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‘I just...’ she tried. ‘I just feel like we’re rushing this, Javi,’ she admitted awkwardly. ‘Do we really need to go tonight? Couldn’t we take a little time so that I can, I don’t know, get the things I need? Like clothes, toiletries, cat food for Diabla?’
He smoothed back the blonde curtain that had fallen in front of her face as she tried to hide her eyes from him.
‘Emily, I picked up the cat food on the way back from the doctor’s. But—’ he held up a hand to ward off her interruption ‘—if you want to take the time, we’ll take the time,’ he said easily. He might have been rushing, but the last thing he wanted to do was cause her hurt.
As if his being reasonable took the wind out of her irritation, she puffed out a breath of air that billowed a strand of her hair. ‘I’m being silly,’ she said.
‘No,’ he assured her. ‘You’re not. I just got caught up in the excitement of it, that’s all. I’ll cancel the car.’
‘No, don’t,’ she said, stopping his hand from reaching for his phone. ‘I want to go. I really do. Let’s do it!’ she said, and he watched the concern he’d seen in her eyes be replaced with excitement. ‘After all, I want my honeymoon,’ she teased, pulling him into a kiss with one hand and blindly throwing her clothes into the case with the other. The sound of their laughter dissolved into expressions of pleasure and they ended up keeping the car waiting for at least twenty minutes.
A short while later Javier followed Emily up the steps of his private plane, enjoying the way her satin top was pressed against her body by the wind whipping across the tarmac of the private airfield twenty minutes from Frigiliana. He took off his sunglasses and hooked them into the open neck of his shirt, unable to prevent himself from admiring the shape and tone of his wife’s body.
‘Stop staring,’ she threw over her shoulder and Javier barked out a laugh. Lightness filled his chest and he couldn’t contain his happiness as it slipped through his fingers and refilled in his hand as if he were taking fistfuls of sand.
‘Never,’ he promised her and his heart soared at the answering smile that pulled at Emily’s lips. Lips that were still passion-plump from the afternoon’s adventures. He invited her to sit as the staff stowed their small luggage, one taking very gentle care of Diabla’s carry cage, and prepared for take-off. He retrieved his phone from his jacket pocket and it rang in his hand just as he was about to turn it off.
The only reason he didn’t ignore the call was because of the name that flashed up on the screen. He frowned and answered.
‘Gabi?’
‘Oh, God, Javi.’
‘Gabi? Are you okay?’
‘No, I’m not. It’s Mamá—she’s...she’s lost it.’
His stomach curled. Never before had his half-sister called him like this.
‘What’s going on?’
He could hear her taking giant gulps of breath before a sob emerged and then almost nothing but tears and incomprehensible words.
Emily stood, concern etched across her features. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘It’s Gabi. Renata’s done something.’ He turned his attention back to the phone. ‘Gabi? Can you hear me? You need to breathe.’
Emily frowned at the sternness of his tone and gestured for the phone. As he half listened to his wife making gentle reassuring sounds to his sister, he fought the decision he knew he needed to make. He cursed. He should have known his mother wouldn’t let their last call go so easily. But if he’d thought for a moment that Gabi would be caught up in the fallout he would have handled things differently.
He searched Emily’s gaze, hoping his frustration and apology were enough, even as she nodded her understanding. He turned away, fighting the feeling that he had just messed up in the most fundamental of ways, and went to speak to the pilot about changing their destination to Madrid.
Emily was just as eager to get to Madrid as Javier. Gabi had been incomprehensible and inconsolable—nothing like the contained but gravely concerned young woman she had sat with outside a hospital room just over two weeks ago.
It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have tried... I shouldn’t have done anything.
Gabi’s words unfolded in Emily’s mind and, no matter what questions she’d asked, she couldn’t get Gabi to tell her what she’d tried, what she’ddone. Javier’s calls to his mother were going unanswered, which seemed to drive him into a frighteningly still kind of fury that Emily didn’t think was healthy. At least the flight time was quick. While Emily secured promises that the air staff would look after Diabla, Javi arranged for a car to meet them when they landed and it wasn’t long before Emily and Javier were walking down the private plane’s steps towards a tall, uniformed man wearing sunglasses and with a jaw that to Emily looked as if it could cut granite.
‘Esteban,’ Javi greeted, surprise and something close to happiness flashed in his eyes before it dulled back to dark determination. ‘You are well.’ It was a statement rather than a question, and Javier’s driver nodded.
‘You?’
‘I’ll let you know when I’ve spoken to my mother.’
Nodding with an understanding that surprised Emily, the driver pulled open the door for them and once they were seated returned to the driver’s seat.
Cocooned in the dark interior of the sleek vehicle, Emily reached for her husband’s hand and tried to ignore the sting when he shifted out of her reach.
He didn’t mean it. It’s a hard time for him, so don’t be selfish.
