Page 125 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

‘I’ve already explained what happened to the triage nurse, the doctor, the registrar...’ She scowled. ‘I suppose one more time can’t hurt,’ she said, and raised her knees.

His eyes followed the movement. And this time he really looked at the state his wife was in. Her tights were ripped, split like ladders on her knees. The rungs spread wider as her legs rose to her chest. And there was blood.

His heart thumped harder in his chest. He’d never seen her injured. Not even as much as a paper cut. And yet her knees were scraped raw. Her face... Her head...

‘Iwas carrying too much.’ She looked at the phone in her hand. ‘I went to try and check the time on this.’ She threw it on the bed. ‘I lost my footing and went down with potatoes.’

‘You went downlikea sack of potatoes,’ he corrected.

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Withthem. The taxi driver wouldn’t help me carry the shopping up the stairs. I didn’t want to leave the bags for an opportunist thief. I’m on the second floor of a maisonette so it takes time to get up the stairs. And now that’s a week’s worth of shopping ruined.’ She grimaced. ‘Such a waste. And it’s horrible waking up to an empty fridge, which I shall be now.’ She picked up the phone from her side and held it out to him. ‘In fact, maybe you would be able to call my mum?’

‘Yourmum?’ Shock pumped through him.

She looked at him quizzically. ‘She doesn’t work far from here. Just outside the city centre. She cleans for an agency.’

He hadn’t known that. Emma had never told him anything about her life before they met. No details at least.

‘She did?’ he asked.

‘Does.’ Her frown deepened. ‘Tonight’s the library. After she’s finished cleaning, she reads. Romance. She has the entire library to herself. She forgets herself. Loses herself in the stories, loses hours. But...’

Emma inhaled deeply, and he watched her chest rise in amazement. He’d truly believed that she’d planned this all out to convince him she was helpless, that she needed him because there was no one else.

But would she really use her mother’s death?

What if she is helpless?

The doubts were more insistent now.

‘But what?’ he pushed.

‘The nurse said she couldn’t reach her...she’d call my next of kin on the list. But there is no one else. Just me and Mum.’ She looked up at the ceiling. Squinting. She returned her gaze to his. ‘If you couldtryto call her...’ She swallowed, and he watched her throat tighten as if invisible fingers had applied pressure to the delicate tendons and were squeezing.‘Please.’

And he felt it. The crack in his chest.

She really didn’t remember her mum’s death.

She was telling the truth.

He couldn’t let himself consider exactly what that meant right now or why the pressure in his chest kept building.

And so he would tell the truth too.

‘I can’t call her.’

‘Why not?’

‘She’s gone, Emma.’

‘Gone where?’

‘To...’ Dante struggled for a word that was not too direct, but not too soft. ‘Heaven,’ he said, although he believed in no such thing. There was one life. One chance to live it. The end was the end.

Emma’s mother was dead.Emmawasall alone.

‘What do you mean?’ Her face contorted.

‘She died over three months ago,’ he told her, stating the facts as they were. ‘A heart attack.’

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