“I can’t believe it,” Adina expelled an angry sigh. “What of the man who did this?”
“A stall holder.” He grunted. “He claims it was an accident. He was about to beat a small child – a five year old orphan who had shoplifted some fruit from his stall – and Julia stepped right into the middle of it. He was already delivering the blow.”
“Pig of a man,” Adina said angrily.
“Adina, I don’t know why Julia asked me to contact you, but I think it has something to do with the girl. Maysan is her name. Why would Julia think you would care?”
Adina arched her brows in an expressive manner. “Apart from the fact I am a decent, compassionate human being?”
Zayn winced. “Obviously.”
“I can’t be certain, but if I had to guess, I would say she is thinking of us adopting the child.” Adina lifted her gaze to stare at her brother in law. “I told her of Amal and my difficulties, and our desire to adopt a child when the time is right. I daresay she thinks she’s found a perfect candidate.” Her smile was tinged with sadness. “The timing is not right, though. It could never be. Not now.”
Zayn agreed whole heartedly. But something about the way his wife’s pleading eyes had sought his help prompted him to say, “I understand. Would you sit with her though, Adina, until I’m finished here? I don’t know what I’ll do with her. I don’t think Julia is going to be happy if I send her to an orphanage.”
Adina’s pallor visibly changed at his statement, but she tried her best not to otherwise react. “Of course I’ll sit with her while you’re occupied with Julia. Where is she?”
Zayn led her to the staff section that had been set aside for his private use whilst Julia was in the hospital. It didn’t take an expert to see that Adina’s heart was softening to the young girl with every word they exchanged. Adina was right; the timing was all wrong. And yet, sometimes things happened that were against the plan, and they ended up being for the best.
When he walked back into Julia’s room, he saw, with a rush of relief, that his wife was awake. Quietly, he observed her from beneath shuttered lashes. She was toying with the large engagement ring he’d given her, wrapping it around her finger and staring at it broodingly.
Zayn cleared his throat and her eyes flew wide, straight to him. And like a tiny little firework exploding in her brain, realization and memory flooded her face. “Zayn,” she exclaimed, pushing her feet over the side of the bed and easing herself to standing. Even in the standard issue hospital gown, she was stunning, he thought with a small flicker of appreciation. “I hoped it wasn’t just a dream.” She crossed the room on legs that weren’t at all steady, so that when she reached him, she had to lean gently against him for support.
“That what wasn’t a dream, habibte?” He asked cautiously. After all, the state of her memory was yet to be determined.
“Our marriage. I remember the wedding so clearly, but everything else is a blur, so I started to wonder if perhaps I’d got the wedding wrong, too.” Her face erupted into a huge smile. “I’m so glad it’s true.”
“You are?”
“Of course!” She thumped him playfully on the chest and then wrapped her arms around his waist. “You’re the only man I’ve ever loved. I woke up in this hospital bed and thought for a terrifying moment I might find myself married to someone else!”
His heart actually seemed to skip several beats as he stared down at Julia; this Julia was the one he had first fallen in love with. Exuberant, playful, artless. Zayn was pretty sure it wasn’t the most moralistic decision he’d ever made, but in that moment, the fantasy of pretending their marriage was real, in the sense of being two people who loved one another openly and honestly, was too seductive to resist.
He lifted a hand a cupped her cheek gently. “How do you feel?”
She bit down on her lip. “I have a terrible head ache. As though someone’s let off a grenade behind my eye. And my body feels all weak and wobbly. But strangely enough, right now, most of what I feel is pleasurable.”
His eyes flared as her meaning became clear. “I would be the worst kind of husband if I seduced you here, in hospital, after you’d sustained a brain injury.”
“Or the best,” she teased, slipping her hands beneath his shirt and running them over his chest. He inhaled unevenly as her nails connected with the hair surrounding his nipples.
He growled low in his throat. “I promise to ravage you at the first opportunity that is not in this public space,” he whispered into her ear. The sensation of his breath fanning the sensitive skin on her neck made Julia’s arms break out in goose bumps.
“I’ll hold you to that.” She smiled up at him again, in that beautiful, sparkling way of hers, and Zayn knew he would never be able to tell her the truth. A small part of him almost hoped she wouldn’t remember that their marriage had only come about because he’d forced her into it.
The hospital was cautious, and they insisted on keeping Julia in overnight for observation. “Go home, my love,” she’d ordered Zayn when the doctor had come to discuss her treatment plan. “Go and get a good night’s sleep. You’re going to have to wait on me hand and foot for the next week or so, and I intend on being very, exceptionally demanding,” she promised with a simpering pout.
After he’d left, Julia had pushed her head back into the pillow and tried desperately to grab at the floating strands of memory that were moving just beyond her vision. She knew there were gaping holes in her life, particula
rly her marriage to Zayn. He’d explained that they’d only been married a little over a week, and the doctor had added that the most recent memories were always most at risk in accidents like hers. But she had loved Zayn for a long time. How come she couldn’t remember anything of their reunion?
When she’d found out about the other women in his life, she’d been spitting chips mad. That she remembered. The fury was so real she felt it as though it was far fresher. And yet, at some point in the intervening years, he’d obviously come back into her life and made amends. So why couldn’t she pinpoint that?
It was like a strange murky soup. She remembered her university degree, and everything about her course. She was confident she could sit down and write a three thousand word essay on Torts without difficulty, but everything else was muddy.
Georgie would help her remember. She scrambled to reach a pen from the bedside table and wrote on the back of her hand, ‘Email Georgie’, so that she’d remember to do so the following morning. At this point, she wasn’t going to leave anything up to her natural abilities to recall detail.
* * *