Chapter 26
“Emma, I want to hear you say it, da. Promise you’ll stay?” Rohan’s voice was hushed in the darkness and Emma held her breath. And there it was. The problem. Alanya, Christopher, Felicity and Nicky; they pushed into her brain bringing confusion and misery.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Emma rolled away from Rohan’s warm body, feeling the cold air rush in to occupy the space between them. She lay with her back towards him, cursing the weakness that allowed him dominion over her. Undeterred, Rohan slid over behind her, spooning her with his body.
“You’re still gorgeous,” he whispered, placing gentle kisses on her bare neck and shoulders.
“Stop it!” Emma shrugged him off and heard Rohan’s familiar low chuckle. He ignored her, snuggling in tighter and wrapping his arms firmly around her resistant body. She grunted as she shoved his questing hand away, scratching him deliberately. Rohan hissed with pain but increased the pressure, pinioning her against him.
Something cool and angular touched the back of her knee and Emma reached down to investigate. Rohan batted her hand away. “Leave.”
“What is it?” Emma reached her fingers out again and Rohan seized them, drawing them into her chest and clasping them there between her breasts, his hand fixed firmly over the top. He nuzzled into the back of her hair, making her shiver.
“Just the brace for my knee,” he said.
“Is that what you meant when you said you were injured? How did you hurt it?” Emma’s voice sounded small in the darkness.
“War.” Just the single word was enough to condemn her absence.
“When did it happen?”
Rohan’s reply left her cold with his naming of the day. Because as Emma cried out, labouring Nicky into the world in a hospital continents away, Rohan rolled around in agony on a battle field. “How bad is it?” Emma whispered and he brushed the question away with a sensuous kiss underneath her hair. She groaned and arched her back, despite herself.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I love having you here,” Rohan whispered against the back of Emma’s head. His breath felt warm and mussed her hair. “I bought this house for you. Anton said you’d like it.”
Emma bit her lip, closing her eyes against the guilt burning in her breast. She felt taunted by the memory of Christopher, just a few hours before, working his way into her mind and her tender mouth with his tantalising kisses. “I do like it, but Ro?” She struggled to turn in his arms, wriggling to face him, their bodies becoming tangled. Rohan squeezed her and took the opportunity to kiss her upturned lips. “No, I need to talk to you,” she protested, desperate to confess her stupidity with Christopher.
“It’s fine. If you’re gonna tell me you’re leaving, I don’t want to hear it.” Rohan silenced Emma with another powerful kiss and she temporarily lost the fragile thread of conversation. His deft fingers roved down Emma’s back and strayed to the top of her buttocks as an odd sound broke into the room. Rohan swore. “Sorry, devotchka. It’s probably work. I have to take this.” He moved backwards with a heave and pushed himself out of the bed, letting the sheets flutter down in his wake and causing a draught. Emma sighed and pulled the covers around her nakedness, watching Rohan’s tall figure in the dim yellow streetlight.
He bent and grappled in his trouser pocket, retrieving his mobile phone. Its screen lit up like a Christmas tree, colourful and garish. “Andreyev.” Rohan’s answer was clipped and abrupt. Emma watched the outline of his shoulders sag. “Oh, hi Felicity. Why are you ringing this number?”
Emma gasped as guilt washed over her at her hastily forgotten tormentor and she buried her face in the covers. What have I done? Rohan cast around for his clothes, pulling the bedroom door open and flooding the room with light from the hallway.
Awkwardness descended like a mantle, shrouding the couple in misery. The usually clipped and capable man looked lost, stepping into the hallway and then halting, boxer shorts and trousers dangling from his hand. He shot a look of desperation towards Emma as she peeked over the sheets. Rohan stared at Nicky’s door, obviously not wanting to risk being found naked coming out of Emma’s bedroom. He waited another heartbeat and turned once more, his blue eyes filled with confusion. “Sorry, I’ll just get rid of her,” he mouthed.
Emma allowed herself one last, covetous look, taking in Rohan’s strong muscular back and shoulders, his swollen biceps and trim waist. Her eyes roved over his neat buttocks and down the back of strong honey coloured thighs covered in downy blonde hair to the sinews of his knees. She gaped.
Rohan’s right leg was missing from the knee down, replaced with a skin coloured cuff and a metal prosthetic leg. Scar tissue covered the leg above, ridging the skin in ugly red wheals. Emma stuffed the sheet into her mouth to dull her reaction of horror as Rohan bent to retrieve his fallen boxer shorts before bolting into his own room and pushing the door behind him.
Rolling onto her back, her hands over her mouth, Emma fought a wave of sickness. I didn’t even know! Why did nobody tell me? The evidence showed it was more than just an injury; he could have died. “You didn’t tell me about this, Anton bloody Andreyev. Would you have even told me if he died?” Emma hissed into the darkness.
Bile and guilt mixed into a foul tasting concoction that threatened to exit without warning and Emma sat up and hugged her knees. The peace and satiation of good sex dissipated as she coped with the double blow. She had trespassed into Rohan’s relationship with Felicity, finding once she got there that she knew nothing of her former lover’s life since their acrimonious parting. She imagined Rohan in agony, perhaps calling her name and begging someone to fetch her. Was she even listed anywhere as his wife? Tears soaked the bedding at her failure as a wife and a human being and Emma berated herself internally. The heavy feeling between her legs reminded her she was also a failure as a woman. Felicity mistrusted her and clearly with just cause.
Emma heard the steady rumble of Rohan’s deep baritone next door as he talked on the phone to his unsuspecting girlfriend. She could hear him keep saying he had to go. Emma slipped from the bed and felt her way to the bedroom door, feeling the fabric of Rohan’s shirt under her toes. Picking it up from its careless abandonment on the carpet, Emma lifted it to her nose and sniffed Rohan’s familiar scent, feeling her stomach churn with a myriad of emotions. She dropped it as though it was contaminated and used the ensuite bathroom to wash her swollen face and clean herself up. Then she dressed in her pyjamas and crept out into the lighted hall.
Rohan’s lilting voice sounded sexy on the phone as Emma crept past, shielded from view by his partially closed door. She slipped into the room next to his, closing the door behind her and dragging Nicky’s suitcase quietly across the floor to block the door. “Move up, baby,” she whispered as she pushed into the double bed next to him. Her small son grunted and turned his back on her, rolling away towards the other side of the bed. Emma climbed into the warmed space he vacated, swaddled in his little boy scent of shampoo and washing powder. His soft bare feet were cold as he pushed his tiny soles against Emma’s thighs, a habit from babyhood. She sighed with relief and clasped them in hands grateful to be busy. “I love you little boy,” she sniffed, wiping her tears on the pillow under her. “I’ve screwed up everything, but I’ll try my best not to screw up being your mum.”
Nicky stirred and turned over, his breath smelling of toothpaste and hot chocolate. “Mummy.” His voice sounded loud in the silence. “Mummy, cuddle me.” He pulled himself into Emma’s chest, wrapping his delicate arms around her neck in a throttle hold. “Love you, Mummy,” he sighed. Emma kissed his warm forehead and rested her cheek on the top of his fluffy head. She closed her eyes as peace descended over her soul. Her son was all that mattered; nothing else.
Emma heard Rohan disconnect his call from Felicity and move around his room. He went out into the hallway and knocked quietly on her open door, calling her name on discovery of the empty bed. She stiffened as his footsteps stopped outside the chil
d’s door and held her breath, listening. She exhaled as Rohan moved away, his gait slightly uneven in his tiredness. At least now, she knew why he listed slightly as he walked.
Emma slept cradling Nicky’s skinny body and woke up numerous times in the night. The surety of her child’s steady breathing was soporific, until Emma remembered the feel of Rohan’s hands on her body and the sounds of their shared ecstasy. The dull ache between her legs provided a constant reminder, infusing her with an unsettling anxiety which made her toss and turn.
By the time the insipid daylight broke through the curtains at dawn, Emma was decided. She needed to go home. Today.