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He hadn’t known that she’d given up a commission to go to Turkey. But now he had to admit to himself that hehadn’tthought about Emily’s job—the job that made her bright and confident and a power to be reckoned with. He hadn’t thought about her life in London when he’d blithely announced that they would move to Madrid. His only excuse was that he’d been so desperate to rectify his mother’s mistakes—so determined not to fail, that he’d failed his wife. The one person in his life who he should put first, who he should sacrifice for, not force her to make sacrifices.
He gripped his hair in fisted hands and stayed that way until the sun peeked over the gorge.
‘Javi?’
For just a second his heart tricked him into thinking that Emily had come back, but even before his pulse had leaped his brain recognised that it had been Gabi who had called his name.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked, turning to look at his sister.
‘I was going to ask you the same question.’
Choosing not to answer, he checked his watch. ‘It’s early, what are you doing up?’
‘I heard a scratching at the door,’ his sister replied, her eyes still puffy and red from the night before. She was holding a blanket around her shoulders, looking the way that he felt, he admitted silently.
He lifted his arm and she came to sit beside him, nestling into his side, and then nearly jumped a mile high when Diabla brushed up against her calf.
‘What isthat?!’ she screeched.
‘Sheis Diabla,’ Javier defended, reaching down to pick up the cat, who looked as if she was either going to run away or destroy the blanket that Gabi had pulled around her. As neither option was preferable, he soothed her with gentle strokes. ‘She—’
‘Has no hair!’
‘—is a Sphynx cat,’ he continued. ‘They were bred that way and she has been poorly treated in the past and is very affectionate.’
Gabi continued to eye the cat with suspicion until Diabla turned in his arms and reached her paws to his shoulders and cuddled into him adoringly, causing Gabi tooohandahh.
‘She was probably looking for Emily,’ Javier realised, hoping that the cat wouldn’t feel too betrayed by her departure. His heart clenched and Diabla meowed.
‘Is she not here?’ Gabi looked confused.
Javier grimaced and explained what had happened the night before. He realised that it was the first time that he’d spoken about such personal things with his sister and although it would do nothing to help the tear in his heart, it soothed the edges to say it out loud.
As they talked, Gabi made coffee and gathered a breakfast of sorts and he wondered if she realised how unconsciously nurturing she was being. How someone so soft, warm and loving could have come from their mother was a marvel.
‘Will you go after her?’ Gabi asked, stroking Diabla, who had now taken up residence on Gabi’s lap, purring and dribbling her delight.
Javier looked out across the gorge, giving the answer he’d known the moment she’d left their home. ‘No.’
‘But why?’
‘Because she needs to know her own feelings,’ he explained. ‘She needs to make the choice herself if she is ever going to come back. And I need her to make that choice,’ he realised in that moment. ‘I need to know that she’s not going to leave me again.’Like his father had. ‘So if she does come back, we’ll both know. All this time,’ he confessed, looking at his hands and then back to the gorge, ‘I’d been telling myself that she was mine, that she’d come back, that our marriage would work becauseIwanted it to. Now I need Emily to want it.’
‘Do you love her?’ his sister asked, her eyes shimmering with emotion.
‘So damn much it steals my breath and stops my heart.’
Two months later
Walking down the chewing gum dotted London pavement, Emily’s teenage tears flashed through her mind. While her office manager brought her up to speed with the client requests from the Jenzes’ residential redesign, which included a twenty-seater dining table for their extensive and beautifully boisterous family, Emily saw where she’d fallen on ice walking to school, she saw the bench she’d sat on hoping to calm herself after her mother had missed another school assembly because Steven had needed something, she saw herself waiting after a school trip because her mother had needed to take Steven a work file he’d left at home.
‘Are you sure you want to do them back to back? We’re doing the furniture presentation for the San Antonio project in the evening. We could schedule the installation for the Jenzes for the following day?’
‘No, I want them done together as I want to scout out the Kleins the following day instead.’
‘Are you sure, boss? I know we wanted to take on more work, but we don’t have to do everything...’ His words trailed off into silence as she held her words in. ‘I’ll put it in the schedule.’
‘Good. See you tomorrow,’ Emily said, ending the call on her mobile as she stared up at her stepfather’s house.
