaned over the bed, slid open the drawer and squinted a little as she tried to make out the date printed on the box. As she read the numbers her stomach somersaulted. Expired. Well and truly. She quickly put the box back in the drawer and closed it, her nerves jangling. Surely they’d still be safe, but just in case, she’d buy some more and replace the expired box.
Olivia grabbed her robe and shrugged it on. A big breakfast, she thought. Maybe pancakes made from scratch with maple syrup and bacon. She did a mental inventory of the contents of the refrigerator and her pantry as she made her way downstairs. After using the downstairs bathroom to quickly freshen up, she went into the kitchen and began whipping up the pancake batter.
She’d just put bacon on the grill when Xander came into the kitchen. She looked up and drank in the sight of him.
“Well, you look better than you have in a while,” she said with a smile before crossing the kitchen to plant a kiss on his chin.
“I think we both know the reason for that,” he said, playfully tugging on the sash of her robe and sliding his hands inside to cup her breasts.
Instantly her body caught flame. How had she survived without him all this time? she thought as he bent his head and kissed her thoroughly. Her body mourned the loss of his touch when he pulled away and straightened her robe.
“You hungry?” she asked. “I’m making pancakes.”
“I’m always hungry around you,” he said. “Are we eating in here or outside?”
“It’s a beautiful day—why don’t we eat on the patio?”
“I’ll set the table.”
While Olivia ladled batter into the heavy skillet she had on the stove top, Xander gathered up place mats, cutlery and condiments, and took them outside. She was humming with what she knew was a ridiculous smile on her face when the phone rang. After checking quickly on the bacon, she reached for the handset and answered the phone.
“Mrs. Jackson? It’s Peter Clement here.”
Olivia’s joyful mood bubble burst instantly. Her lawyer. The one representing her in the divorce proceedings Xander had brought against her.
“Could you hold the line a moment?” she asked. Muting the phone, she popped her head out the back door. “Xander, could you keep an eye on the bacon for me and finish making the pancakes? I just have a call I need to take.”
“Sure,” he said, moving with his still-careful gait toward the house.
As soon as he was in the kitchen, Olivia went upstairs to their bedroom and sat on the bed.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“No problem,” the lawyer said smoothly. “I’ve had a call from your husband’s lawyers following up on the dissolution order I forwarded to you for your signature the other week. Did you receive it okay?”
“Y-yes, yes, I did. But there’s been a change in circumstances.”
“A change?” the lawyer pressed.
“Xander is back home with me. We...uh...I think it’s safe to say we’re no longer separated.”
There was a long silence at the end of the phone before Olivia heard a faint sigh, followed by, “I see.”
“Can we halt the divorce proceedings?”
“Is this something your husband is agreeable to?”
“Yes, of course.” She crossed her fingers tight and prayed it wasn’t a lie. It couldn’t be. Not now. Not after last night.
“And has he instructed his lawyers in that regard?”
“Um, not yet. You see, he’s been in an accident and unable to communicate with them—up until now, that is,” she amended quickly. “But I’m sure he’ll be in touch soon.”
“This is quite irregular, Mrs. Jackson. Your husband has already signed the forms—”
A sound from behind her made her turn around quickly. Xander stood in the doorway. How long had he been there? How much had he heard? Too much, judging by the look on his face.
“Mr. Clement, I have to go. I’ll call you later and confirm everything.”
Before he could reply, she disconnected the call and dropped the phone onto the tangled sheets of the bed in which they’d made such sweet love last night. Her stomach lurched uncomfortably under Xander’s gaze, and she reached out a hand toward him.
“Xander?”
“You mind telling me what that was about?” His voice was cold, distant and too much like that of the man who had left her two years ago.
“It...it’s complicated.”
She stood up, tugging the edges of her robe closer together—her hands fisting in the silky fabric.
“Then find simple words to explain. I’m sure I’ll grasp them eventually even with my brain injury.”
Sarcasm dripped from his every word, and she was suddenly reminded of the piercing intelligence he’d always exhibited, which she’d ridiculously assumed was impaired with his amnesia.
“Don’t be like that,” she implored. “Please.”
“Then tell me, how should I be? Are you telling me I didn’t overhear you instructing your lawyer to halt divorce proceedings? I’m assuming those would be our divorce proceedings?”
She quivered under the force of his slate-gray glare. “Y-yes,” she admitted reluctantly.
“Divorce proceedings that obviously started before my accident.”
She nodded, her throat squeezing closed on all the words she should have said long before now. She’d been an idiot. She’d had ample opportunity to be honest with him, and she’d held back the truth at every turn. Putting her own needs and desires, her own wish for a second chance, first before everything else. Including the man she loved. A sob rose from deep inside. Had she ruined everything?
Xander pushed a hand through his hair and strode across to the window, looking out at the Auckland harbor and the city’s high-rises. That was his world—the one he had chosen. Not the enclosed space of this house they’d bought and renovated together, not the confines of the land surrounding it. This was supposed to be his sanctuary, not his prison, and she’d made it that by
withholding their separation from him.
“How long had we been apart?” he demanded harshly, not even looking at her.
“Just over two years.”
He abruptly turned around to face her, but she couldn’t make out his features as he stood silhouetted against the window.
“And you brought me back here as if nothing had ever happened.”
“Xander, I love you. I’ve always loved you. Of course I brought you home.”
“But it’s not my home anymore, is it?” he asked, his face tightening into a sharp mask of distrust. “That’s why you didn’t have all my clothes, why I didn’t recognize everything...I can’t believe you thought you could pull something like that off. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking we deserved a second chance at making our marriage work,” she said with a betraying wobble in her voice. “We still love one another, Xander. This past month has proven that to me as much as to you, hasn’t it? Haven’t we been great together? Wasn’t last night—?”
“Don’t,” he said, slicing the air in front of him with the flat of his hand. “Don’t bring last night into this. Do you have any idea how I feel right now?”
She shook her head again, unable to speak.
“I’m lost. I feel about as adrift as I did when I woke up at the hospital and found myself surrounded by people I didn’t know and too weak to move myself without assistance. Except it’s worse somehow because I should have been able to trust you.”
Olivia moaned softly as the pain of his words struck home. He was right. She’d owed him the truth from the start.
“Why were we separated?” he asked, coming to stand in front of her.
Olivia’s legs trembled, and she struggled to form the words in her mind into a sentence.
“We had begun to grow apart. I guess the gloss of our first year of marriage wore off pretty quickly. A lot of that is my fault. I made decisions about us that I should have included you in. Getting the dog was one of them.”
She took in a deep breath, preparing to tell him about Parker, but an icy-cold fist clutched her heart and she couldn’t push the words from inside her. Not yet, anyway. “We both got caught up in our separate lives and forgot how to be a couple. You spent a lot of time at work—initially, before you made partner, you put the time in so you could show them how good you were at your job. After that, you were proving you were worthy of the honor.
“I...I was unreasonable about it. I resented the additional hours you spent there, even though I knew you were doing it for us. We wanted to finish the house off quickly, and it was a juggle for us both. I was still teaching during the day and painting at night. When you were home, you expected me to be with you, but I had my own work to do, as well. We allowed ourselves to be at cross-purposes for too long, and we forgot how to be a couple.”
What she said wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth, either. Their marriage hadn’t been perfect before Parker had been born, but she’d ignored the cracks that had begun to show—plastering them up with her own optimism that as long as she stuck to her plan, everything would be okay.
But it wasn’t okay. Not then and not now. Their marriage hadn’t truly ended until they’d lost Parker—but the problems that had been in place all along were the reason why they hadn’t been able to pull together after the death of their son. They’d gotten too used to going on their separate paths to find their way back to each other even in their time of greatest need.
“You don’t exactly paint me in a very good light,” Xander said. “I don’t like the sound of who I was.”
She stepped closer to him and laid one hand on his arm, taking heart when he didn’t immediately shake her off. “Xander, it went both ways. I wasn’t the easiest person to live with, either. We both had a lot of learning to do. We met, fell in love and got married so fast. Maybe we never really learned to be a couple like we should have. But I still love you. I’ve always loved you. Can you blame me for wanting to give us another chance?”
* * *
Xander looked at her and felt as if she’d become a stranger. She’d withheld something as important as their separation from him. A separation that had been on the brink of becoming permanent, according to the conversation he’d overheard.
And worse than the doubt and suspicion were the questions that now filled his mind. Why had he left her? Was there more to it than the growing apart? Was she keeping something else from him?
One thing she said, though, pushed past his anger and confusion to resonate inside him. She loved him; and he knew he loved her. Maybe that’s why her betrayal in keeping the truth from him made him so angry. Was this the reason behind the disconnect he’d been feeling all this time?
Her fingers tightened on his arm. “Xander? Please, say something.”
“I need to think.”
He pulled away and left the room. Thundered down the stairs and out the front door. He vaguely heard Olivia’s voice crying out behind him, but he daren’t stop. He needed space and he needed time to himself. He powered down the hill, anger giving him a strength, coordination and speed he’d been lacking the past few weeks. His footsteps grew faster, until he broke into a jog. It wasn’t long before a light sweat built up on his body and his lungs and muscles were screaming, reminding him that he was horribly out of condition and that if he kept this up, he’d likely be on bed rest again before he knew it.
He forced himself to slow down, to measure his pace. Automatically he went toward the beach. Seagulls wheeled and screamed on the air currents that swirled above the sandy shoreline, and he looked up, envying them the simplicity of their lives. But how had his own life grown so complicated? At what point had the marriage he’d entered into with Olivia become the broken thing she’d described to him just now?
He shook his head and began to walk along the beach, unheedful of the small waves that rushed up on the sand, drenching his sneaker-clad feet and the bottom of his jeans. The sand sucked at his feet, making walking difficult, but still he pushed on.
Why the hell couldn’t he remember anything? The man she’d described, the driven creature who worked long hours and then expected her attention when he got home—that wasn’t him. That wasn’t who he remembered being, anyway. When and why had things changed so dramatically?
He remembered meeting Olivia at a fundraiser at an inner-city art gallery. He’d been drawn first to her beauty—her long red hair, porcelain-perfect skin and wide sparkling blue eyes had made his physical receptors stand up and take immediate notice. But it had been talking to her that had begun to win his guarded heart. He’d known he wanted her in his life right from that very first conversation, and it had been readily apparent that she felt the same way.
They’d spent that entire first weekend together. When they’d made love it hadn’t felt too soon—it had felt perfect in every way. Six months later they were married and home owners and beginning to renovate the house he’d just fled from. Six years later they were separated and on the point of divorce. What on earth had happened in between?
He stopped walking and raised both hands to his head—squeezing hard on both sides as he tried to force his brain to remember. Nothing. Another wave came and sloshed over his feet, further drenching his jeans. He let his hands drop to his sides. He continued to the end of the beach and dropped down into a park bench on the edge of the strand.
Runners jogged by. Walkers walked. Dogs chased seagulls and sticks. Life went on. His life went on, even if he didn’t remember it. There had to be something. Some way to trigger the things he’d lost, to remember the person he’d been. After ten minutes of staring at the sea a thought occurred to him. If he hadn’t been living here in Devonport, with Olivia, where had he been living? Surely he had another home. A place filled with more recent memories that would trigger something in his uncooperative brain perhaps?
Olivia had to know where it was. The clothes she’d haphazardly shoved into their shared wardrobe had been a mixture of casual wear that he’d worn years ago and new items as foreign to him as pretty much everything else had become since coming home from the hospital. That meant she had to have picked up some things from where he lived. Which meant she could take him there.
He levered himself upright, his legs feeling decidedly overworked and unsteady as he turned and headed back on the paved path at the top of the strand and toward home. Home? No, he couldn’t call it that. Not now. Maybe not ever again. Until he knew exactly why they were apart, exactly what his life had been like, he wondered if he’d ever belong anywhere ever again.
Eleven
Olivia clutched the now-cold mug of coffee she’d poured before sitting at the kitchen table. The breakfast she’d been cooking before the phone call from the lawyer had dried up in the warming oven. Xander had obviously finished cooking it, as she’d asked, and plated up their meals before coming to tell her it was ready. Before overhearing the conversation she’d have done anything to avoid sharing with him today. She’d finally had to throw the breakfast away, but she’d attempted to salvage the coffee. She’d even tried to drink it, but her stomach had protested—tying in knots as she wondered where Xander was.
She’d been frozen here since he’d left the house, alternately staring at the mug and then the clock on the wall as she worried herself sick about him. He’d been gone well over an hour. Unshed tears burned in her eyes. Where was he?
Maybe she should have run after him, wearing nothing but her robe, instead of remaining rooted to the bedroom floor until the front door had slammed closed. But she hadn’t. Instead she’d showered quickly and dressed, then debated getting in the car and driving around looking for him. In the end she’d decided that would be a futile exercise. She simply had to wait for him to come back. If he came back.
A sound at the front door made her shoot up from her chair, unheeding as it tipped over behind her and bounced on the tiled floor.
The Wife He Couldn't Forget Page 9