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‘You asked me what food my mother made for me when I was sick as a child. We weren’t allowed to be sick,’ he said, swallowing the memories. ‘It would either interfere with her plans or take the focus from her. We were told we were simply not ill and with such conviction...’ He shook his head, marvelling even today how he had tried so hard to believe her. ‘On the surface I imagine we looked like a happy family. But her thirst for attention was,is, unquenchable. It is worse when she is unmarried.’ He clenched his jaw and his neck corded with tension, stifling the emotions that rose to the surface. ‘And if we do not give her the attention she craves, she becomes harsh and vicious and unbearably cruel. But if we do, then she islavish. She can pour love and attention on you. Before Gabi was born Renata would pull me out of school and we would go on luxurious holidays to Greek islands and the Caribbean. She would dress me in suits and teach me to dance. How to be a proper man. To bring her gifts and compliment her in just the right way.’
‘What about your father?’
‘He left before my second birthday, after nearly running Casas Textiles into the ground. Over the years, every time I made a mistake, or got something wrong, she told me I was just like him. A failure. For my entire childhood, I walked on the edge of making a mistake.’ He was surprised when Emily uncurled the hand that had unconsciously formed a fist and slipped her fingers through his. She swept his hair back and cupped the side of his face. He captured her hand before it could do any more damage to his already weak defences.
‘I would cut ties with her if I could...’
‘But?’
Javier shook his head. ‘Gabi. I cannot leave her to Renata’s whims.’ His jaw seemed clenched so tight, Emily was almost surprised when he spoke again. ‘I asked her to come and live with me once. Gabi,’ he clarified. The tension in Javier’s body told her how hard it was for him to admit this. It was clear that his sister had chosen to stay with Renata—as clear as the emotional toll her decision had taken on Javier. The rejection of it must have been a devastating blow. He shook his head. ‘For now the only way I can protect Gabi is by giving Renata the money she asks for, keeping her happy.’
Emily’s heart ached for him. She couldn’t imagine feeling constantly held hostage by a parent, never knowing what to expect from the one constant that should be inviolate.
‘But I fear that, in doing so, I’ve allowed her to become a monster.’
Emily shook her head at him. ‘Javi,’ she chided gently. ‘You are her son, not her father or husband. You are not her equal and you are not her keeper,’ she said gently. ‘Her behaviour is not on you.’
He shook off her words and her reassurance. Emily didn’t understand, couldn’t. Yes, Renata had been abhorrent, but she was still his mother. She—unlike his father—had at least stayed. A flash of anger was unleashed and spread outwards with shocking intensity and swirled around the Emily who had also left, but he yanked it back with a ferocity that had him snapping his head up.
As if sensing that her words had not been heard, she turned back to look at the entrance to the Nasrid Palaces. ‘Perhaps there is still time to do something for Gabi.’
Javier nodded, his jaw aching from keeping too much in.
‘And maybe there is also a chance to change the way things are with Renata. Not her, I don’t think that will happen,’ Emily admitted, ‘but perhaps you can change the way that you deal with her. Changing what you give her might mean you change what you get from her.’
His mind caught on her words but he wasn’t ready to follow that statement through, so instead he followed her gaze to the sun-touched pinky-red richness of the buildings.
‘So, are we talkingbillions? Because if so...’
A bark of laughter erupted unbidden but welcome into the morning sunshine, lifting the anvil-heavy weight from his chest, making it something more bearable.
Emily tugged him from the bench and began explaining the history of a site he knew well but was happy to hear. Gently, easily, she described how the different influences had come to create what could easily be one of the Wonders of the Modern World.
He followed her as she entered Casa Real Vieja—the Old Royal Palace as opposed to the newer palaces erected during the Christian Spanish period of development. Each of the three palaces—Mexuar, the Comares Palace and the Palace of the Lions—was exquisite, and detailed with such intricacy he was mesmerised. But it was his wife that drew his gaze.
She had drifted away from his hold, eyes wide with awe and emotion as she moved slowly through each and every room. The sense of peace and serenity he felt as they moved on a stream of Emily’s desire and curiosity, her surprised gasps of joy at something small but beautiful, the way she tugged at him to see what she saw, the way she shared her enthusiasm and excitement with him... He had missed all this because he had been too stubborn.
No. She had denied them this. She had taken this all away from him when she’d left.
He wrestled with the voice that sounded far too much like his mother, and far too much like the child who had been deserted by his father, lashing out in the face of such devastating abandonment. So he stifled it, thrusting it down, ignoring the hurt that the memories of his childhood had evoked, desperate not to be that lost, lonely boy again. His head began to hurt as his mind and soul veered between what had happened in the past and what he wanted from the future.
At that moment, Emily drifted towards an open archway that looked out at the incredible vista beyond. The interior of the chamber, shrouded in darkness with only natural light pouring through intricately detailed carving, made it appear as if the sun itself reached for her. The outline of her figure, the calf-length skirt nipped in at the waist a V-neck blouse was tucked into, and the way she had tucked her foot behind the ankle of her other leg hit him with such a strange blow—one ofjamais vu.
He had seen her stand like that a thousand times, but this was the first that felt unfamiliar and out of reach. A cold sweat broke out across the back of his neck and a panicked pulse fluttered in his veins. The strange sense morphed into a certainty. As if he knew that this was his last chance to get it right or lose her for ever.
CHAPTER EIGHT
NEARLYAWEEKhad gone by since they had visited the Alhambra, and Emily was both exhausted and inspired. Javier had taken her across Spain to visit some of the most incredible places, museums, galleries; anywhere she had ever mentioned a desire to visit, they had gone.
During the day they would feast upon Gaudí and Rothko, Jorge Oteiza and Eduardo Chillida, visiting the Guggenheim Bilbao and exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou Málaga, while in the evenings they would discover a world of culinary delights from Michelin starred restaurants to side-street vendors, delectable tapas to seven-course wine-tasting menus.
It was glorious, truly, and Emily could already feel the inspiration scratching at her, waiting to come out. So she had snatched the few hours Javier would allow himself to recuperate—his energy still startlingly low from the accident—to throw herself into her work as much as possible. Her team were doing wonderfully, and the energy and inspiration she felt at being here, seeing what she was seeing, allowed her to focus her creativity to the point where she was producing some of the best work she had done in the last few years.
The team missed her, but they were happy and busy.Shewas happy and busy...but it couldn’t stop her mind circling back to what Javier had said when he’d opened up to her about his mother. He had shown her a childhood of hurt and neglect, with sporadic freedom in school or when his mother was occupied with a distraction. But, combining his descriptions with her own experience of Renata Casas and Emily had realised that the level of narcissism she portrayed was not a characteristic, but a very real trait. The kind of damage a person with such a brutally selfish world view could do to those around them, let alone a child...
As shocking as it had been, it had provided a real insight into him, allowing her to form an understanding of him that she’d never had before. She could see how he must have had to cling so incredibly tight onto his needs, his desires, to not lose them in the face of his mother’s forceful personality. How hard he must have had to work to ensure that his wants were not obliterated by her demands. Perhaps so hard that he still clung to his needs with a strength that was too much sometimes. That understanding of him made her feel close to him...just as he seemed to be pulling away again. Since that day he’d kept her too busy to think, let alone ask any further questions. Questions that, she forced herself to admit, she was afraid to ask.
‘What about your father?’
