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She felt Guy stiffen beside her, but Santiago seemed to be okay with the conversation, so Addie made no moves to change the subject. “Rafaela died many years ago. When Guillem was just a child.”
“I was six,” Guy said softly.
“Yes, six, that’s true,” Santiago nodded. “I remember now.”
“Had she been ill?”
“No,” Santiago shifted his body, and he winced a little. Was he in pain? Or was it an emotional wound?
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” she said gently.
“It was sudden,” Santiago murmured. “I had no idea. That makes it harder. There’s so much I should have done and said.”
Addie frowned. “You can’t live with that kind of regret. All death is sudden, even those we are braced for. No one can prepare you for what it’s like to lose someone.” She spoke from personal experience, from the unexpected and sudden, wrenching losses she’d had to bear for many years. Regrets had barked at her door but she had refused to let them cloud her pleasant memories.
“We should let you get some rest,” Guy interrupted the conversation, putting an arm around Addie’s shoulder and pulling her towards him. “It’s late.”
“Yes, and there is much to do this week,” Santiago cackled. “A party week. Whose idea was this?”
“My mother’s,” Guy drawled, and another tingle of apprehension ran the length of Addie’s spine. His mother? Foolish though it might seem, Addie hadn’t really comprehended, until that moment, that she was going to have to meet Guy’s mother. The nerves were back, temporarily paralyzing her.
“I should have known. Luciana has a way with celebrating.”
“That she does,” Guy grinned; Addie’s heart crashed into her belly.
Santiago’s mood though was serious. He leaned forward, reaching across the table and placing his hand over Guy’s. It was a similar hand. Long fingers, tanned with neat nails. Santiago’s was just a little more weathered by life’s days.
“I am gratified you have come so early. Before the party.” His eyes shifted sideways. “That you have brought this beautiful woman with you.” Santiago cleared his throat. “I know how busy you are, Guillem. That your life is hectic. I … appreciate you making the time for an old man like me.”
Emotion throbbed around them, and for Addie’s part, she could feel only guilt. Guilt at her part in deceiving this man, guilt that they were lying to him, even when she could see how thrilled he was that Guy had finally, apparently, committed to someone.
“Well,” Guy drawled lightly, “it just so happened we had other plans. They fell through. It’s a shame, really.”
The mood was lifted, the joke instantly lightening the somber sense that had settled around the table. “Good for me,” Santiago cackled.
Addie smiled. “And for us.”
Us. The word jerked Guy’s head, and now his eyes were widened with surprise, before he remembered the act. The ruse. The game of make-believe they were playing to hoodwink an old man.
“Yes,” he said, the word graveled. “And for us.”
*
The lights from the golf cart illuminated the jetty, but so did the yacht. It glowed like a beautiful beacon, warm and inviting, when Addie knew it to be anything but.
It was late – almost midnight – but she wasn’t tired. She moved wordlessly beside Guy, along the jetty, to the slender white bridge that formed a part of the boat’s side.
She stepped on it, her hand curving around the side of the railing as she climbed onto the boat.
They’d barely spoken since leaving the mansion. But Addie now was full of questions and thoughts.
“Your grandfather is lovely.”
“Lovely?” Guy prompted, shaking out of the suit jacket he’d worn to dinner, draping it carelessly over the back of one of the chairs in front of them. “My grandfather is a formidable businessman, still running several of our commercial interests. He is far from lovely.”
“Well,” Addie shrugged. “That’s your opinion. I think he seems lovely.”
“Like you, he has perfected the art form of being what he needs in order to get his own way.”
