Page 242

‘That’s understandable.’

‘I had hoped that he might have phoned me, so that we could at least have some kind of preliminary conversation about his disappearance but…’

‘But he didn’t. I expect he thought that a conversation face to face would be a lot better.’

‘At least I’ve had a chance to come to terms with the possibility of him going AWOL on the job he should be taking up next spring. If he doesn’t like any of my alternative suggestions, then we’re going to have a problem.’

‘It might be an idea to brace yourself for all eventualities.’

‘Do you know something I don’t?’

Javier shifted and then looked down at her with narrowed eyes. They hadn’t discussed Carlos for days. They had been far too absorbed in one another.

‘I’m just reminding you that it pays to have an open mind.’

‘Sounds like psychobabble jargon to me.’ He smiled, though, and relaxed, vaguely thinking how amazing it was that she could have that effect on him. ‘At any rate, there’s no reason any doubts he has about working for the company can’t be sorted out. He could be offered a selection of other, viable roles. Frankly, why would he want to take his talent to another company in which he’s not personally invested?’

It was a rhetorical question. He wasn’t surprised when she didn’t respond but instead returned to rest her head on his chest. He breathed in the floral scent of her hair and relaxed even more.

Once this situation was dealt with, he was definitely going to persuade her of the advantages of seeing this thing between them through, until it came to its inevitable, natural conclusion.

Nothing was to be gained by either of them forcing it to end prematurely.

* * *

Resting against his broad chest, Hope decided that this was the best place to be. This way she didn’t have to meet Javier’s piercing gaze. He would find out soon enough that there was a lot she hadn’t told him about his brother. And while she knew that he would surely respect her code of silence, there was still a thread of doubt and fear zipping through her.

If Javier was nervous about seeing his brother, then so was she, although for slightly different reasons.

She’d told Carlos that she had travelled out with Javier to try and find him. She had explained in a brief, hurried text that she thought it might have been helpful to get Javier onside. She’d said nothing about the relationship that had developed between them. As the car ate up the miles to Carlos’s house in North London, she wondered what Carlos would make of that, if and when he found out.

More when than if, were she to be realistic but who knew? Javier had said nothing at all about continuing their fling, so she could only assume that she wasn’t even worth a discussion.

She loved him so much it hurt.

Still, she wanted to snatch as much time with him as possible, even if she knew, in her heart, that doing so would only make the final goodbye so much harder to take.

With all those feelings inside her, she still knew she would walk away from him without begging.

She straightened when the car pulled into the elegant, private honeycomb of roads in which her friend’s house nestled.

The first time she’d seen where Carlos lived, she’d been gobsmacked but since then she had become accustomed to this little corner of wealth with its Georgian townhouses and modern glass villas all neatly tucked behind exquisite wrought iron gates.

Christmas was everywhere.

Snow had been doing its best to fall overnight and there was a light dusting of it over the honey-coloured brick terraces and on top of the neatly clipped hedges that bordered the steep lanes. In this exclusive part of London, far from the chaos of the West End and Central London, it was very quiet. The sort of place that was designed for a season like Christmas.

There were gas lanterns and strings of lights crisscrossing the lamp posts. Every store front was ablaze with festive decorations. At a little after seven p.m., there were still people hurrying along in the lightly falling snow, bundled up and weighed down with bags.

She felt Javier’s tension as the car drew off into one of the quieter crescents close to the sprawling heath.

There were far fewer people pounding the pavements here. The detached houses were set further back from the road with brick walls, trees and hedges protecting them from casual view.

‘Are you doing okay with all this festive spirit on display?’ Hope weakly teased in an effort to break the stretching silence, but when she looked with consternation at his harsh profile, it was to see that her light-hearted remark had fallen on deaf ears. ‘It’ll be fine,’ she said reassuringly.

‘No need for sympathy just yet,’ Javier said coolly, disentangling his fingers from hers. ‘I’ll handle this. Of course it’s going to have a positive outcome. I will open up the discussion, put my various options on the table and a solution will be found. Like I said, there’s no conceivable way I can envisage my brother taking his talents to a competitor.’

‘Life’s sometimes not as simple as we’d like it to be,’ Hope muttered a little uncomfortably.