A Christmas Night to Remember

by Helen Brooks

  Zeke lifted his hands. The waiter appeared at his side and within moments they were leaving the restaurant. She had known she was going to find it difficult to stand up and walk—her muscles still weren’t functioning as they once had, and she got stiff easily although her physiotherapist had assured her that was just a temporary thing—but in the event Zeke’s firm hands at her elbows and the way he took charge smoothed the way. Nevertheless, she was painfully aware of her pronounced limp as they left, and wondered what he was thinking. He had always said she had the grace of a young gazelle—well, no more, Melody thought wretchedly.

  Once in the foyer of the hotel, she stopped and faced him so he was forced to let go of her arm. He was wearing an expensive dark grey suit and a pale peach shirt and tie and he had never looked more attractive. The dark magnetism that was at the centre of his appeal was so strong she could taste it. Numbly, and with formal politeness, Melody said, ‘Thank you for lunch. It was very nice. And although it may not have seemed like it I appreciate your kindness in meeting me from hospital today—although it wasn’t necessary. I hope you have a good journey back to Reading.’

  Zeke’s jaw was a tight line, but his voice was easy when he said, ‘You need to rest. I’ll get the key to the room.’

  ‘I can do that—’ She stopped. She was talking to herself. He was already striding to the reception desk.

  Too tired to summon up the annoyance she felt his high-handedness deserved, she watched him exchange a few words with the pretty receptionist before pocketing the fob for the room. Then he was back at her side, taking her arm as he said, ‘I’ve ordered tea and cake from Room Service for four o’clock. That’ll give you two or three hours’ sleep, okay?’ Not okay. So not okay. What was he doing, taking charge like this after everything she’d said? ‘Zeke—’ she began.

  ‘Don’t cause a scene, Dee. Not with all these nice people round about. You don’t want to spoil someone’s Christmas, do you?’ The mockery was mild, but with a hidden barb in it.

  Short of wrenching herself free, which she had no confidence she could accomplish, anyway, Melody found she had no option but to walk with him to the lift. She didn’t want Zeke accompanying her to the room. The foyer had been a fairly neutral place to make their goodbyes, with plenty of people around; her room was an altogether different proposition.

  As it turned out it wasn’t a problem, because once the lift had deposited them at the requisite floor and Zeke had walked a few yards down the corridor and opened a door Melody found he had no intention of leaving straightaway.

  He stood aside for her to precede him, but she stopped dead on the threshold of what was clearly a suite of rooms. ‘This isn’t my room. I didn’t book this,’ she gasped. ‘I asked for a standard double.’ And that had cost an arm and a leg.

  ‘You’ve clearly been upgraded,’ he said silkily, drawing her into the large, luxuriously furnished sitting room, complete with real Christmas tree dressed in festive red and gold decorations, before her wits could return.

  When they did, she swung to face him accusingly. ‘This is your doing.’ She glanced round wildly, as though the manager of the hotel was going to pop up like a genie out of a bottle. ‘I want my own room. I want the one I booked originally.’

  ‘I understand from the receptionist that was snapped up minutes after I transferred to this when we arrived,’ Zeke said with unforgivable satisfaction. ‘Look on it as your Christmas good deed. Those folk probably wouldn’t have been able to afford this penthouse, which was the only other available accommodation when I asked, so us having it has meant a happy Christmas for someone else. It is the season of goodwill.’

  Melody said something very rude in response, which shocked them both. And then the full significance of his words hit her. ‘What do you mean, “us”?’ she bit out furiously. ‘This is my room and I’m staying in it alone—and I’ll pay for it.’ Somehow.

  ‘Payment in full has already been made,’ Zeke replied, seemingly unmoved by her anger.

  ‘Well, it can be darn well unmade.’

  ‘And cause the hotel staff a lot of extra paperwork and hassle?’ Zeke clicked his tongue aggravatingly. ‘You seem a little short of the milk of human kindness, if you don’t mind me saying so. Hasn’t the spirit of the festive season touched you?’

  She had never come so close to hitting someone before, which shocked her further because she had never considered herself a violent person. Gritting her teeth, she took an audible deep breath. ‘I want you to leave, Zeke. Right now.’

  She had expected him to argue, so it took the wind out of her sails when instead he said mildly, ‘Once you’re safely in bed. And don’t worry that I’m going to leap on you and have my wicked way. I can see you’re dead on your feet, sweetheart.’

  It was the way he said the last word which drained her of all resistance. Horrified that she was going to burst into tears, she said tersely, ‘I’m going to the bathroom,’ and walked as purposefully as she could manage across the room.

  The suite consisted of a further three rooms—one a small study, complete with every device needed to keep in touch round the world for a visiting businessman or woman, and two bedrooms, both with en-suite bathrooms and decorated in the same creams and hazy greys and golds as the sitting room.

  Walking into the cream marble en-suite of the second bedroom, Melody shut the door and stood for a moment with her eyes tightly closed. It was a sheer effort of will to open them and walk over to the long mirror. She groaned softly as she peered at her reflection. Her summer tan had long since faded after the months in hospital, but she had been careful to keep up with her cleansing and moisturising routine in spite of everything. Today, though, her skin looked pasty and almost grey with the exhaustion that was racking her body, and her green eyes looked enormous in her thin face. Not a pretty sight; no wonder Zeke had wanted to cut the meal short—she looked like death warmed up.

  She had seen her case on the luggage rack in the bedroom as she’d marched through, but rather than go into the bedroom she stripped down to her bra and panties before pulling on the big fluffy white bathrobe which was one of two hanging on the back of the bathroom door. It drowned her, but that was all to the good, she decided, pulling the belt tightly round her slim waist. It concealed everything she needed to conceal from those piercing ebony eyes and that was all that mattered.

  He was waiting for her when she padded barefoot into the sitting room, and as she said brightly, ‘All ready for bed, as you can see, so you can go now,’ his gaze swept over her from head to foot. She found she was doubly glad of the voluminous robe as her traitorous body responded, the rosy peaks of her breasts hardening.

  Gruffly, Zeke said, ‘You look tinier than ever in that thing. Was the hospital food really that bad?’

  She shook her head. ‘It was me. I didn’t have much of an appetite, I suppose. I’ll soon put the weight on again now.’

  ‘Tiny, but beautiful.’ His voice was husky now, his face telling her what his words didn’t. ‘Enchantingly so, in fact.’

  It was this she answered when she murmured, ‘Please go, Zeke. I can’t…’ She swallowed hard. ‘Please leave.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ He took her hands in his, pulling her against the broad wall of his chest and nuzzling the top of her head with his chin. ‘You need to rest. You’ve done too much for your first day out.’

  In spite of herself Melody smiled. ‘You make it sound as thought I’ve just been released from prison,’ she whispered, her voice muffled against his shirt. Which was how she felt, actually. And then she pulled away, the smell and feel of him too wonderfully familiar. She wanted to wrap her arms round his neck, to feel his lips on hers, to beg him to forget everything she’d said and hold her tight. ‘Please go,’ she said again, her voice trembling.

  He lifted his hand and stroked a strand of silky hair from her cheek. She thought he was going to kiss her, and when he merely brushed her brow with his lips knew a moment’s agonising disappointmen
t.

  ‘Sweet dreams,’ he said very softly. ‘Don’t forget the tea and cake around four.’

  She nodded, not really believing he would go like this, that he would leave her. She watched him cross the room and open the door into the corridor outside, all the time expecting that any moment he would swing round and come back to her. But he didn’t.

  The door closed. She was alone. Which was exactly what she had demanded.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MELODY stood staring across the room for some moments, fighting the urge to run after Zeke and say…

  Say what? she asked herself wearily. That she had changed her mind? But she hadn’t. Not about leaving him. All her reasons held good for that, and had perhaps deepened in the past hours since she had seen him again. She loved him too much, and his power over her had always scared her a little deep inside the private place in her mind where uncomfortable truths were buried. She had to get far away from him. That was the only way.

  She swayed a little, so tired she could barely remain upright, and then made her way into the bedroom where her case had been left earlier. Shrugging off the robe, she climbed into bed, wanting to think about her and Zeke, to reaffirm to herself the rationale that vindicated her decision, but so exhausted her brain simply wouldn’t compute. She couldn’t think. Not now.

  The swirling snow outside the bedroom window had bathed the room in soft evening shadow, despite it being only a little past one o’clock, and the bed was supremely comfortable after the hard institutional one she had endured for the past three months. Within seconds her breathing was even and deep and she slept a dreamless sleep.

  She was completely unaware of the big broad figure that entered the room a few minutes later, standing just inside the doorway until he had satisfied himself her sleep was genuine, at which point he walked softly over to the bed. Zeke stared down at his sleeping wife for several long minutes, his gaze caressing the fragility of her fine features as she slept, and the breakable quality of the shape under the coverlet.

  When he noiselessly closed the drapes against the worsening storm outside the cosy cocoon of the hotel his cheeks were damp.

  Melody wasn’t sure exactly what had dragged her out of the depths of a slumber so heavy her limbs were weighed down with it. She lay in a deep, warm vacuum, a charcoal twilight bathing the room in indistinct shapes as she forced her eyes open. She felt blissfully, wonderfully relaxed.

  For a moment she had no idea where she was, and then the past few hours came rushing back at the same time as voices somewhere beyond the bedroom registered. Male voices.

  She couldn’t remember closing the curtains. She stared towards the window, her brain still fuzzy, but then as familiar deep tones registered she sat up in bed, shaking her hair out of her eyes. That was Zeke’s voice. She glanced at her wristwatch but it was too dark to make out the time.

  Her heart thudding fit to burst, she threw back the coverlet and reached for her robe on the chair at the side of the bed, pulling it on with feverish haste. After switching on the bedside lamp she again checked her watch. Four o’clock. Tea and cake. Room Service. But that still didn’t explain what Zeke was doing here—unless she had imagined it, of course.

  Zeke was very real when she opened the door to the sitting room. Too real. Melody’s senses went into hyperdrive as she registered the very male body clad only in black silk pyjama bottoms. Not that Zeke had ever worn pyjamas to her knowledge.

  It was clear he’d just had a shower before answering the door. His thickly muscled torso gleamed like oiled silk where he hadn’t dried himself before pulling on the pyjama bottoms, and the black hair on his chest glistened with drops of water. He was magnificent. Melody had forgotten just how magnificent, but now she was reminded—in full, glorious Technicolor.

  She swallowed hard, telling herself to say something. Anything. But her thought process was shattered.

  ‘Hi.’ His smile was ridiculously normal in the circumstances. ‘Did the knock at the door wake you? It’s our tea and cake.’

  She tried, she really tried to rise to the occasion, as one of the sophisticated beauties he’d dated before he’d met her would have done, but she knew she’d failed miserably when her voice held the shrillness of a police car siren. ‘What are you doing here?’ she yelled. ‘You’re supposed to have left.’

  His expression changed to one of wounded innocence, which was all the more unbelievable in view of his attire—or lack of it. Before he could voice the reasonable and utterly false explanation she just knew was hovering on his lips, she continued, ‘And why is the tea and cake for two, considering you ordered it hours ago?’

  ‘Ah…’ He smiled, a smile of singularly sweet ingenuousness. ‘I can explain.’

  ‘Please do,’ she said with biting sarcasm.

  ‘I never intended for you to be alone on Christmas Eve, so I thought I’d stick around for a while, that’s all.’

  He raked back his hair, which had fallen quiff-like across his brow, and she was reminded how much it suited him that bit longer than he normally wore it before she hastily pushed the thought aside. ‘I didn’t invite you to stay,’ she glinted angrily. ‘And why are you dressed—’ perhaps undressed would have been a more appropriate description ‘—like this?’

  He glanced down at the pyjama bottoms, as though he was surprised at the obviousness of the question, and then met her furious gaze with a serenity that sent Melody’s stress level up a few more notches. ‘I was having a shower when Room Service came with the tea and cake,’ he said patiently.

  Melody hung on to her patience by a thread. ‘Why were you taking a shower in my hotel room?’ she said tersely. ‘And how come your pyjamas are here?’

  ‘I was taking a shower in my room—you notice this suite has two bedrooms?’ His tone was such he could have been talking to a total dimwit. ‘And I went out and bought the pyjamas and a couple of other bits while you were asleep. I assumed you’d prefer me to wear something to answer the door in the sort of situation that just occurred,’ he added, his tone so reasonable she wanted to hit him.

  Glaring at him, she wondered how she had lost control of things. It had all been so straightforward earlier that morning. Leave the hospital. Book into the hotel. Go to bed and hibernate Christmas away. And now look at what a ridiculous position she was in—her estranged husband sharing a hotel suite with her and standing practically naked a few feet away.

  And looking hot. The little voice in the back of her mind was ruthlessly honest. In fact he was fairly smoking. Zeke had always been very much at ease with his body, and it enhanced his flagrant masculinity tenfold. Wretched man.

  Pulling herself together, Melody hardened her heart as well as her expression. ‘You said you were leaving earlier,’ she said stonily. ‘And I expected you to do just that.’

  He gave her a crooked smile as he sat down on one of the sofas in front of the glass coffee table where their tea and cake were waiting. ‘No,’ he corrected softly. ‘I never did. I know that because wild horses couldn’t have dragged me away. I would have preferred us to go home and discuss what needs to be discussed there, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen. So—’ he shrugged broad muscled shoulders and Melody’s mouth went dry ‘—I adapted to the circumstances as I saw fit.’

  ‘Hence changing the room to a suite?’ she said stiffly.

  ‘Quite. We may as well be comfortable for as long as this charade continues.’ He grinned happily. ‘These cakes look fantastic. I’ve always been a sucker for chocolate cupcakes and fondant fancies—and that’s a lemon drizzle cake, if I’m not mistaken. We missed dessert, so come and tuck in.’ He was pouring two cups of tea as he spoke.

  Melody hesitated for a moment. She wasn’t going to give in, and there was no way Zeke was sharing this suite tonight, but the assortment of cakes did look tempting, and surprisingly—for the second time that day—she found she was actually quite hungry. She would have preferred Zeke to be fully dressed, but as he seemed more inte
rested in the food than in her…

  She sat down on the opposite sofa, accepting the cup of tea he handed her with a nod of thanks and selecting one of the little pink-and-white Genoese sponge fondant fancies hand-decorated with sugar daisies. It melted in her mouth, and when Zeke offered her the cakestand again she took a piece of lemon drizzle cake, filled with rich buttercream and lemon curd, refusing to acknowledge how cosy this was.

  Outside the snow was coming down thicker than ever, and as she glanced at the window Melody’s stomach did a pancake flip. It was too late to send Zeke away. He’d never make it to Reading now, she acknowledged silently. Okay, so maybe he would have to stay after all, but strictly on her terms—and that included his and hers bedrooms first and foremost.

  She glanced at him from under her eyelashes. He was sitting eating with every appearance of relaxed enjoyment, and after she had declined more cake had made short work of what was left on the cake stand. The man was impossible—utterly impossible.

  He glanced up and caught her looking at him, and as always when he smiled at her in a certain way her blood fizzed. ‘Remember when you made that clementine, saffron and polenta cake in Madeira?’ he murmured softly. ‘I haven’t tasted anything so good as that before or since. You promised you’d make it again back in England, but you never did.’

  The memory of that day at the villa in Madeira swept over her. It had been their last holiday before her accident and they’d had a magical time: horse-riding along the beach, scuba-diving, sunbathing in the shade of the trees around their private pool and spending each soft, scented night wrapped in each other’s arms. They had bought the small juicy clementines at the little local market close to the villa, and she had followed a recipe which Aida—Zeke’s daily from the village—had written down for her. Melody was the first to admit she wasn’t much of a cook—Zeke was actually much better than her, and had a natural flair with food that made most dishes he served up truly sensational—but the cake had turned out surprisingly well and Zeke had been lavish with his praise.