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It was coming from outside, and growing louder by the second.
Standing, she went to the French doors to the villa she’d rented for the month, the beauty of the space not registering.
It would’ve been easier to return to her Chiswick flat, attempt to make the space she’d never truly lived in a loving home for when her children were born.
Except it’d been far too close to where she’d given four years of her life to Joao. She wasn’t ready yet to share a metropolis with him. She might not be for a long time.
The sound grew louder. Deafening. Opening the doors, she stepped out. ‘What’s going on?’
One of the caretakers turned to her. ‘There’s a helicopter approaching.’
She frowned at the looming speck. Watched it whip up the sand on the beach and then simply...hover. ‘What’s it doing?’
‘Attempting to land, miss.’
Her heart dipped for reasons she couldn’t explain. ‘But...there’s no helipad. Doesn’t he know how dangerous it is?’
The caretaker glanced from her to the aircraft and back again. ‘I don’t think he particularly cares, miss.’
She frowned. Then her heart began to hammer. Only one person would attempt the kind of magnificent recklessness the pilot was exhibiting. Only one person would brazenly come here uninvited like this.
She was sorely tempted to instruct her housekeeper to call the authorities. But if she knew nothing else, she knew Joao wouldn’t give up. His silence in the past weeks had merely been the lull before the storm.
And the storm had arrived.
Her hand slid protectively over her stomach, the quiet astonishment and awe at how rapidly her babies were growing filling her heart before searing anguish emptied it.
‘Miss? Shall we call the police?’
She refocused on the chopper, watched it slowly pivot until the pilot was in clear view.
Hovering fifty feet off the ground, Joao stared at her from behind the controls.
Swallowing thickly, she shook her head. ‘No. Let him land.’
As if he’d heard her, the aircraft descended immediately, sending the tops of the palm trees swaying wildly as the blades whipped the air and the chopper settled on the lawn.
Unable to stay and watch him, let him see how desperately she’d missed him, how the sight of him both thrilled and frightened her, she turned and fled indoors.
* * *
Joao found her in the living room, the sight of her close up, the curve of her stomach beautifully visible, glowing with health even while her eyes flashed hurt and fury at him, stopping his breath for an age.
‘Você é linda, Saffie,’ he whispered reverently before he could stop himself.
‘Brava on your spectacular entrance. But know that I’ve instructed the housekeeper to alert the authorities if you’re not off this island in the next thirty minutes, so don’t waste your time telling me I look beautiful.’
He raked a hand through his hair. ‘I will risk jail if you would hear me out.’
He watched her debate for an eternity before waving him to the seat farthest from her.
‘Saffie...the things I said...the things I did in Sao Paolo...’
‘Deplorable things I will probably never forgive you for.’
He held tightly to the probably.
‘I was a boy who came from nothing and had nothing for more than half my life. I didn’t want children because deep down I didn’t think I would be in any way a fit enough father. And frankly, the thought of giving something so vital of myself terrified me. But...when we found out in Shanghai that you were pregnant, things changed. I wanted them, but admittedly not for altruistic reasons, initially. Even then, Pueblo fuelled my reasoning. Because what better triumph than to show the old man everything he’d done wrong with the bastard son he’d sired, then callously rejected, than to be the better father than he could possibly be and rub his face in yet another failure? Succeed where both he and my mother had both failed so abysmally?’
