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‘My mother.’
She stared wide-eyed at him for several heartbeats before her gaze swung to the brownstone. ‘Is she here?’
‘No. She died five years ago.’
Her green eyes clouded as they returned to him. ‘Mi dispiace. Le mie condoglianze.’ Realising she’d spoken her condolences on his loss in her native tongue, she quickly amended. ‘I meant—’
‘Va bene, dolce principessa, I know what you meant. Grazie.’
‘Why do you call me that? I’m not a princess.’
‘Are you not?’
Her mouth pursed. ‘Please don’t spoil the moment, Javier.’
He wanted to point out that they weren’t having a moment. That he’d chosen this place because it’d been the better alternative to her being spotted in a public park.
The words remained locked in his throat.
Instead he watched her stroll from flower to tree, bench to climbing plant, her shoulders visibly relaxing as she watched a butterfly flit from one petal to the other. He followed
her down the stairs to the lower level of the garden, then leaned against an old oak tree as she continued her gentle inspection. She finally sat down at a bench and turned her almost regal face up to the sun. The rays caressed her features, bathing her skin in adoring light. A sight he couldn’t pull his gaze from.
‘Thank you for bringing me here.’
She didn’t see his shrug because her eyes had drifted shut, the delicate lids fluttering. He knew because he was suddenly seated next to her, having had no recollection of moving from the tree.
Sí, he was really losing it.
‘De nada,’ he murmured, absurdly reluctant to spoil the moment with talk.
Seconds ticked by. His restlessness and bitter frustration abated a touch.
When she smiled, he found his own lips curving in response.
‘Your mother must have loved it here. Complete peace in the middle of such a full-on, vibrant city is a rare gift.’
His smile evaporated. ‘She...tolerated it. Anywhere that wasn’t her home wasn’t ever good enough.’
She opened her eyes and glanced at him. Wisps of silkily caramel hair caressed her cheek, and he fought the drive to add his touch to her skin. ‘It wasn’t enough that you were here?’ she enquired.
Having asked himself the same question a few disturbingly low times, he should’ve been prepared for the muffled ache in his chest that had never quite gone away. But hearing the query from her lips sharpened the sting of knowing that he hadn’t quite been enough. Nothing and no one had come close to the draw of his mother’s dilapidated Northern Spanish home.
He shrugged the pain away, more than a little bewildered at how the conversation had ended up here. How they had ended up here. ‘She cared for me, in her own way.’
Keen eyes probed. ‘But?’
‘Anywhere that wasn’t Menor Compostela wouldn’t have done for her.’ Because of one man. And his dangerous influence. An influence that meant his mother hadn’t been able to rest in peace even in death.
‘Is that where your father is? Menor Compostela?’
‘You don’t already know this from your little jaunt through my private life?’
Her face clouded. ‘I told you, I wasn’t the one who dug through your life. My father’s my manager. He heard the rumours about our...night together, and probably thought it would be prudent to know—’
‘On whom his precious princess had sullied her pristine image?’ he finished, renewed bitterness surging high.
‘Is that notion so alien to you? Haven’t you dug with equal tenacity through my life?’
