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wouldn’t have mentioned the press except they might be waiting for us when we arrive in Spain. I have made arrangements with my security team to provide a decoy but, just in case, do not respond to any of the press’s questions, even if they are blatantly untrue or deliberately provocative. Do you understand?’
    Emelia felt another frown tug at her brow. ‘If they are as intrusive and persistent as you say, I can’t evade the press for ever, though, can I?’ she asked.
    His eyes were determined as they tethered hers. ‘For the time being, Emelia, you will do as I say. I am your husband. Please try to remember that, if nothing else.’
    Emelia felt a tiny worm of anger spiral its way up her spine. She squared her shoulders, sending him a defiant glare. ‘I don’t know what you expected in a wife when you married me, but I am not a doormat and I don’t intend to be one, with or without the possession of my memory.’
    A muscle clenched like a fist in his jaw, and his eyes became so dark she couldn’t make out where his pupils began and ended. ‘Do not pick fights you have no hope of winning, Emelia,’ he said in a clipped tone. ‘You are vulnerable and weak from your injury. I don’t want you to be put under any more pressure than is necessary. I am merely following the doctor’s orders. It would help if you would do so too.’
    She folded her arms tightly beneath her breasts. ‘Do not speak to me as if I am a child. I know I am a little lost at present, but it doesn’t mean I’ve completely lost my mind or my will.’
    Something about his expression told Emelia he was fighting down his temper with an effort. His mouth was flat and white-tipped and his hands resting on his thighs were digging into the fabric of his trousers until his knuckles became white through his tan.
    It seemed a decade until he spoke.
    â€˜I am sorry, cariño ,’ he said in a low, deep tone. ‘Forgive me. I am forgetting what an ordeal you have been through. This is not the time to be arguing like an old married couple.’
    Emelia shifted her lips from side to side for a moment, finally blowing out her cheeks on a sigh. ‘I’m sorry too,’ she said. ‘I guess I’m just not myself right now.’
    â€˜No,’ he said with an attempt at a smile. ‘You are certainly not.’
    She closed her eyes and, even though she had intended to feign sleep, in the end she must have dozed off as when she opened her eyes Javier was bringing his airbed seat upright and suggested she do the same, offering her his assistance as she did so.
    Within a short time they were ushered through customs and into a waiting vehicle with luckily no sign of the press Javier had warned her about.
    The Spanish driver exchanged a few words with Javier which Emelia listened to with a little jolt of surprise. She could speak and understand Spanish? She hadn’t spoken it before coming to London. Had she learned in the last couple of years? Why, if she could remember his language, could she not remember the man who had taught it to her? She listened to the brief exchange and, for some reason she couldn’t quite explain, she didn’t let on that she understood what was being said.
    â€˜Ella se acuerda algo?’ the driver asked. Does she remember anything?
    â€˜No, ninguno,’ Javier responded heavily. Not a thing.
    During the drive to the villa Emelia looked out at the passing scenery, hoping for a trigger for her memory, but it was like looking at a place for the first time. She felt Javier’s gaze resting on her from time to time, as if he too was hoping for a breakthrough. The pressure to remember was all the more burdensome with the undercurrent of tension she could feel running beneath the surface of their tentative relationship. She kept reassuring herself it was as the doctors had said: that Javier would find it difficult to accept