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She gritted her teeth, having put off this moment for as long as possible, and rang the doorbell. Something about that littleding-dong, ding-donghad always irritated her. As if it had never felt right for her and her mum. Or...not the mum that she’d known from a very long time ago now.
And with a start—as if she’d touched static electricity—Emily realised that her mother had been married to Steven for longer than when it had just been the two of them. And it cracked something inside her—cracked the hope that somehow she’d get her mother back. The woman who had laughed and painted with her fingers, who had cooked and made a mess that had delighted her as a child, the woman who sometimes had leaned into a childish silliness in the most joyful of ways...was not the same woman who answered the door in a camel-coloured cardigan and knee-length skirt on a Sunday.
‘Darling,’ her mother said, eyes crinkling, the blue bright, until she looked over her shoulder as her husband called out to know who it was. Her mother ignored him momentarily as she ushered Emily over the threshold. ‘It’s Emily, dear. You remember.’
Emily’s brows nearly hit her hairline. Had he forgotten he had a stepdaughter?
Catching the look on her face, her mother whispered, ‘That Itoldhim about your visit.’ Emily followed her mother through to the dining table, where two of the three plates already had food on them.
‘I’m sorry, am I late?’ Emily said, checking her watch and frowning to see it was only just twelve. She was sure her mother had said—
‘No, we had to start early—Steven managed to get a tee time at the course with his friends.’
So they’d started without her. Emily bit her lip. She was an adult, a professional businesswoman, a wife even, but this? This cut her deeper than she knew it should.
‘Pass me your plate and I’ll serve,’ her mother offered and even though the thought of food right now made her almost nauseous, she nodded. Her mother placed roast chicken, potatoes, carrots and peas on her plate as Emily watched Steven pour the last of the gravy onto his own.
‘How is work, darling? Are you still doing that project in the city?’
It was an ambiguous enough question and could have referred to any number of now finished projects, but Emily didn’t want to fight. She never had. ‘Yes. It’s going well. How are you both? Have you got plans to go away this summer?’
The banal question would have made Javier laugh. Emily could almost hear him in her mind.Cariño, you’re going to have to do better than that.But Javier’s imaginary response was wrong. She didn’t have to do better than that because the question occupied her mother long enough for Emily to watch, really watch Steven.
He’d always had this habit of looking straight ahead. Her mother had once explained that he didn’t like eye contact and it was then that Emily had realised how much she did need it. For her it was confirmation that she’d been seen and heard. But now she noticed that he did it with her mother too and something curled in on itself in her heart.
Javier never did that. If they were talking, his focus was on her in ways she felt to the depths of her soul. If they were near each other, his eyes would find hers, his attention would be on her in a way she felt like a physical touch. He might have left her alone for days, weeks even at the worst point of his working life, but she had never felt as invisible as Steven or her mother made her feel.
Watching her mother talk for them both, not seeing how unengaged he was, Emily nearly dropped her fork. How could she have ever thought that what she had with Javier was anything like this?
She’d been so worried about losing herself to him, of becoming like her mother—a shadow of who she had once been—that she’d not seen that Javier was nothing like Steven. And more, Javier would never allow her to lose herself. Javier was so passionate, so dramatic, even in his stillness there was energy, movement. She could never have simply orbited him. Emily could only ever hold on for the ride, she realised. And that was it. It was a journey they had been on together. Yes, Javier might have been self-centred and stubborn, but he was notselfish.
There was a generosity to him, not just with his wealth, but attention, friendship, passion...that he was capable of giving all of these things, despite the way that his mother had brought him up, was a miracle. Yes, he was rash and quick to act and made decisions without thinking sometimes, but none of those decisions had been about his wants, but what would be best for Gabi, Emily knew.
If she wanted easy, Emily could still walk away. She had her successful business, she was sure that she would one day meet someone who would be nice, great even. But they would never be Javier. Difficult, moody, stubborn...but brilliant, passionate, powerful. They would fight, probably at least once a day, but they would make love in the most spectacular way. There would be heat and spice and salt and sweetness and there wouldneverbe a dull one-sided impersonal conversation with their children ever.
Emily realised now that she had never lost herself to Javier. She’d never even been close to it. Instead, he’d been slowly guiding her to where she could know and see herself. And, just like when she was working on a project, she’d felt thatthingclick into place—the thing that held everything together. Love. Real, honest to God, all-consuming, utterly ludicrous and completely undeniable love. One that didn’t erase her in the slightest, but instead made hermore.
‘What about you, dear? Any plans for a holiday?’
‘Yes.’ Emily nodded, putting down her knife and fork. ‘I’m going to Spain.’
Diabla pawed at Javier’s face, thankfully claws retracted, but she wasn’t going to let him rest until she’d been given her breakfast. He growled. She meowed. He considered it a draw. She hopped out of the way as he threw the bedcovers back and stalked towards the bathroom, despite Diabla’s attempts to herd him downstairs towards the kitchen.
‘Wait, Diabla,’ he ordered.
Standing in front of the mirror as the infernal cat drew a figure of eight between his legs, he noticed that finally the marks of the accident had gone. His skin had returned to a healthy colour, the doctors had given him a clean bill of health. There was only one reason for the hollows under his eyes, the loss of his appetite and the ache in his soul.
He ran a hand through his hair before stepping out of his briefs and beneath the powerful jets of the shower. Before she had left the day before, Gabi had made him promise that he would call Santi or Aleksander—his royal friend from Svardia. Not many knew about their association but in the last month and a half he and Gabi had talkeda lot.
Focusing on his sister and the damage their mother had inflicted had been one distraction from the pain of Emily’s departure. It had become achingly clear that, for all his stubbornness and determined focus on what was ahead of him businesswise, there had been a lot going on that he hadn’t seen.
His insistence that Gabi should seek some kind of emotional support had been met with a deal—another that had worked to get beneath his skin. Gabi would only go if he did, so together they had met, once a week, with a young therapist to talk about their mother. Gabi visited her separately as well and she had worked incredibly hard to undo the damage that had snuck unknowingly into their lives.
He had not found it easy.At all.In fact, other than not going after his wife, it was probably the hardest thing that Javier had ever done. Opening up, talking about feelings, was something he’d spent years purposefully stifling having learned from Renata that such a thing would only be met with derision or denial. But the counsellor was helping—no, he caught himself and rephrased the thought in his mind—the workhewas doing with her was helping.
Turning off the shower and shaking the droplets from his head onto Diabla, who launched herself from the bathroom with an indignant cry, he recognised that arranging his businesses in such a way that he could take a six-month sabbatical had been the right thing to do.
Aleksander and their associates at the charitable organisation understood completely. Javier had begun to slowly and quietly downsize many of the other smaller and less important businesses, knowing that he did not need to, nor could he, keep up the punishing pace he’d set himself six years ago. His assistants and managers were seeing to that while he adjusted to life with a new perspective. So much had been tangled with how he had seen Renata and his childhood that he was having to learn and understand new patterns of behaviour as much as his old ones.
