A Christmas Night to Remember(35)
‘Don’t give me that.’ He didn’t shout, but the tone of his voice stopped her mid-sentence. ‘That’s too easy a get-out and you know it. Never once today have you asked me what I want or how I’m feeling. You’ve simply stated you’re walking and that’s that. No discussion, no compromise, no nothing.’
She could see why it appeared that way to him, but how could she explain it was sheer self-survival driving her? She had always felt out of her depth in Zeke’s world, but before the accident she had known she was out of the ordinary in one way—her dancing. She was good, more than good, and it had been the foundation of who she was—for right or wrong. Now that foundation was gone, smashed by a ten-ton truck…
The ball of pain in her stomach that had nothing to do with her accident and all to do with leaving Zeke contracted suddenly, as though a steel fist had been driven deep into her solar plexus. Without picking her words, she whispered, ‘When I was a little girl I was always on the outside looking in. I didn’t get invited to parties or to tea with anyone. No one waited to walk home from school with me or called for me at the weekends to go to the park or play at their house. Of course looking back now I know it was because my grandmother never let me have friends round and she wasn’t friendly with the other mothers, but then I thought it was me. That the other girls didn’t like me—thought me odd because I hadn’t got a mother and father like them. Perhaps they did or didn’t. I don’t know. But then I found that when I danced the rest of the world didn’t matter. I lost myself. I wasn’t me any more. And my grandmother encouraged it, knowing how much it meant to me. She did do that for me.’
‘While effectively screwing you up in every other way.’
Taken aback by the bitterness and outrage in his voice, Melody shook her head quickly. ‘No, no she didn’t. She—she did the best she could—the same as we all do, I suppose. She didn’t have to take me in, she could have let me go into care, but she didn’t. And she had been hurt—badly. I think she loved my grandfather very much, and certainly she never got over him. Her way of dealing with it was to hide her pain behind a façade of being tough. And she had lost her daughter too—my mother. She had a lot to cope with.’
‘You’re making excuses for her. You always do,’ he said softly, the harshness gone from his voice.
‘I’m trying to explain.’ The unexplainable. And opening up like this terrified her. But he deserved this at least.
‘Dee, you’re more than a dancer. You’ve always been more than a dancer.’ He’d come and crouched in front of her as he spoke, his trousers stretched tight over muscled thighs.
The temperature in the room rose about twenty degrees and all coherent thought went out of Melody’s head. She stared at him, knowing he was going to kiss her and wanting it more than she had wanted anything in her life.
The polite knock at the door to the suite followed by a male voice calling, ‘Room Service,’ came as a drenching shock. Zeke reacted before she did, standing up and walking across the room while Melody made a heroic effort to pull herself together.
The man bustled in with a laden serving trolley, quickly and efficiently setting the small table in a corner of the room with cutlery and napkins, lighting the two candles in a silver candelabrum which he’d brought with him and placing it in the centre of the table. ‘Would you like me to serve the food, sir?’ he asked Zeke, after he’d opened the bottle of wine Zeke had obviously ordered and offered him a taste before pouring a little into two large wine glasses.
Zeke glanced across at Melody, who was still sitting on the sofa. ‘No, we’ll be fine. Thank you, and happy Christmas.’
He slipped the man a tip which made the waiter’s, ‘And a very merry Christmas to you, sir, madam,’ positively euphoric as he left, and as Melody joined him at the table Zeke pulled out a chair, unfolding her napkin and placing it in her lap as she sat down. ‘May I serve the first course, madam?’
Lifting the covers off two delicate white-and-silver bowls, he revealed creamy, steaming soup which smelt divine. ‘I didn’t order this.’ Melody glanced into his dark face.
‘I thought we’d do it properly.’ He slid a fresh crusty roll onto a small plate next to her soup and then took his own place at the table. ‘Eat,’ he ordered softly.
The soup was as delicious as it smelt, and the salmon which followed equally good. Zeke talked of inconsequential matters with a comfortable ease which relaxed Melody in spite of herself, teasing her a little and making her laugh, his humour gentle and self-deprecating. Lulled into a mellow state of mind by Zeke’s lazy air, the light yet satisfying food and the wine she sipped almost unconsciously, Melody found herself drifting in a haze of well-being. She felt calm and peaceful inside, she realised with a little shock of self-awareness. For the first time in months. It was such an alien sensation.